New To Hobby, Started 10 Gallon 1 1/2 Weeks Ago - Progress Overview

[Axleuk]

**I SWEAR TO GOD I DIDNT EVEN MENTION THE DREADED 'B' WORD** i was trying to be a good boy and offer impartial advice based on recent discussions.

I'm staying out of this one

Eh? Is it bad? Talk about a cliffhanger. lol

I havn't actually bought that stuff yet. I'm at work all day. (hence the active forum posting, lol)

Its not bad, its a long story but if you do get Bio Spira, make sure you check the date on it as the freshwater version is out of production. There is an alternative here Dr Tims Aquatics which is essentially the same stuff under a different name i believe. Please remember that is probably a last resort though ok. Minxys advice is very good and should help to sort your problem out.

 

[NonstickRon]

**I SWEAR TO GOD I DIDNT EVEN MENTION THE DREADED 'B' WORD** i was trying to be a good boy and offer impartial advice based on recent discussions.

I'm staying out of this one

Eh? Is it bad? Talk about a cliffhanger. lol

I havn't actually bought that stuff yet. I'm at work all day. (hence the active forum posting, lol)

Its not bad, its a long story but if you do get Bio Spira, make sure you check the date on it as the freshwater version is out of production. There is an alternative here Dr Tims Aquatics which is essentially the same stuff under a different name i believe. Please remember that is probably a last resort though ok. Minxys advice is very good and should help to sort your problem out.

Last resort? How come? Seems something like that would be more preventative than something to add in reaction to nagitive results no? Also, asked them when I called if they keep it refrigerated and they said they do. I read that Tetra Safestart has replaced Bio Spira.

My plan was to do what Minxys suggests after much reading. But I'm second guessing myself now. I still need to stick something else down in the filter i think to grow some biology on. I'm thinking that white floss material or maybe some peat moss to maybe bring my PH down some? I would think a sponge but I didn't see any for sale at the petstore.

I'll test tonight when I get home and post my numbers.

 

[Axleuk]

**I SWEAR TO GOD I DIDNT EVEN MENTION THE DREADED 'B' WORD** i was trying to be a good boy and offer impartial advice based on recent discussions.

I'm staying out of this one

Eh? Is it bad? Talk about a cliffhanger. lol

I havn't actually bought that stuff yet. I'm at work all day. (hence the active forum posting, lol)

Its not bad, its a long story but if you do get Bio Spira, make sure you check the date on it as the freshwater version is out of production. There is an alternative here Dr Tims Aquatics which is essentially the same stuff under a different name i believe. Please remember that is probably a last resort though ok. Minxys advice is very good and should help to sort your problem out.

Last resort? How come? Seems something like that would be more preventative than something to add in reaction to nagitive results no? Also, asked them when I called if they keep it refrigerated and they said they do. I read that Tetra Safestart has replaced Bio Spira.

My plan was to do what Minxys suggests after much reading. But I'm second guessing myself now. I still need to stick something else down in the filter i think to grow some biology on. I'm thinking that white floss material or maybe some peat moss to maybe bring my PH down some?

I'll test tonight when I get home and post my numbers.

Ok, it will give you a quick fix to your situation, just make sure you use the product correctly and keep monitoring your water levels.

 

[NonstickRon]

The first one is A step by step guide to setting up a tank this will arm you with enough information to set your tank up correctly and have confidence that you have everything you need to start you off

One thing I noticed that is omitted from that guide (glad cause I don't have one setup yet) is any mention of an airstone or bubbler. I guess they're unecessary?

 

[OldMan47]

The air stone, bubbler, what have you is not needed. What is needed is to get oxygen into the water. The way it happens is that water circulating close to the surface of the water absorbs oxygen from the air. Any form of good circulation that keeps your water from stratifying will keep the oxygen levels in the tank water at a good level.
Axle's issue is that he is very enthusiastic about some of the biological products so people were telling him he was selling the stuff, wondered if he owned stock in the company.
If you can return the fish and follow a fishless regime it would be the best option. If you can't, the biospira is the recognized biological product in the US market. The large and frequent water changes with reasonable water is the only real alternative to having an established biological filter. Betta breeders who keep each fish in its own simple container rely on water changes completely because there is no way to efficiently filter that many containers. That does not make it a good idea but it means that it can be done if you are careful enough with it.
Some calcium content is not necessarily a bad thing. Calcium carbonate, typical of hard water, will help stabilize the pH in your tank which is always better than lots of pH variation. You can get a test kit for GH / KH that will let you put numbers to your water hardness and will make it easier to guide you if it truly is high enough to be a problem.

 

[NonstickRon]

lol! Thats funny. Well, I'm broke till friday, so I won't be buying any more fish stuff till at least then.

Ok, the pre water exchange numbers! ...drumroll...

PH 7.8
Ammonia .15? (Somewhere between the 0 and the .25 blocks on the color card)
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Healthy Fish 6

 

[minxfishy]

Yep your ammonia is starting to rise as expected, nothing significantly dangerous yet, but by tomorrow it will have risen again as the fish produce more waste.

As explained water changes once any of the readings get above 0.25ppm, then test again a hour or so later, if the level is still above 0.25ppm then do another 50% water changes, remembering to dechlorinated the water and match the temperature of the water going back in to the temperature of the tank water. Keep us posted, we as well as you would like your fish to get thru the cycle and be as healthy as possible.

Regarding bio-spira, if you can get some, then by all means at this point with fish already in the tank, use it, but you will still need to monitor the water stats and may still need to do frequent water changes - it all depends on how well the stuff has been stored, transported and how quickly you use it. But with fish in - I would say use it.

Tetra safestart - again if you want to try it at this point, do so, but its not as good as the bio-spira and will probably still leave you with a nitrite spike at best and do absolutely nothing at worse - cept use up your money!!

 

[NonstickRon]

Ok, I did a 10% change last night after I tested. I've got 6 more gallons of spring water standing by.

I'm pretty against using tap water for just about anything but washing. There are traces of varioius prescription drugs in tap water. People take medical drugs, the body uses some but passes the rest in urine...which goes to water treatment plants and is "purified" and sent back to our homes. The methods they use however do not remove those drugs from the water. So tap water ends up with a cocktail of drugs in it...nooooo thanks. -----> [URL="http/www.cleandrinking.com/drugs.html"]http/www.cleandrinking.com/drugs.html[/URL] <-----

This morning during fishy breakfast, I noticed theres a 7th inhabitant in the tank. A tiny little snail has appeared, it probably came from the live plant I have in there...they keep snails in the live plant tanks at the Petsmart. Finding it in there was exciting.

 

[minxfishy]

Well if you dead set on using spring water then thats ok, but could cost you a lot of money, specially with all the water changs you may have to do to get through this cycle.

Not known anyone to have any problems using their tap water or experiencing problems with it regarding any traces of drugs. Obviously the water needs to be dechlorinated to remove chlorine and chloramines but as we drink it (well most people do) then I think its pretty safe for the fish - but your choice

You will probably find more snails over time, they are fine, help keep the substrate agitated, clean up left over food and in some cases munch on algae - which is always a good thing

Youve probably stated, but what size tank are we talking about here? Also whereabouts are you, UK, US, Europe?

 

[NonstickRon]

10 gallon tank, so I'm not too too worried about the spring water costs just yet. Its like $.84 a gallon. If I ever got a bigger tank I'd probably have to rethink my stance on it.

I'm in Daytona Beach, Florida USA

 

[minxfishy]

Ah right, not too bad then.

 

[NonstickRon]

Ok, took the two Neon Tetras back today. The larger one was being merciless to the smaller one. Once I got them out I realized that the larger one had signs of being nibbled on, probably by the large bully Serpae. I figure thats where bully neon was picking up the habbit. The two other Serpae I have though show no signs of it on their fins, so brought another one home to replace the ammonia output the neons were giving off.

Man oh man, the girl who was helping me was about as annoying as I could handle. She has had her job working at the pet store for a whole 7 months she had to inform me, and she didn't appreciate me questioning her advice or pointing out inconsistencies to the research I've done the last 2 weeks. Its funny how 7 months can seem like a long time to hold a job to an 17ish year old eh? lol

She refused to let me have any of the gravel from the store tanks, saying just to mix the store water in with my own.

I checked ammonia again tonight and it seemed less than last night but still no nitrite.

 

[OldMan47]

Adding more fish to a tank during a fishy cycle is always a bad idea. The cycle will go at about the same speed no matter how many fish but the water changes get bigger and more frequent with more fish and more fish waste. The tank water from the LFS has nothing in it that you want or need. It is water that may or may not have disease organisms in it. It does not contain the bacteria you are trying to grow in your filter. The bacteria grow on surfaces, not in the water. I am sure there may have been one or two bacteria in the water but that won't help you with the cycle. If you had scraped the surface of the tank while retrieving fish, you might have got a few bacteria but it would have been whatever was growing on the glass, not in the water. You are right about how much a young person can know until they start to learn the real facts.

 

[NonstickRon]

Adding more fish to a tank during a fishy cycle is always a bad idea. The cycle will go at about the same speed no matter how many fish but the water changes get bigger and more frequent with more fish and more fish waste. The tank water from the LFS has nothing in it that you want or need. It is water that may or may not have disease organisms in it. It does not contain the bacteria you are trying to grow in your filter. The bacteria grow on surfaces, not in the water. I am sure there may have been one or two bacteria in the water but that won't help you with the cycle. If you had scraped the surface of the tank while retrieving fish, you might have got a few bacteria but it would have been whatever was growing on the glass, not in the water. You are right about how much a young person can know until they start to learn the real facts.

Yeah, I tried to tell her that bout the water but she wasn't having it. I mixed it in hoping for the best...every fish I've added to the tank has come from there in the past 2 weeks anyway and all the fish from Petsmart are using water that is going through one giant filter. I'm prepped and ready for water changes.

Picked up a heater and swapped out the second incandescent for a fluorescent this evening...so temperature shouldn't fluctuate anymore. Also my wife has given me the green light or the Bio Spira. Hopefully the dates on it aren't too old when I go and check it out. Maybe tomorrow night I'll head down to that part of town.

Did some more calling around today, turns out most of the aquarium stores that are around here are salt water only. Side effect from living in a coastal florida city maybe. hehe

One thing I'm still curious about is the "sponge" for the filter. Most stuff I've been reading say to make sure you be careful to just rinse out your filter sponge when you change the filter material...The Top Fin powerfilter I bought came with a carbon filled filter cartridge. It didn't have a sponge of any kind. Seems to me, if I just throw away that filter cartridge every month, I'll be throwing away most of my bacteria wont I? Now, I know it grows all in the gravel too, but at some point I want to do a change over to black sand. Will that start the cycle all over again? I looked at two petstores today for generic sponges to stick in the filter but I didn't see any. This was another topic I was annoying the Petsmart girl with, since she couldn't answer any of my questions on it. lol

For the record, for any future tank setups, I'll definitely be trying the fishless thing out.

 

[bricko]

Hi NonstickRon,

I have no experience with the top fin filter pumps but so I have just had a quick perusal on google;

http/www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?...;utm_source=cse

Petsmart sell these so as that seems to be your LFS you should ask if they can source them.

Your filter should have mechanical and biological filtration. To some degree a carbon filter will perform both tasks as it will remove the dirt particals / chemicals and biological bacteria will colonise it. However as you correcly pointed out whenever your replace the carbon pad you will remove the majority of your beneficial bacteria (small amount will still remain in gravel, ornaments etc.

This is why most filters have several stages to incorporate different filter media. Is there space to add additional pads in you filter? I would image there should be, but again I am not familiar with the product.

Hope this helps a little

Good luck,

Regards,

Bricko

P.S. please don't buy any more fish just yet.