New to Fish Cycling- Please Help

I put lukewarm water in it. I took the lid off and turned the light off as well. No the tank it's not in a hot room. Mollies tend to do ok at 27C. Hopefully it will go down in a couple of hours.
 
It is a biorb heater and its switched off now. I removed the lid too for the temp to go down. Its 3 degrees more than what they can handle. I turned their light off as well. I put lukewarm water during the water change and I think that brought the temp up. Hopefully it will be ok by later tonight.
 
Get some water spangles as you are in the UK, apparently they are banned in many states of the US due to being an invasive species.

I put a handful in my tank and a week later they have taken up half of the water surface. Next week I will probably have to start pulling some out and disposing of them. One thing is for sure, I will never need to buy them ever again haha. Any future tanks are sorted for surface plants.

Anyway, my betta loves swimming through the roots of the floating plants.
 
It is a biorb heater and its switched off now. I removed the lid too for the temp to go down. Its 3 degrees more than what they can handle. I turned their light off as well. I put lukewarm water during the water change and I think that brought the temp up. Hopefully it will be ok by later tonight.
I had a little look at the Biorb heater. If it's the same as what I saw then it has an adjustable knob on top to alter the temperature. Be aware that many heaters are not accurate and can swing a °C higher or lower.

I have a 50W that puts out 25°C when I set it to 26°C and a 100W that goes to 27°C at 26 setting.

Using your hand to determine water temperature is not a good idea. If you are warm then everything will feel cold. Your body is usually around 37°C so a 10°C swing feels cold.

I usually pop my thermometer in the bucket and fill it slowly with tap water adding a bit of hot and cold until it's roughly where I want it.
 
The temp has gone down to 26C (80F). So now I will turn up the heater to 25C to keep the temp steady.
 
I had a little look at the Biorb heater. If it's the same as what I saw then it has an adjustable knob on top to alter the temperature. Be aware that many heaters are not accurate and can swing a °C higher or lower.

I have a 50W that puts out 25°C when I set it to 26°C and a 100W that goes to 27°C at 26 setting.

Using your hand to determine water temperature is not a good idea. If you are warm then everything will feel cold. Your body is usually around 37°C so a 10°C swing feels cold.

I usually pop my thermometer in the bucket and fill it slowly with tap water adding a bit of hot and cold until it's roughly where I want it.

I have a thermometer sepearate from the heater that tells me the temp. I have a floating one and one I always leave on the tank wall away from the heater so it could tell me the right temp. The temperature is now down to 26C (80C).
 
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Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Can you return any of that stuff you ordered?

API Stress Coat dechlorinates the water and helps reduce damage to the fish from poor water quality (ammonia, nitrite, etc). If you have a basic water conditioner/ dechlorinator, then you don't need both. You can use one or the other to dechlorinate the water.

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API Stress Zyme is not necessary. It helps to break down rotting organic matter in the gravel and that gunk should really be removed with a gravel cleaner. You can get a basic model gravel cleaner (see following link) from any pet shop or online and use it to drain water out of the tank and remove the gunk in the gravel at the same time.
https://www.about-goldfish.com/aquarium-cleaning.html

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API Accu Water is a flocculant and causes fine particles in the water to clump up and sink to the bottom. You don't need this. If the water is milky cloudy it is usually a bacterial bloom and doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate will fix it. Most new aquariums also go milky cloudy for a couple of days after they are set up.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

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API Quick Start is filter bacteria in a bottle. This is worth using. The best way to use this is to double dose every day for a week then stop using it. It contains dormant beneficial filter bacteria that wake up and start growing in the tank when they are added to the water. Try to add the liquid to the aquarium near the filter so it is drawn into the filter. However, it doesn't matter too much where it ends up as it will eventually grow in the filter.

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API Freshwater Master Test Kit is good and will test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH. Don't bother testing for nitrates until the tank has been run for at least 3 weeks. Nitrate test kits will read nitrite as nitrate and give you a false reading.

Ammonia and nitrite can be checked each day during the first month or so (depending on how long the filter takes to cycle), and then you check these if the fish look unwell or die or the water goes cloudy. You probably won't get a nitrite reading for about 2 weeks so don't worry too much if you only get ammonia readings during the first few weeks.

Keep test kits & water conditioners cool and dry, I kept my kits in a plastic container with lid, in the fridge. You should also check the expiry date on the test kits because they are sometimes expired when you get them.

*NB* Keep test kits away from children and animals. The kits contain some pretty toxic chemicals that can poison them.

Wash the test phials out under tap water after using them and wash your hands with soapy water after working in the tank and doing water tests.

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When doing a fish in cycle, you should only feed the fish a couple of times a week and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate each day you have an ammonia or nitrite reading. You want to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels as close to 0 as possible. If you get any ammonia or nitrite readings, do a water change.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

If you are adding a liquid bacterial supplement (API Quick Start) then just do a water change and do not gravel clean for the first couple of weeks. You can move the gravel cleaner across the surface of the gravel to pick up uneaten food and fish waste, but don't push it into the gravel until the tank has been going for a few weeks otherwise you can suck out the bacterial supplements.

Try to maximise surface turbulence/ aeration in the aquarium to keep the oxygen levels in the water as high as possible. This helps the filter bacteria grow and reduces stress on the fish.

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Sailfin mollies (Poecilia velifera) will probably get a bit big for your tank. And having 2 females, you will get babies in a month or so. Mollies are livebearers and produce live young about once a month. Female mollies that have been in a tank with males can carry up to 6 sperm packets that they use to fertilise batches of eggs without the male being present. They use one packet per batch of eggs so you could get babies for the next 6 months.

If you have plans on getting a bigger tank in the future, then you can keep them, otherwise you might want to look at replacing them with smaller fish like guppies.

Do not add any more fish to the aquarium until it has cycled. This will take about 4-5 weeks. During this time the ammonia levels will go up. After a couple of weeks the ammonia will drop to 0. When this happens the nitrite will go up. A few weeks after the nitrite has gone up it will drop to 0 and the true nitrates will go up.

When the ammonia and nitrite have both gone up and come back down to 0, and the nitrates start to go up, the filter will be cycled and you can add fish if there is room.

If you can post a picture of the filter we can tell you how to clean it.

I counted the water parameters today and I have Ammonia 0.25ppm and 0ppm of Nitrite. Shall I do a water change or feed the fish and wait till tomorrow?
 
Feed the fish and then do a water change 4-8 hours later.

Do a water change any day there is an ammonia or nitrite reading. :)
 
Well I just did a water change and I just fed them. The other way around. Because it's already 7pm here. And tomorrow I'm just working all day so I may not have time to do a water change.

Oh ok got it now with the nitrite and ammonia. Thank you so much for your help!!
 
Yep, the ammonia and nitrite are the most toxic for the fish. You want to get that out as soon as you detect it.

Nitrate is less toxic and is generally always in a tank in small amounts. Live plants will make short work of any nitrates in there and regular water changes too.
 
Yep, the ammonia and nitrite are the most toxic for the fish. You want to get that out as soon as you detect it.

Nitrate is less toxic and is generally always in a tank in small amounts. Live plants will make short work of any nitrates in there and regular water changes too.

Thank you so much for your help!!! And I got it now. Water bill is gonna be a bit expensive this time
 
Feed the fish and then do a water change 4-8 hours later.

Do a water change any day there is an ammonia or nitrite reading. :)
Hi how are you???

I had a big ammonia spike as yesterday I didnt change the water because of work. My readings for today were:
Ammonia 0.50ppm
Nitrite: 0.50ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

I did a 75% water change. I just wanted to ask you if u have any idea how to clean the gravel at the biorb tank. As it is using ceramic media instead of regular gravel so the gravel cleaner is useless. Shall I remove everything during a water change or wait for the cycle to be complete? I will be using API Quick Start double dose until Thursday.

Thank you!!!!
 
Gravel cleaners can still be used with different substrates. You might not be able to push the gravel cleaner into the substrate but you can push it down onto the substrate and that should suck out some of the gunk between it. Don't worry too much if you can clean it really well, just do big water changes and try to remove whatever gunk you can easily suck out.

Do not remove the filter or try to clean it until it is at least 6 weeks old, otherwise you can disrupt the bacteria and slow its development.
 
Gravel cleaners can still be used with different substrates. You might not be able to push the gravel cleaner into the substrate but you can push it down onto the substrate and that should suck out some of the gunk between it. Don't worry too much if you can clean it really well, just do big water changes and try to remove whatever gunk you can easily suck out.

Do not remove the filter or try to clean it until it is at least 6 weeks old, otherwise you can disrupt the bacteria and slow its development.


Hello how are you?
I am still cycling the tank and this morning my sailfin molly gave birth to I think 8 small ones. What can I do now? Take them out of the fish tank or leave them there? Do they eat the tropical fish food I am giving the big ones? I'm panicked and excited at the same time.

And I just saw now that one is trapped in the filter. Is it ok if I just remove the filter just to take it out?
 
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