Don't Think I'm Doin Anythin Right

[OldMan47]

It looks like you have 2 problems right now. One problem is that you are in the early part of a fish-in cycle. That will mean continued large water changes to protect your fish from ammonia and nitrite build ups. There is a link to a thread on fish-in cycling in my signature, you are not alone with that problem by far. Your second problem is harder to deal with because it means you need another place to keep one of your fish. If you continue trying to keep a male and a female betta together, you will come home some day to one of them being dead. They not only will not get along but you will eventually find that one has killed the other. One of them needs to be moved as soon as can be to another container with at least a gallon, 4 litres, of water in it. That container can be maintained with frequent water changes until you can get a tank of at least 3 but preferably 5 gallons to put it in. That would be near 20 litres.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ok. have a read of the link in my sig on weekly maintenance, you need to be doing gravel cleans every week, it may be that you have a build up of muck in the gravel which is stopping the ammonia from dropping.

read the link in oldmans sig on cycling, it's also in mine, that's because we refer people to it several times every day, so don't feel like this is your fault it's a common problem.

i would suggest a few thorough cleans of the gravel, do a 50% water change and vac the gravel as much as you can, do the same each day for 4/5 days so you can then be sure that the gravel is totally clean and not storing up loads of muck.

also clean out the filter carefully as per the instructions in the maintenance link, if the flow rates dropped this could mean it's not processing properly.

try all this and then follow the instructions in the fish-in cycling link, keep monitoring daily and see what happens, give us a shout back in a week or so if it's not worked.

not guaranteed but it's the first immediate problem.

oldman is also quite correct on the fighter fish

 

[arah]

ok thanks for the advice cleaned the gravel yesterday and did 40% water change loads of muck came off the gravel whats shocked at how dirty it was, i feel so sorry for my poor fish who were living like this. Did the same again today cleaned the gravel and did 40% water change. I tested the water and the readings were ammonia 0 Nitrites 0 Nitrates 20ppm and pH 7.6. What my next step should i keep doing daily water changes and gravel cleaning. Also found a new home for the female fighting fish the male seems so much happier now so thats me down to 4 fish now. Sorry just one more question could you please give me some advice on what fish i could put in my tank and when i could put them in. Again thanks so much for all your help.

Sarah

 

[Amunet]

You might actually have a problem with the betta and gourami together. So make sure to keep an eye on both of them to make sure neither is harassing the other.

Don't add any more fish until you know that your water stats are where they should be.
Keep testing for ammonia, nitrite, if either shows a reading above 0, then you'll need to wait until your tank has finished cycling before adding any more.

After the tank is done cycling, since you did a fishin cycle, you'll have to add fish in very slowly so the beneficial bacteria has time to multiply to take care of the extra bioload.


Anywho, I would've taken those fish back to the store anyway and raised hell. They gave you awful advice, and those fish being in an uncycled tank ARE giving you a problem.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

test the water every day, whenevr ammonia or nitrite are anything other than 0 you do as many water changes as it needs to get them down.

eventually they'll start holding steady at 0,0, at this point you can just go to a normal weekly water change routine.

as above, don't add anything else for now, once it's holding steady (i.e. cycled) you'll have to leave it at least 2 weeks preferably a month or so to allow the tank to stabnilise before adding any new fish. if you add them too soon straight after the cycle is done you'll start getting ammonia again and you're back to square one.

 

[arah]

ok thanks for all the help tested water again today water stats are ammonia 0 nitrites 0 nitrates 20ppm and pH 7.6 so thats all good results i'm not planning to add anymore fish for at least a month as don't want to lose any more. Just wondered if you could give me some advice for when i do want to add fish. What kind would be best in my tank.

Sarah

 

[arah]

Hi everyone just another update lost my male fighting fish today, don't know whats goin on have been doing daily test on the tank water and everything seems to be at the right levels ammonia 0 nitrites 0 nitrates 20ppm and pH dropped slightly yestaerday from 7.6 to 7.5 temperature of the water is 25 degress C i have no idea whats killing my fish they seem to be fine then all of a sudden they go quiet and hide all the time then about 6-10 hours later they die. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be killing them.

Thanks Sarah

 

[Miss Wiggle]

unfortunately the cycling process is not kind to fish at all, even though they may survive until the levels have settled it can end up causing permananet and potentially fatal damage to them.

they may seem to be behaving fine or normally to you, but with all due respect you're not that experienced at fishkeeping and it could be that you have mis interpreted the signs or not noticed the damage it's caused.

particularly with a betta this could be hard to spot, the most common damage is to the respiratory system, this will leave fish gasping at the top of the water for air. because bettas are anabantoids they do this anyway so distinguishing between their normal behaviour and a sign of damage can be very tricky indeed.

it's not the only possible explanation but it seems the most likely to me.

carefully monitor the fish over the next few days, if you loose any more of they start to appear un well then post back and we'll see if we can work out whats going on, but i'd be inclined to treat this death as an after effect of the cycling process.

 

[waterdrop]

Very good topic to bring up MW! (and Sarah, please don't feel we are "piling on" as its just a good topic for all beginners - we hope beginners generally read a lot of the threads in this forum I think)

I think sometimes in our effort to gently coax newcomers into the idea that this long drawn-out thing of Fishless Cycling is a good thing, we necessarily are writing lots of words to describe the processes of both fishless and fish-in cycling. Since any normal person who is excited about their new hobby and wants to quickly have a pretty tank is pre-disposed (or forced in most cases by decisions made before they knew) towards fish-in cycling, the situation can easily arise where the written descriptions can make it sound just like a "fork in the road"...sort of a simple choice that got made and so now we just do what we have to do (which is true of course!)

BUT, from the fishes point of view I would think these would probably seem vastly different paths! The picture comes to mind of standing in a bus repair center with all the buses running and the exhaust system has just broken. We, as humans, could easily imagine how much we would want to rush outside and quickly get some "fresh air!" But Fish-In cycling is sort of like someone saying, "No, you need to stay in here with the exhaust and periodically we'll be along and turn on a little house fan for a while over here at this window!"

Despite our manual efforts to dilute the poisons down below 0.25ppm in Fish-In Cycling, its really a pretty lousy situation for our fish, so much so that many species simply die in the situation and the lore builds up that "yea, you need to use good "hardy" fish to "fish-in cycle" an aquarium."

Anyway, for other beginners reading Sarah's thread here, its a good thing to think about, that Fish-In cycling is really a much worse choice from the fishes point of view!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[arah]

Just thought i would add a little note at the end thank you all for all the help and support you've given me its really helped me. For any beginners reading this please listen to what has been said in this post and try to do a fishless cycle because its the worst feeling in the world whe you lose all your fish and there isn't much you can do to save them. I haven't lost anymore fish yet they all seem to be happy eating adn swimming around. I'll keep an eye on them and keep you posted.

Sarah x x x

 

[vinylman]

I've not seen anyone comment about the Angel yet; if you have an 84l tank, it's highly unlikely to be suitable for one. Angels really need a tank that's at least 16'' high. If it were me, I'd have been back to that shop with all the fish demanding my money back. Oh, I'd have flogged the assistant with a rubber hose, too. Please don't let this put you off - I spend much more time watching my Piscine pals than watching the goggle box.

 

[arah]

hi all just thought it was time for another update since the last time i was on my tank has been running fine everything holding at what it should be ammonia 0 nitrites 0 nitrates 20ppm and pH 7.5 these have been holding for the last 4 weeks. I have re homed my angel and my female fighter so all i have left now is a dwarf gourami and my pleco. I have and 84l tank just wondered if anyone could give me some advice on which fish i could put in my tank thinking about adding some more next week thanks.

Sarah

 

[Miss Wiggle]

excellent sarah, glad things are holding steady now.

what you have to remember is that cycling is a supply and demand process, say you current have fish producing 2ppm of ammonia every day, if the tank is cycled this means you have enough bacteria to consume 2ppm of ammonia a day. If you went and added a load more fish you'd be producing 4ppm of ammonia and the tank would then be un-cycled and you'd have to go through the whole daily water change process again while the tank cycles. Now in a nice mature tank the bacteria can double within 24hrs so at worst you get a mini cycle lasting a day or two. However in a newly cycled tank they can;t double so fast so if you add too many fish or add them too soon you can land yourself back at square one.

So basically the longer you can leave it before adding fish the better and when you do make sure you build up slowly!

With regards to recommending fish it's always very difficult because people have different tastes and sometimes we recommend something, people set their hearts on it and then find out none of the shops near them stock them! So what I recommend is you take a trip round your local fish shops, leave the purse at home, and write down the names of all the fish you like, come back here and post them up and from that we can make some recommendations of what is suitable for your tank. If this process add's a week or so before you get more fish then this can only be a good thing as it means the tank is less likely to cycle again when you do add some!

 

[waterdrop]

yes, agree with miss p.perfect