never really done this cycling thing before or knew anything about it. my tank is quite new, its got fish in it (i know it would be better if it didnt) erm i added some of this stuff http
/tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2wfuycw&s=7 and the water that the fish came in, so just wondering would that help things along in terms of the bacteria growing and fish not flopping on me?
really dont want them to die, i dont have a water testing kit at the moment (not got much money at the moment, so when pay day comes i'll get one) would changin a few cups worth of water daily help?
Hi, welcome to the forum.
Have a read of
this link. It's a detailed description of the job you need to do to keep your fish healthy.
You have two major priorities. First, you need to be doing BIG water changes every day. A few cups will be worthless. Fish produce ammonia, which is poisonous to them - in the wild, the ammonia is diluted into thousands upon thousands of gallons of water. In your aquarium, it only has a few gallons. You have to keep the ammonia level down under 0.25 parts per million. When your filter starts to grow its bacteria, that ammonia will be turned into nitrite. It is also poisonous to fish, so you have to keep the nitrite level down under 0.25ppm as well.
The only way you can tell what the ammonia and nitrite levels are is by testing your water. The dip-strip tests are notoriously unreliable, so please make the investment in liquid tests. Once you know what the levels are, you will be able to work out how much water to change. If you find you have, say 1ppm of ammonia, you have to change 75%, just to get it down to that 0.25ppm target. But then more ammonia is produced by the fish, so within an hour or so, the ammonia level is back at poisonous levels. You need to change enough water that the levels do not go over that 0.25ppm target by the time you are available again to change the water.
If you find you have 2ppm, you have to do more than one water change. A 75% change will only get you down to 0.5ppm, so you would then need to do another change of over 50% to get you under the target.
It's perfectly acceptable to do such big changes, so long as you refill with dechlorinated water, and it is roughly the same temperature as the water you removed. So long as you leave the fish enough water to swim upright in, you can safely remove the rest.
The "Bacteria In A Bottle" product you bought I do not wish to comment upon. Many forum members say that these products are worthless. I can only tell you that when I used a similar product, it made no appreciable difference to my filter.
A fish-in cycle is very hard work, but perfectly feasible, provided you are going to do it right.
Good luck, if you have any more questions (and I'll be surprised if you don't), there are so many people on here happy to help, just post up your queries, and you'll get answers from some very experienced aquarists (and me.)
