Have I Uncycled My Tank?!

[twodoctors]

Hi all,

Really annoyed now. I started cycling my tank in early December and was cycled around Christmas time. Got myself 12 tiger barbs (in 2 stages) before the new year. Everything remained stable.

Then I had an infestation of planaria about 2 weeks ago. I was using coarse gravel at the time. Cleaning everything I found loads of stuff at the bottom of the tank. So I took all the gravel out, clean out as much as I can and replaced it with fine gravel/sand. Everything looked fine again.

Last week I "kind of" got ahead of myself and bought 6 corys and 6 boesemani rainbows, added over about 3 days. Again by day 5 everything remained stable. Saw some sajica cichlids which caught my fancy so bought them also. This was last Friday.

On Sunday there was a hint of colour change in the ammonia and nitrite test, so I did a 30% water change. Rinsed the biofilter media in the old aquarium water as well. Also the floss as it was slowing the flow. Got a bit of dead leaves etc out of the fine gravel/sand. Things looks ok.

Rechecked the water today. Ammonia definitely 0.5, nitrite zero. So did a 75% water change. Really disturbing the gravel this time and the water turns a bit cloudy. Also saw my old friend planaria floating around. Arrggghhhh!

Now I have left the tank 75% filled. Plants floating. Rocks in the tank but the big bogwood is out, along with the two "caves". I'm going to do water change and disturb the gravel everyday and hopefully clear all the muck hidden within. I'm planning on starving my fishes for a few days. How long do you think they will go without food? Last fed yesterday.

I recently switched to seachem prime, using at least double dose if not more (0.5ml per 10L). I add it to my bucket before added it to the tank.

Not sure whether I've uncycled myself or the bioload is too much and the bacteria hasn't caught up. In any case there's loads to do for the next few days...

Any other suggestions welcomed. I know I rushed it a bit with adding fishes too quickly so you don't need to tell me. I'm suffering for it already!

Adrian

 

[karin]

Two things.... early on in a tank, mini-cycles are common. Also, everytime I change out sand/gravel, I seem to have a mini-cycle. Beneficial bacteria are largely in the filter but they are on all other surfaces as well.

Only thing you can do is test and water change. Don't worry about planaria will usually resolve itself. What has usually happenned for me is that I need to do a bit of intensive care for a week and then things settle down again. Try to avoid over rinsing your filter media if possible. You may just have to deal with the cloudiness for a bit.

Good luck. (still love your tank)

 

[twodoctors]

Two things.... early on in a tank, mini-cycles are common. Also, everytime I change out sand/gravel, I seem to have a mini-cycle. Beneficial bacteria are largely in the filter but they are on all other surfaces as well.

Only thing you can do is test and water change. Don't worry about planaria will usually resolve itself. What has usually happenned for me is that I need to do a bit of intensive care for a week and then things settle down again. Try to avoid over rinsing your filter media if possible. You may just have to deal with the cloudiness for a bit.

Good luck. (still love your tank)

Thanks Karin. The water clears very quickly. Not cloudy at all. It's just that if I disturb the gravel there's a lot of crud. So hopefully daily 50-75% change for a few days will take out most of it.

I suspect one of the problem is the stuck-on food tablets, which flakes like no tomorrow. I was the JBL novotab in the LFS but they are rather expensive. Then I saw King British version of it, but it is supposed to be a treat rather than staple diet. Tried it twice, my fishes wasn't doing what it shows in the JBL video, and there's so much flakes coming off it. Same applies to the Tetra catfish tablet and Sera vegetable tablet. Definitely not using those again. I thought my corys will take care of the crumbs for me, but I guess there's just too much for them to handle.

The other problem is old leaves under the sand/gravel. I don't know the name of the plants but some of them don't have roots like java fern. So I some of the leaves are buried into the ground to keep it stationary. Obviously in time they decompose, but I didn't think it would overload the bacteria.

Anyway it's the second time in a month that I took my tank apart. Hopefully things will settle down by the end of the month and I won't need to do this again...

Adrian