Newbie Needs Help

[StingRay999]

Readings this morning:

PH: 8.2
NO2: 0.5ppm
NH3/4: 0.02ppm

I tried another pet shop but they say they dont have space for the fish. There are only two pet shops in the town that I live in so I am in quite a bit of a predicament now. I think I will let the tank finish its cycle then get a bigger tank and put everything in there. At the end of the day that seems to be my best option.

BTW the Rio Tetra's are about 2cm each and there is 4 of them. The Buble Mollies are 3cm and the Pleco is exactly 7.5cm (measured him last night when he was stuck on the glass ) What size tank do you think I should get? Would a 210 liter (55 gallon) tank be ok?

 

[waterdrop]

OK, great that you've been giving it a good try to rehome them but as you say it just may not be in the cards. Meanwhile, the fish need you. The goal of fish-in cycling is to figure out a percentage and frequency of water changes that keep both ammonia and nitrite in that narrow range of zero ppm to 0.25ppm before you can be home again to change water. Your tank has slipped up to 0.50 nitrite and that may begin to damage their nerves. A small tank like yours is both a blessing and a curse. Its quite quick and easy to do a water change compared to bigger tanks but on the other hand the poisons will come up on you faster than you can catch them, as you are seeing. Another good thing is that the fish have already been in the tank at least two weeks (I think?) so you may be coming up on the halfway point of the weeks of fish-in cycling!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[StingRay999]

OK, great that you've been giving it a good try to rehome them but as you say it just may not be in the cards. Meanwhile, the fish need you. The goal of fish-in cycling is to figure out a percentage and frequency of water changes that keep both ammonia and nitrite in that narrow range of zero ppm to 0.25ppm before you can be home again to change water. Your tank has slipped up to 0.50 nitrite and that may begin to damage their nerves. A small tank like yours is both a blessing and a curse. Its quite quick and easy to do a water change compared to bigger tanks but on the other hand the poisons will come up on you faster than you can catch them, as you are seeing. Another good thing is that the fish have already been in the tank at least two weeks (I think?) so you may be coming up on the halfway point of the weeks of fish-in cycling!

~~waterdrop~~

The Nitrite is also of big concern to me. I did 2 30% water changes yesterday, one at 17h30 and one at 21h00. I am going to try and do water changes in the mornings as well, that might help me to keep the Nitrate levels under controll. I am just a bit scared of to much water changes, instead of 3 30% changes a day should I rather not try 2 50% changes a day, or will that have to big of an impact on the bacteria development?

The fish seem to be doing fine. I dropped one frozen pea in the water after the second water change yesterday evening, and I gave the fish some fish flakes (about 1 flake per fish). The pea was gone this morning ( I asume the Pleco had a midnight snack on it) and the fish ate all the flakes that I put in so the wastage was minimal. The plants in the tank also still look healthy.

Sorry not sure on how to edit a post, but I meant to say Nitrite levels as in NO2.

 

[waterdrop]

Don't be afraid of large water changes. This is one of the hardest concepts we have to get past beginners. As long as you use conditioner and temp matching you are fine. Ammonia and nitrite are far worse for the fish than anything a water change can do.

During a fish-in cycle your only worry is about the fish. The bacteria will take care of themselves, they are getting plenty of ammonia even when our kits read zero ppm (our kits are not that sensitive!)

Gravel clean and water change, the fish will ultimately love it! They only need a "puddle" so to speak, above the substrate before the return water comes in. Believe me, I've done it many times.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[StingRay999]

Don't be afraid of large water changes. This is one of the hardest concepts we have to get past beginners. As long as you use conditioner and temp matching you are fine. Ammonia and nitrite are far worse for the fish than anything a water change can do.

During a fish-in cycle your only worry is about the fish. The bacteria will take care of themselves, they are getting plenty of ammonia even when our kits read zero ppm (our kits are not that sensitive!)

Gravel clean and water change, the fish will ultimately love it! They only need a "puddle" so to speak, above the substrate before the return water comes in. Believe me, I've done it many times.

~~waterdrop~~

Thank you very much for clearing that up. Will do a big water change when I get home.

BTW the conditioner am am using is Tetra Aqua Safe. Hope it is decent enough.

 

[StingRay999]

Did a 80% water change yesterday evening. After an hour the readings were as follows:

PH: 8.2
NO2: 0.25ppm
NH3/4: 0.00ppm

When tested this morning the readings were:
PH: 8.2
NO2: 0.5ppm
NH3/4: 0.02ppm

Did a 50% water change after taking the readings this morning. The NO2 reading is realy starting to worry me now.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, this is a good example for our beginners section, we're seeing two classic effects demonstrated: the tank is both overstocked and its a small tank. Either of these alone can cause sudden large spikes of the poisons but together they can get out of control.

Unfortunately, the best you can do is to simply plan large water changes as frequently as your schedule will allow. The other thing that may be helpful would be to try and find a bottle of Seachem Prime, which is our emergency conditioner of choice. Its very concentrated (which saves you money on a per gallon basis) but is also perhaps the very best at temporary detoxification of ammonia and nitrite. You may even want to occasionally dose it to the tank as a "bridging" action when you are having to go too long between water changes. But it must never be seen as a substitute for water changing as that is of primary importance.

Probably the Tetra Aqua Safe has the chemicals to do these same things and if it says it does and you have a large supply then you may choose to use it up first before turning to Prime but if in doubt I might go ahead with the Prime.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[StingRay999]

Thanks for the advice. Did a 80 % water change yesterday afternoon and the readings yesterday evening were as follows:

PH: 8.2
NH3/4: 0.00
NO2: 0.05

The readings this morning were:
PH:8.2
NH3/4: 0.02
N02: 0.15

Did a 50% water change after taking the readings this morning.

 

[waterdrop]

One good thing is that a pH of 8.2 is quite optimal for the growth of the 2 bacterial species, and obviously there is ammonia present, so you have provided a situation where their growth should not be limited.

Also, the way that nitrite appears and wants to creep up on you is for once giving some indication of a nitrite stage and sometimes that's hard to detect in fish-in cycles.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[StingRay999]

The PH seems to be constant which I hope is a good thing. As for the Nitrite spikes, they seem to be better now that I am doing more frequent large water changes. The Amonia also seems to be quite constant on 0.02. I am still trying to find a home for the Pleco. I think that if he is out of the tank the conditions will be more managable.

 

[StingRay999]

I have been carrying out the ritual of water changes over the weekend and the PH and Amonia measures were pretty much constant with NH3/4 on 0.02 and PH on 8.2 but NO2 jumped around between 0.1 and 0.5. I carried out tests every 8 hours and also did a water change every 8 hours. Something I have not mentioned before, my water temperature is always between 24 and 26 degrees celcius(75-78 Fahrenheit).
Still cant find a home for the Pleco. I placed an advertisement on the local radio station for today so hopefully I will get some takers.

 

[OldMan47]

You will get 2.7 ppm of nitrites for every 1 ppm of ammonia that is processed. That is why you will often see faster movement of nitrites than ammonia in a partially cycled filter situation.

 

[StingRay999]

Today's readings:

PH: 8.2
NH3/4: 0.02
NO2: 0.2

I noticed some build up on the sponge filter. Looks kind of brownish in colour. Should I be woried about this?

 

[waterdrop]

The bacteria and their biofilms are visible on sponges as a brown stain. This is a good thing. Brown debris is different from brown stain, debris is organic material breaking down.

 

[Timmy_Bee]

Also, just to point out that earlier you talked about a bigger tank for the Plec. You would need to go much bigger. these things can grow to 50cm!

Good luck with the fish-in cycle. #41####, i hate LFS sometimes...

Edit: Sorry for the rude word... didnt think it was that rude...