help! problem w ammonia! or is my test kit??

[ishtarbarb]

hey people! i seem to never get a 0 reading on my ammonia. my tank is about weeks old now, and i think its pretty much cycled, coz i've passed the nitrite spike and now am into the higher nitrates part.

but i'm pretty confused, coz i never did have an ammonia spike throughout my cycling, always reads 0.25 on my mardel ammonia test strips. like really ALWAYS...

I didn't do it the fishless way though, coz i desperately needed to change my tank, so i have 1 platy, 2 guppies, 2 otos, total 5 fish in a 5 gallon tank, kinda alot i know. but i didn't realise all this cycling thing before i really searched around the net. oh yeah, n 2 shrimp. plus a few snails that came from my plants...

well, the fish seem pretty ok, just that i'm so annoyed at why i never get a 0.25 reading n no ammonia spike... means my tank isn't cycled??? oh no. ANY help will be totally super!!

 

[kev_kb]

Test using another kit, or take a water sample to your LFS for testing. If your ammonia & nitrite are 0ppm the tank has cycled. You may want to consider moving/taking back the Platy or Otos. The Platy would probably do better in a larger tank and the Otos are fairly messy if they are well fed.

 

[ishtarbarb]

ok ! i've got the problem solved! i couldn't find my post so its taken me awhile to reply. heh... i was supposed to read the back of the strip, not the front. thought the mardel strips had a problem.

 

[ishtarbarb]

yeah, i'm prob going to do without the platy. its very messy anyway. and its he greediest of the lot. prob going to put it in my koi pond. there's a bunch of them living happily.

so that'll leave me w 4 fish. currently, they are all tiny. the guppies are only 1 inch big, so are the otos. they are the dwarf species. or are all oto's dwarf? but i read somewhere on the net that otos do not like to be alone. hmm, so i should give away the otos?? but they are pretty cute!

 

[gale]

Personally I would get a 10g tank and put the existing fish in it, and put maybe a betta or trio of guppies in your 5g. I can't imagine giving up any of my fishies.

 

[enchanted]

A Trio of Guppys should not go in a 5 Gallon. As for Otos being messy, they are not very messy at all.

2" per guppy at 3 is 6" which is overstocked.

If you have a good filter it and are doing water changes more often than once a week the tank can handle it, but the fish will not be happy with your current setup.

I agree with gale that you would be better off to purchase a 10 Gallon and both you and the fish would probably be happier in the end.

 

[ishtarbarb]

actually i was thinking of doing that. been toying for with the idea for some time. should have just bought a bigger tank in the first place. but i'm worried that i'll have to redo the whole cycling process again.

i'll leave the 2 guppies with 1 oto in the 5 gallon, n put the other oto n prob 3 dwarf puffers in the 10 gallon or maybe bigger if i can afford the space, like 15? My platy would prob be happier in my pond. haha, much larger area to swim around. plus the rest of her family are there. those stocking levels would be ok rite?

oh, and i'm using a penguin biowheel mini for the 5 gallon. i've noticed that the flow seems strong for the 5 gal. my feathery plant sways around abit. haha.. should i change my filter? was thinking of the hagen aquaclear. coz the flow rate can be controlled

 

[sylvia]

I can't say about the puffers - someone who lnows about puffers around?

But I can tell you that all your fish (including that platy) would preffer it if you just moved all of them to a 10 gallon. You wont need to cycle the new tank so to speak. Just take some gravel from this tank and some of the filter media and put it in the new 10 gallon... then slowly move the fish over a few weeks and just monitor the water. By moving the bit of filter media and gravel, you'll be adding some of your healthy beneficial bacteria from the cycled tank to the newly set-up one and you should have an instant cycle provided you don't stock too quickly.

 

[ishtarbarb]

but the problem is i'm using a biowheel. so the filter media is the biowheel, which can't be shared.. i'll prob use someone's suggestion on the forum to put 2 filters on my old tank to seed the new filter first, plus a transfer of some of the gravel. hopefully, it'll work!

 

[enchanted]

Guppys like lots of current so that filter is not a problem.

If you are keeping both tanks, just run the bio-wheel for 2 weeks w/ media. Get another Bio-Wheel filter and swap the bio-wheels leaving the old media in the five gallon.

This will allow the new bio-wheel to seed in the old 5 gallon and between the media and the tank their should be enough bacteria there.

By moving the Bio-Wheel you should avoid all cycling.