Help Please! :(

[Spence89x]

Hi, I really hope that someone can help me.

I bought a 28L tropical tank 9 days ago inc filter, light and heater. Set it up on the day made sure everything was thoroughly clean and treated the water for chlorine. After 2 days of a crystal clear tank it went cloudy (white,grayish) presuming this is a bacteria boom, I was given some treatment from the pet shop to clear the water in 12 hours. The water was clear so I went to buy some fish yesterday (5 guppys), woke up this morning and they are all dead don't understand what I have done wrong! Can someone help please???

Thank you

Hayley

 

[ZoddyZod]

welcome to the forum!

You'll need to have a good read of our beginners section, paying specific attention to the 'cycling' sections. This will tell you in detail what is required to correctly set up a new tank and make it 'safe' for fish.

Once you have had a good read, come back here with any questions you may have.

 

[Aquamaniac]

Do as ZoddyZod advised you. Read as much as possible about cycling a tank.
Basically a new tank full of tap water does not have the right conditions for fish to live.
Takes some time and a biological process we call cycling to do the job and make it safe for your fish to live in your tank. Untill you understand this do not put anymore fish in that tank. The results will be the same.
Any doubts about feel free to ask.

 

[Spence89x]

Thanks guys,

Would you recommend that I empty the water and start again? Or the majority of it? I feel really awful but I thought the tank was ready! Also looking at cycling, I don't recall my pet shop selling ammonia to put in the water only ammonia remover? Is there a specific brand you recommend?

Thank you!

( I know us newbies must be annoying to established tank owners!! )

 

[ZoddyZod]

fish shops don't stock ammonia......most will not even mention the 'cycling' process to you either.

if you are in the UK, then Boots sell ammonia as do Homebase (I think). You'll want the 9.5% soloution with no additional ingredients (read the ingredients list on the back to be sure).

....oh, and don't smell it!

no need to change all the water at this point.

 

[Aquamaniac]

Don't empty the tank. You can add some some chemicals to help kick start the cycle.
Personally i don't do it. Its not really needed.
I normally add a bit of fishfood on the first few days of my tank. Than decomposing food will realease amonia in to the tank and start the cycle.
Its slower than chemicals but i like to keep my tank as much chemical free as possible.

 

[ZoddyZod]

Don't empty the tank. You can add some some chemicals to help kick start the cycle.
Personally i don't do it. Its not really needed.
I normally add a bit of fishfood on the first few days of my tank. Than decomposing food will realease amonia in to the tank and start the cycle.
Its slower than chemicals but i like to keep my tank as much chemical free as possible.

ammonia will be present in the tank anyway as soon as fish are in it. Adding it from a bottle is no different, so you aren't adding any foreign chemicals that would not be in the tank anyway.

if you are talking about bottled products that claim to instantly cycle the filter/tank, there is a great deal of scepticism as to whether any of them work or not. Please note my use of the word 'scepticism' as I don't want to drag this thread into another debate on those products.

 

[4seasons]

There is a chance that you got some sick fish from the store and that is why they only lasted a day. Did you drip acclimate them to your water? Just bringing fish home and dumping them in a tank full of different PH and temperature water along with the stress of transport is enough to kill even a healthy fish. Then if you add them to an uncycled tank the ammonia levels will quickly start climbing adding even more stress to your fish. Unfortunately I learned all this the same way that you have. Then I started reading up on what went wrong and started getting some good advice here. I would dump your tank out and clean everything with tap water and whatever you do DONT use soap. If your fish were carrying some disease that killed them you want to get rid of the contaminated water. Since it is a new tank you won't be setting yourself back in the cycling progress. Next read up in the beginner section about how to do a fishless cycle. You need a liquid test kit like the API Master kit that most of us use. As far as ammonia to cycle it can be hard to find some that doesn't contain surfactant. You don't have to have it though as you can use fish food. As fish food breaks down in your tank ammonia is released. It can take a few days for this to happen and therefore is hard to control just how much ammonia you are adding but you don't need real tight control anywhere between 1ppm and 5ppm will work. Of course if you can find bottled ammonia that doesn't contain surfactant then it is easy to measure and control the dose.

 

[Spence89x]

Hi Guys,

Quick question! (thank you for all your help) I bought a kit to test the water last night, the pH is measuring at 8 and the nitrite at 0.5. I don't have anything to test the ammonia yet. Does the cloudyness mean that there is ammonia present?

Thanks

 

[Rummynose]

Hi Guys,

Quick question! (thank you for all your help) I bought a kit to test the water last night, the pH is measuring at 8 and the nitrite at 0.5. I don't have anything to test the ammonia yet. Does the cloudyness mean that there is ammonia present?

Thanks

Cloudiness that is milky looking means bacteria bloom and is usually harmless and temporary! Good for you that you got yourself a test kit! Is it the test strip kind or the liquid kind with the test tubes! The liquid test kit is what you want to use, the test strips are not reliable!

It would be a good idea to get a base reading of your water by testing your tap water. Just fill a glass with tap water and let it stand for 24 hours, then do the tests. Depending on where you live you may have already Ammonia or Nitrate in your tap water, which you will have to take into consideration when you test your tank water during the cycling process! Not sure if Nitrite is allowed to be in tap water....?

 

[4seasons]

Hi Guys,

Quick question! (thank you for all your help) I bought a kit to test the water last night, the pH is measuring at 8 and the nitrite at 0.5. I don't have anything to test the ammonia yet. Does the cloudyness mean that there is ammonia present?

Thanks

Cloudiness that is milky looking means bacteria bloom and is usually harmless and temporary! Good for you that you got yourself a test kit! Is it the test strip kind or the liquid kind with the test tubes! The liquid test kit is what you want to use, the test strips are not reliable!

It would be a good idea to get a base reading of your water by testing your tap water. Just fill a glass with tap water and let it stand for 24 hours, then do the tests. Depending on where you live you may have already Ammonia or Nitrate in your tap water, which you will have to take into consideration when you test your tank water during the cycling process! Not sure if Nitrite is allowed to be in tap water....?

Just as others have said you need a Liquid Test Kit that test for PH, Ammonia, Nitrite minimum. You need these test to cycle the tank. Then Nitrate test is also useful as your cycle finishes as you need to keep a low nitrite level when you put fish in. Most of us use the API Master Kit as it has all these test that you need.
Your nitrite reading could be from the cycle starting and some of the ammonia being converted to nitrite. As mentioned above test your tap water too. There is a good change that if you have that much nitrite in you tank this soon you could have gotten it from the tap. In my area the tap water is very inconsistent. While I have never seen ammonia or nitrite in the tap water the PH and nitrates are constantly changing. Some places you will have some ammonia or nitrite in the water supply. The simple truth is regulations for tap water are not very good and in fish keeping standards are outright horrible. I even get a letter every year that basically say:
Your water is below federal standards and we are required by law to notify you once a year that your water is crap. We are not going to bother with fixing the problem as we are only required to notify you that there is a problem. Oh and by the way to cover the cost of us sending this letter out we are increasing rates.
So I check the tap water every time I do a water change.

 

[Spence89x]

Hey, This is what my water supplier is saying I have in my water for my area. I'm guessing with there already being nitrite in the water but my reading has increased, that the tank is starting to cycle?

Calcium

77.112


Magnesium

10.1363

Residual chlorine - free

0.06

Residual chlorine - total

0.11

Coliforms

0


E-coli

0

Aluminium

9.474

Conductivity

458.03

2500

Fluoride

0.153

1.5

pH (Hydrogen Ion Conc.)

7.12

Iron

23.48

Manganese

2.65

Nitrate

17.4595

Nitrite

0.0443

My pet store had run out of the API master kit so I bought a liquid test kit until Friday when I can buy the master kit.

 

[4seasons]

Sounds like you are starting to figure things out.
That was nice of your water department to break it down that well for you but I would still test it myself. There reading is what they are sending out on the day it was taken. You will get somewhat different readings at your house due to the stuff in the pipes between your tap and the water supply. Then if you get a lot of rain it can change things a good bit too. It also depends on who was treating the water that day and how accurate they were. Basically what I am saying is that is a good baseline but it can change a good bit by the time you put it in the tank.

 

[Rummynose]

Looks like the Nitrite reading you got was from your tap water. As your cycle progresses the bacteria in your filter will eventually remove those from the tank.

I would suggest small water changes more often for your routine maintenance after your tank has cycled, instead of one large one, since a large water change would increase the Nitrite and Nitrate levels! You will have more difficulties keeping your Nitrate levels low on an ongoing basis, but live plants could use them up as food!