Help! Cardinal Dead, Possible Lack Of Oxygen?

[balajake]

If you didn't cycle your tank then you will get Ammonia spikes before you get nitrite. You say you left it for a month before adding fish but that's no good if you're not feeding ammonia to the filter to build up your good bacteria. Nothing less that massive daily water changes are going to help now because it's sounds like your cycle has begun

When I say massive I mean 90 %

 

[Stu UK]

Are we talking total or unionized ammonia here? I only ask because I am in the process of cycling a tank with some Cardinals and my total ammonia is currently .25mg/L. Other than being timid and a little off-colour, they do not appear to be struggling like yours were.

I also found the following study which suggests a total ammonia level of .25mg/L should be tolerable? http/www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0044-59672008000400023&script=sci_arttext

 

[Jay1983]

Do we want our fish to tolerate bad conditions, or thrive in healthy, clean environments??

If your ammonia is registering at all on a home test kit the water needs changing. Cycling using cardinals is a challenge as they are incredibly fussy and intolerant of poor conditions, may I ask why you choose to cycle a tank using cardinals?

 

[Stu UK]

Do we want our fish to tolerate bad conditions, or thrive in healthy, clean environments??

If your ammonia is registering at all on a home test kit the water needs changing. Cycling using cardinals is a challenge as they are incredibly fussy and intolerant of poor conditions, may I ask why you choose to cycle a tank using cardinals?

The way I understand it is a small amount of ammonia is needed to get the nitrogen cycle started, so by doing constant water changes at .25ppm I would only be prolonging the process. Obviously if levels start to go above .25ppm then I will do a water change, everyday if necessary. However, as I pointed out earlier, the study that was done on Cardinal Tetras seemed to indicate they are tolerant to a certain extent for short periods. Obviously I want them to thrive in good conditions, but first the tank needs to cycle and I am trying to achieve this as fast as possible. If this means exposing them to a small, but tolerable amount of total ammonia, then so be it.

Bit of a long story as to why I "chose" Cardinals, but the tank was already believed to be cycled when I introduced them as it had previously had a goldfish in it, which had been moved to a pond. I wouldn't buy fish I don't want just to cycle a tank.

 

[Harri]

So sorry I didn't update you!

I kept on doing very frequent water changes and I mean VERY frequent as in getting up at 2am to do a change.

I also added a bubble curtain as I don't think the fact that the filter wasn't breaking the surface was helping things.

Well it worked, but now I have other issues...submitting a new post to ask for advice again!

Thanks so much for the good advice, very much appreciated.