Riksta
New Member
No, I took the old filter out as I bought the new one. I still have to old filter, but it is not in use.
Help With My Fish Tank
- Thread starter Riksta
- Start date
No, I took the old filter out as I bought the new one. I still have to old filter, but it is not in use.
Ah.
Ok, a few things:
White cloudiness can commonly be attributed to "bacterial blooms". This is when bacteria and other micro-organisms that naturally occur in the water multiply in vast numbers. This happens a lot in new tanks because there are excess waste chemicals (ammonia, nitrite, etc) in the tank, because there are residues in the tank that the bacteria can eat, because the water parameters are often very unstable, etc. Basicly - a bacterial bloom is a sign of an unstable tank.
Changing the filter over, lock stock and barrel, will have lost you all your "good" bacteria. These are two kinds of very special bacteria that live in the filter media (ceramic rings, sponges, etc) and perform a vital life-support function in the tank by removing ammonia and nitrites. These bacteria are so important that many people say fishkeeping is about looking after the bacteria. If you look after the bacteria, usually the fish will look after themselves.
Live plants, well rinsed ornaments and other items very, very rarely cause problems in the tank. In fact, live plants actually make the water more stable and a better habitat for the fish.
100% water changes simply add to the instability in the tank and won't help. They're only a temporary solution and every time you perform one, you have to carefully make sure the temperature, pH and hardness of the water you are putting the fish back into is the same of the water they came out of. Not only that, but you'd need to re-acclimatise the fish to the new water and this is stressful for them.
What water conditioner are you using? Some of the simpler ones don't do the full job and you can get ammonia spikes from using them as they break up a compound called chloramine into chlorine and ammonia . . . and then don't remove the ammonia! This can add to blooms and general instability in the tank.
The oily film is often there. It's just where any tiny oily residue in the tank (from your hands, etc) collects at the surface. If your filter is close enough to the surface, the water movement should disperse the oil and make it less noticeable.
Right now, the best thing you can do is to get a test kit for ammonia and nitrite at least, and nitrate, pH and KH/GH if you can. You can do as many water changes as you want and talk to your fish shop all you want but without the ability to do daily tests on your clearly unstable tank, you're flying blind.
Do the tests, change the water if you need to (i.e. if the levels of ammonia and nitrite are above zero and don't do 100% changes) and try to leave your tank alone for a bit. It needs time to settle down now and the only thing you really need to be doing is those water changes. The more chemicals you buy or things you add/remove, the more unstable the tank will be.
Good luck.
Ok, a few things:
White cloudiness can commonly be attributed to "bacterial blooms". This is when bacteria and other micro-organisms that naturally occur in the water multiply in vast numbers. This happens a lot in new tanks because there are excess waste chemicals (ammonia, nitrite, etc) in the tank, because there are residues in the tank that the bacteria can eat, because the water parameters are often very unstable, etc. Basicly - a bacterial bloom is a sign of an unstable tank.
Changing the filter over, lock stock and barrel, will have lost you all your "good" bacteria. These are two kinds of very special bacteria that live in the filter media (ceramic rings, sponges, etc) and perform a vital life-support function in the tank by removing ammonia and nitrites. These bacteria are so important that many people say fishkeeping is about looking after the bacteria. If you look after the bacteria, usually the fish will look after themselves.
Live plants, well rinsed ornaments and other items very, very rarely cause problems in the tank. In fact, live plants actually make the water more stable and a better habitat for the fish.
100% water changes simply add to the instability in the tank and won't help. They're only a temporary solution and every time you perform one, you have to carefully make sure the temperature, pH and hardness of the water you are putting the fish back into is the same of the water they came out of. Not only that, but you'd need to re-acclimatise the fish to the new water and this is stressful for them.
What water conditioner are you using? Some of the simpler ones don't do the full job and you can get ammonia spikes from using them as they break up a compound called chloramine into chlorine and ammonia . . . and then don't remove the ammonia! This can add to blooms and general instability in the tank.
The oily film is often there. It's just where any tiny oily residue in the tank (from your hands, etc) collects at the surface. If your filter is close enough to the surface, the water movement should disperse the oil and make it less noticeable.
Right now, the best thing you can do is to get a test kit for ammonia and nitrite at least, and nitrate, pH and KH/GH if you can. You can do as many water changes as you want and talk to your fish shop all you want but without the ability to do daily tests on your clearly unstable tank, you're flying blind.
Do the tests, change the water if you need to (i.e. if the levels of ammonia and nitrite are above zero and don't do 100% changes) and try to leave your tank alone for a bit. It needs time to settle down now and the only thing you really need to be doing is those water changes. The more chemicals you buy or things you add/remove, the more unstable the tank will be.
Good luck.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Good catch Davo, we had all missed it. When the OP said the tank had been fully cycled over a 4 to 5 month period we all assumed the current filter had been cycled but in fact the filter is new.
You are correct, this is a simple case of new tank syndrome, with a fish-in cycling situation resulting from a lack of information about how biofilters work, it seems. Together we should all be able to help Riksta get this all straightened out now. Assaye seems to have the needed questions going.
~~waterdrop~~
You are correct, this is a simple case of new tank syndrome, with a fish-in cycling situation resulting from a lack of information about how biofilters work, it seems. Together we should all be able to help Riksta get this all straightened out now. Assaye seems to have the needed questions going.
~~waterdrop~~
Riksta
New Member
Thanks. I'll leave the tank for a few weeks with the cloudiness, and hope that the good bacteria will build up in my new filter. The reason I changed filters in the first place is because the water was cloudy with my old filter, and I thought it was not working properly. I will post back in a few weeks time. Once again, thankyou.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Cloudiness is not unimportant as you are in a fish-in cycling situation and your fish will need you to closely monitor ammonia and nitrite(NO2) and do manual water changes (with good technique) or they will die. You'll need to keep both toxins below 0.25ppm (has the liquid test kit arrived yet?) and they'll need to be 50% per day if you don't have test numbers or can be adjusted after you have numbers. Does this make sense?
~~waterdrop~~
~~waterdrop~~
NinjaSmurf
Devils Advocate
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You said you had cloudiness in the tank with the old filter too? Maybe one of your decor items is to blame, I had a castle once that did the same thing, I took it out and problem solved.
Good luck with your cycling.
Good luck with your cycling.
Riksta
New Member
I do not fully understand the 50% part. Do you mean do 50% water changes per day or something else?
Cheers.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Yes, I was referring to 50% water changes as a default because of lack of test feedback yet. If we now have a new filter with new media in there, then our two colonies of autotrophic bacteria were thrown out with the old filter and we have no biofilter function running on the tank. We are going to attempt to grow a new biofilter by feeding the bacteria ammonia from the waste of the (11?) fish in the tank, but that's going to take at least a month probably. Meanwhile the fish have no filter and are swimming in their own waste, so a human has to manually give them fresh water, usually daily. (The biofilter is the magic biotech that lets us have tanks without doing this usually!)
As soon as you get your liquid-reagent based test kit you can test and have real feedback regarding the actual danger to your fish. Until then we have to guess, so I just said 50% per day as a guess. When you do water changes you always need to use good technique: Use a gravel cleaning siphon tool to deep-clean the gravel as you take the water out. The replacement water needs to be conditioned with a good conditioner (I highly recommend Seachem Prime for difficult situations like fish-in cycling) to remove the chlorine/chloramines and to give a quite neutralization of the ammonia for a number of hours. The water also needs to be roughly temperature matched (your hand is good enough for this.)
Once you get your test kit you will use it to figure out, by trial and error, whether you need to increase or decrease the water changing you are doing. The goal is to figure out a pattern of percentage and frequency that keeps both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) below 0.25ppm for long enough that you can get back from work or school or whatever to be there and water change again if necessary. Most people test morning and evening, 12 hours apart, more or less. You want to get in a pattern where the water change takes you way below 0.25ppm (perhaps it will look like zero ppm shortly after the water change) but then still has not built up past 0.25ppm when you next test, say 12 hours later. With few fish in a large tank, this is easy. With more fish in a smaller tank it gets harder and harder.
The problem is caused mostly by the ammonia that fish give off from their gills when they pass water through and extract oxygen. The gills give off both CO2 and ammonia (in both its ammonia and its ammonium form.) In nature, millions of gallons of fresh water carry this ammonia away immediately, in our tanks it hangs around. Ammonia, even in the tiny amounts down around a part per million, causes permanent gill damage leading to shortened fish lives or death. The first species of bacteria (call them the ammonia bacs or "A-Bacs") in a working biofilter will convert ammonia to nitrite(NO2). Nitrite(NO2), even in the same tiny amounts, attaches to the hemoglobin protein on fish red blood cells, causing a reaction and blocking their ability to carry oxygen. This suffocates the fish, causing permanent nerve damage leading also to shortened length of life or to death. The ammonia coming off gills is not the only ammonia. The fish waste, excess fishfood and plant debris are all broken down by a different set of bacteria, the heterotrophs, into ammonia. Its these heterotrophs that one can see in a whitish "bacterial bloom" which will occur when a tank has excess organics for these bacteria to feed on.
~~waterdrop~~
As soon as you get your liquid-reagent based test kit you can test and have real feedback regarding the actual danger to your fish. Until then we have to guess, so I just said 50% per day as a guess. When you do water changes you always need to use good technique: Use a gravel cleaning siphon tool to deep-clean the gravel as you take the water out. The replacement water needs to be conditioned with a good conditioner (I highly recommend Seachem Prime for difficult situations like fish-in cycling) to remove the chlorine/chloramines and to give a quite neutralization of the ammonia for a number of hours. The water also needs to be roughly temperature matched (your hand is good enough for this.)
Once you get your test kit you will use it to figure out, by trial and error, whether you need to increase or decrease the water changing you are doing. The goal is to figure out a pattern of percentage and frequency that keeps both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) below 0.25ppm for long enough that you can get back from work or school or whatever to be there and water change again if necessary. Most people test morning and evening, 12 hours apart, more or less. You want to get in a pattern where the water change takes you way below 0.25ppm (perhaps it will look like zero ppm shortly after the water change) but then still has not built up past 0.25ppm when you next test, say 12 hours later. With few fish in a large tank, this is easy. With more fish in a smaller tank it gets harder and harder.
The problem is caused mostly by the ammonia that fish give off from their gills when they pass water through and extract oxygen. The gills give off both CO2 and ammonia (in both its ammonia and its ammonium form.) In nature, millions of gallons of fresh water carry this ammonia away immediately, in our tanks it hangs around. Ammonia, even in the tiny amounts down around a part per million, causes permanent gill damage leading to shortened fish lives or death. The first species of bacteria (call them the ammonia bacs or "A-Bacs") in a working biofilter will convert ammonia to nitrite(NO2). Nitrite(NO2), even in the same tiny amounts, attaches to the hemoglobin protein on fish red blood cells, causing a reaction and blocking their ability to carry oxygen. This suffocates the fish, causing permanent nerve damage leading also to shortened length of life or to death. The ammonia coming off gills is not the only ammonia. The fish waste, excess fishfood and plant debris are all broken down by a different set of bacteria, the heterotrophs, into ammonia. Its these heterotrophs that one can see in a whitish "bacterial bloom" which will occur when a tank has excess organics for these bacteria to feed on.
~~waterdrop~~
Riksta
New Member
Hi everyone, sorry for the wait.
Water test as of 31/1/2010.
PH - 6.8
KH - 3od
GH - > 10od
NO2 - 0.5mg/l
NO3 - 50mg/l
Hope you will find an answer for me, cheers.
Water test as of 31/1/2010.
PH - 6.8
KH - 3od
GH - > 10od
NO2 - 0.5mg/l
NO3 - 50mg/l
Hope you will find an answer for me, cheers.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
OK, seeing nitrite(NO2) in there indicates the fish-in cycling situation is still going. I forget, what are the test results on your tap water? That nitrate(NO3) looks a little high and I'm wondering if some of it is coming in with the tap water.
Are you using a liquid-reagent based test kit with little test tubes?
~~waterdrop~~
Are you using a liquid-reagent based test kit with little test tubes?
~~waterdrop~~
Riksta
New Member
No I am using the 6 in 1 test strips. The liquid ones my LFS sell are £60 (large cases) but I did not have enough
.I haven't done a test of my tap water yet. I will post the results tonight.
fishyfeet
Fish Herder
hmm do you feed catfish pellets by any chance, di
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
I've seen a number of the UK members recommend and help out other members with finding a lower price on the API master kit on ebay. I don't know about that myself but maybe someone can help you out. The strips unfortunately can be badly misleading, leading to wrong actions begin taken.
~~waterdrop~~
~~waterdrop~~
Riksta
New Member
No, but I do have sinking pellets if that is any help.
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