ClaireN
Fish Fanatic
Hope you can help me, im a newbie and im not sure what im doing wrong 
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Firstly I know that I have done things in the wrong order, my tank (a Juwel Rekord 60 54l) has been up and running now for 4 weeks 3 week with fish (7 platys and 1 Peppered Corydoras he was inherited from another tank as he was being bullied), I realise now that this is too many fish to start a tank with .
I have been doing water changes twice weekly, for the first 2.5 weeks until I noticed a rise in the Nitrite from between 0.1 - 0.25 to 4.0 (Ammonia was 0.1, Nitrate 10 – 25), when I started to do 20l water changes every 2 days, after a week everything seemed have settled down so I went back to the twice weekly water changes, until last night when the test showed that the Ammonia had risen from 0.1 to between 0.4 – 0.8, the Nitrite was at 0.1 again and the Nitrate was between 10 – 25, I did a 50% water change straight away. I have re-tested tonight and the Ammonia is at 0.1, Nitrite is 0.1, Nitrate is between 10 – 25, my ph is 8.5, I have also done a 10l water change tonight.
Am I doing to many water changes? Should I be doing the same number of water changes but with less water?
So far I have lost 1 platy and I want to do everything I can for the rest of them after all its not their fault, its mine
.
Claire
.Firstly I know that I have done things in the wrong order, my tank (a Juwel Rekord 60 54l) has been up and running now for 4 weeks 3 week with fish (7 platys and 1 Peppered Corydoras he was inherited from another tank as he was being bullied), I realise now that this is too many fish to start a tank with .
I have been doing water changes twice weekly, for the first 2.5 weeks until I noticed a rise in the Nitrite from between 0.1 - 0.25 to 4.0 (Ammonia was 0.1, Nitrate 10 – 25), when I started to do 20l water changes every 2 days, after a week everything seemed have settled down so I went back to the twice weekly water changes, until last night when the test showed that the Ammonia had risen from 0.1 to between 0.4 – 0.8, the Nitrite was at 0.1 again and the Nitrate was between 10 – 25, I did a 50% water change straight away. I have re-tested tonight and the Ammonia is at 0.1, Nitrite is 0.1, Nitrate is between 10 – 25, my ph is 8.5, I have also done a 10l water change tonight.
Am I doing to many water changes? Should I be doing the same number of water changes but with less water?
So far I have lost 1 platy and I want to do everything I can for the rest of them after all its not their fault, its mine
.Claire
The cycle normally takes about 4 weeks but because of the fish overload the bacteria hasn't been able to keep up in its fight to break down Ammonia and nitrite. The only thing you can do is to keep up the water changes because otherwise you will probally lose more of the fish. Its hard work but eventually the bacteria will multiply and cope with the load .. but it takes time.
