adding large quantity of tetras

[FishGuest5123]

Disregard my comments. I see you did a large water change. Hope all works out.

 

[mcordelia]

thanks @essjay and @Deanasue for providing information that made up for my misguided musings on the topic

also @Southern Fist hope all goes well moving forward with the new tetras

 

[Southern Fist]

Disregard my comments. I see you did a large water change. Hope all works out.

The fish are doing awesome - all have bright red heads, they are schooling together and eating well! Its only the water i'm worried about
Ridley

 

[Retired Viking]

When I added 22 neon tetras to my 55 gallon tetra tank I add some extra floating plants just in case the ammonia levels started to increase. At the time I used hornwort.

 

[Southern Fist]

Here they are, in all their threatened glory

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0iIqtJLkM-8kOfBLK73GC8xDQ

 

[mcordelia]

AMAZING!!! your tank looks absolutely gorgeous!!! what plants do you have in there? are you doing anything fancy for the plants or are you low tech?

 

[Southern Fist]

Thanks! I’m following the fertilization recommendation from the no co2 section of the Barr report forum, have a funnel 24/7 light, and dose excel.

Oneof my fish has an issue. The visible white spot is also on the other side of his body (same location). Can someone tell me what it is?

 

[mcordelia]

Could it be fungal? It's interesting that it's symmetric to both sides of the body... Is the fish behaving normally otherwise?

@essjay @Colin_T

 

[Utar]

I am the lone voice here but I do not agree with adding 50 fish of any type in any size aquarium that has just finished cycling. It is always better to start off with a small school at this time in the aquarium's life cycle. When you put that many in at once and then something goes wrong you stand to loose a lot of fish. All aquariums when they have just finished cycling have to age and the beneficial bacteria has to build up in a sufficient amount to take care of the load. Now you are seeing a nitrite spike and that is not good, when you stand to loose so many fish. But others have given you the best advice already in how to handle this spike, but still it is very hard on your fish.

 

[Southern Fist]

I am the lone voice here but I do not agree with adding 50 fish of any type in any size aquarium that has just finished cycling. It is always better to start off with a small school at this time in the aquarium's life cycle. When you put that many in at once and then something goes wrong you stand to loose a lot of fish. All aquariums when they have just finished cycling have to age and the beneficial bacteria has to build up in a sufficient amount to take care of the load. Now you are seeing a nitrite spike and that is not good, when you stand to loose so many fish. But others have given you the best advice already in how to handle this spike, but still it is very hard on your fish.

Yes I feel terrible. I still don’t understand how the filter was processing 3-4 ppm of ammonia with no trace of nitrite in 24 hours. Now feeding the fish sparingly has caused nitrites to rise so high.
I didn’t feed the fish yesterday, have done (2)40-50% water changes, and readings still haven’t gone down.

 

[Southern Fist]

I think I may know what the problem is. I added a lot of driftwood to the aquarium 3 days prior to adding the fish. My ph dropped considerably to 6.0. I brought the ph back up to the 7.0 range. I bet that threw my system out of whack

 

[Utar]

I think I may know what the problem is. I added a lot of driftwood to the aquarium 3 days prior to adding the fish. My ph dropped considerably to 6.0. I brought the ph back up to the 7.0 range. I bet that threw my system out of whack

That's possible and likely since you just added the drift wood and this happened unless it is a coincident that ph dropped after adding drift wood. Where did you get your drift wood and what kind is it? I have added lots of drift wood and never had this happen, it as always been beneficial instead of detrimental to my aquarium.

 

[Southern Fist]

Ok I really have found the issue.
My nitrite tests were starting out purple, then fading to blue after 5 mins before adding fish. According to other websites, this indicates nitrite levels that are off the charts, not in check.
Apparently, a test for nitrate should never have a purple phase when waiting for the 5 mins to elapse.

 

[mcordelia]

Oh no!!! So you thought your cycle was complete but your test kit was just wonky? That really sucks it's not your fault, you didn't know. You're doing the right thing though, you have a ton of plants and you're doing lots of water changes so I think the fish are going to be ok. It's just more work on you at this point, but you got this.

 

[Southern Fist]

Thanks I’m really disappointed this happened. I just did a 80% change and my nitrites still haven’t gone down