Filter Died, Have To Fish-In-Cycle

[nessar]

Right so I bought 2 new fish and found out the filter isnt working! That was on Tuesday.

I bought a new one same day and transferred the sponges and carbon over. I tested the water and found 0.5ppm ammonia and 0.25ppm nitrIte, so I estimate it had been not working for 2/3 days.

Realised I would now have to do a fish-in cycle. Did a 100% water change and changed the substrate to get rid of my hundreds of MTS, and am now thinking that this was not a good thing to do. I popped the new fish in anyway.

I did another 70% water change two days later (yesterday, Thursday) and tests showed nearly 0.5ppm ammonia and no nitrIte. Tested the water today and its showing between 0 and 0.25 ammonia, so just a tiny amount, again no nitrIte. NitrAte levels are not a lot of help at the moment as they are naturally present in the tap water.

Some info about the tank..
set up a year ago, 60 litres, has a few plants
Did house 1 ADF, 2 shrimp, 1 molly, 1 platy, 1 unknown dwarf pleco and 1 tetra (last of an old group) and some snails.
Have added 1 guppy and one (tiny baby) balloon molly.

My questions then are:
Do you think all the bacteria died off in my filter, or just some?
If I keep removing all ammonia with huge water changes will the cycle progress as I'm removing the food for the bacteria?
Is it okay to let the ammonia build up to 0.25 or 0.5 ppm or not? I'm worried about the above and also dont fancy 70% water changes everyday.
How long do you think this is going to take and is there a way I can speed it up? (I have no access to mature media.)

edit: I fishless cycled the tank first time round so only know the basics of fish-in-cycling

 

[codheadjohn]

Did you treat the water when you did a 100% water change?

Changing the substrate probably wasn't the best idea as some bacteria was most likely living in there aswell, but that's a bit too late now.

If the filter media was still in the tank, it should have some bacteria still alive if it was only a couple of days.

Don't let ammonia or nitrite get above 0.25ppm as it is bad for the fish. I would suggest doing a 50% water change, allowing it to settle for an hour and then test the water for ammonia and nitrite. Check again the next day and if nitrite is rising then ammonia is being processed. Only option is to keep doing large water changes to keep them under control until the bacteria regenerate.

Adding more plants would help.

 

[nessar]

By treated do you mean dechlorinated? Yes I did. Yeah I know it was silly about removing the sand, I just got it into my head that the sand must have broken the filter again and I didnt think about keeping it for bacteria till I had put the old gravel back in.

Okay thanks, will taking the ammonia out stop it cycling as fast? If I do 50-70% every day I think I will stop any ammonia even showing up, but then again will this mean that the bacteria isnt getting any ammonia to feed on?

I'm tempted to pop in a zeolite cartridge that absorbs ammonia, nitrite and nitrate but I dont know if this would starve the bacteria

 

[snowflake311]

Oh no. You should not have done a 100% wc change you should not have Messed with your gravel. Doing that is going to make you have to start all over. because gravel and water would still have had the good bacteria To help seed the filter.

Did the filter smell like nasty swamp water when you found it not working? Because dead bacteria smells very strong and very gross trust me. If the filter smelled ok it was not all dead. When did you check your water? Before you moved the filter media over? Or after? It might take the filter a day to bring the ammonia and nitrites down. So if you did not give your new filter time to run you don't know how well or alive your filter was.

The damage is done. So now all you can do is daily water changes to keep ammonia below 1.5 ppm and make sure the nitrites stay low too. Check the water everyday.

Do you have friend with a clean mature tank? Or a good lfs that is clean? If so get some mature filter media from them and your tank will be good to go.

 

[nessar]

Filter sponges smelled normal so thats good I guess, I do have a slight cold but wouldnt have missed a strong smell.

I tested the water before I put the new one in. It is showing ammonia somewhere between 0 and 0.25 again today and no nitrIte, so I think this must mean that the bacteria is recovering as levels havent risen today, thank god!

On a separate note, I am getting a smaller tank on Tuesday which I am going to need to cycle, do you think by then my bigger tank would be able to cope with me popping a bit of its sponges in the new tank or is it best not to risk it as the cycle is still getting on its feet?

 

[JoshuaA]

I don't think you did anything wrong, changing the water is going to have a negligible effect as 99.9% [citation needed] of the bacteria are adhered to a surface. Changing the gravel also won't have had much of an effect as bacteria prefer a high turnover area like a sponge in front of a filter.

I'm guessing by tomorrow your filter will have recovered, I however would advise for the fishes health doing another water change today to drop that Ammonia reading down a bit more.

I don't think it would be wise to trim off some media, perhaps give it till the end of next week and only trim a tiny piece off, put that piece as the very first piece of media in the new filter and the bacteria that breaks off will have the greatest chance of adhering to the fresh media downstream.