Hello
Well i'm finally plucking up the courage to ask for advice somewhere, I have read loads of different forums and viewpoints that I have complete info overload.
I have a 21.6L coldwater (well room temp)tank with filter, a few ornaments and 2 live plants. In this I put 5 White clouds. I had read about fishless cycling but i'm sorry to say I didn't feel I could go down that route as it was a reward for my daughter and there's no way she could have waited 4-6 weeks. I had read that white clouds were ok for cycling and originally my daughter wanted a goldfish but seeing as this was the biggest tank we had room for I did well to get her to have these. Anyway it was 5 weeks ago they went in and i'll outline whats happened since then.
6 Feb: Tank set up with tap safe
10 Feb: 5 wcmm added with King British safe water (seems this stuff is worthless having looked into it)
Tested using test strips (I know not reliable) no amm, nitrite but my tap water has quite high Nitrates
16 Feb: Tested seemed to be 0.5 nitrite but 0 ammonia so may have been wrong, only test to have ever seemingly registered nitrite in the 5 weeks. Did 20% pwc
18 Feb: Did 40% pwc
20 Feb: Well Here is probably were I got bigger problems because I found 20+ free swimming fry in the tank. I was very excited as was my daughter but obviously not great for an uncycled tank. I probably should have left them to fend for themselves but I started adding liquifry twice a day, I was aware this was going to increase the load on the tank which is why I didn't feed it 4 times a day as it suggests. I read differing advice about whether to do more or less pwc with fry.
24 Feb: Did 20% pwc plus KB safe water
27 Feb: Everyone still seems happy, still lots of fry. Ammonia starting to show on strips.
2 Mar: By now only few fry left. Did 20% pwc plus kb safe water.
4 MAr: no fry left. Ammonia reading more than 0.5 less than 1ppm. Did 40 % pwc and gravel Vac as had been using stocking over siphon when fry were in tank so not great at removing debris. Also big mistake I did squeeze the filter out in the old tank water, mainly because I thought it would be clogged up with fry corpses which it wasn't.
5 Mar Ammonia 0.5
6 Mar Ammonia 1ppm. 2 fish showing clamped fins. Did 50% pwc.
8 Mar Ammonia 1ppm Did 20 % pwc
10 Mar Lost 2 fish that were fin clamped. Ammonia reading between 0.5-1ppm. Did 20% water change now using Stress coat to remove some of the Ammonia. Remaining 3 seemed happier. Ammonia reading 0.5 after water change.
12 Mar Ammonia 1ppm but guessing some of this would be ammonium now. Did 20% pwc
14 Mar: API master test kit finally came. Ammonia 1ppm Nitrite 0ppp Nitrate 40ppm ph 8.2 - quit high. Also tested my tapwater which looked like slight ammonia in it 0.25ppm Nitrate 40ppm ph 7.4. Did 25% pwc using stress coat. Ammonia still 1ppm ph 8.0
15 Mar: Ammonia 1ppm ph 8. Did 30% pwc using stress coat. Added Tetra safesart to water. Readings same later on. Evening 1 fish very poorly floating on back etc.
16 Mar: Fish died. added more safestart to tank. Readings still ammonia 1ppm, nitrites 0 nitrates 40
17 Mar: Same readings.
Well done if you've read all that and followed it. I hope you can see I have been trying to do my best? So how can I have no bacteria in my tank after 5 weeks? And 48 hours after safestart? I don't know whether to do daily pwc now or if that will stop the safestart working but I really want to save these last 2 fish. Any advice welcome, though I can't take the fish back/ put them somewhere else and I don't really have access to used media. 3 of my friends have small fish tanks overcrowded with goldfish and completely scrub them out and do 100% water changes, their fish live but I try and do it right and have problems! At a push I could ask one friend for some dirty gravel if the tank hasn't been cleaned for a while but am worried about putting diseases in my tank. I have bought some tetra aquasafe today as i'm not sure if the stress coat turning the ammonia to ammonium would stop the safestart working, i've looked for info on this and opinion seems divided. But if I use that instead of stress coat I'm going to have ammonia poisoning again?
Well i'm finally plucking up the courage to ask for advice somewhere, I have read loads of different forums and viewpoints that I have complete info overload.
I have a 21.6L coldwater (well room temp)tank with filter, a few ornaments and 2 live plants. In this I put 5 White clouds. I had read about fishless cycling but i'm sorry to say I didn't feel I could go down that route as it was a reward for my daughter and there's no way she could have waited 4-6 weeks. I had read that white clouds were ok for cycling and originally my daughter wanted a goldfish but seeing as this was the biggest tank we had room for I did well to get her to have these. Anyway it was 5 weeks ago they went in and i'll outline whats happened since then.
6 Feb: Tank set up with tap safe
10 Feb: 5 wcmm added with King British safe water (seems this stuff is worthless having looked into it)
Tested using test strips (I know not reliable) no amm, nitrite but my tap water has quite high Nitrates
16 Feb: Tested seemed to be 0.5 nitrite but 0 ammonia so may have been wrong, only test to have ever seemingly registered nitrite in the 5 weeks. Did 20% pwc
18 Feb: Did 40% pwc
20 Feb: Well Here is probably were I got bigger problems because I found 20+ free swimming fry in the tank. I was very excited as was my daughter but obviously not great for an uncycled tank. I probably should have left them to fend for themselves but I started adding liquifry twice a day, I was aware this was going to increase the load on the tank which is why I didn't feed it 4 times a day as it suggests. I read differing advice about whether to do more or less pwc with fry.
24 Feb: Did 20% pwc plus KB safe water
27 Feb: Everyone still seems happy, still lots of fry. Ammonia starting to show on strips.
2 Mar: By now only few fry left. Did 20% pwc plus kb safe water.
4 MAr: no fry left. Ammonia reading more than 0.5 less than 1ppm. Did 40 % pwc and gravel Vac as had been using stocking over siphon when fry were in tank so not great at removing debris. Also big mistake I did squeeze the filter out in the old tank water, mainly because I thought it would be clogged up with fry corpses which it wasn't.
5 Mar Ammonia 0.5
6 Mar Ammonia 1ppm. 2 fish showing clamped fins. Did 50% pwc.
8 Mar Ammonia 1ppm Did 20 % pwc
10 Mar Lost 2 fish that were fin clamped. Ammonia reading between 0.5-1ppm. Did 20% water change now using Stress coat to remove some of the Ammonia. Remaining 3 seemed happier. Ammonia reading 0.5 after water change.
12 Mar Ammonia 1ppm but guessing some of this would be ammonium now. Did 20% pwc
14 Mar: API master test kit finally came. Ammonia 1ppm Nitrite 0ppp Nitrate 40ppm ph 8.2 - quit high. Also tested my tapwater which looked like slight ammonia in it 0.25ppm Nitrate 40ppm ph 7.4. Did 25% pwc using stress coat. Ammonia still 1ppm ph 8.0
15 Mar: Ammonia 1ppm ph 8. Did 30% pwc using stress coat. Added Tetra safesart to water. Readings same later on. Evening 1 fish very poorly floating on back etc.
16 Mar: Fish died. added more safestart to tank. Readings still ammonia 1ppm, nitrites 0 nitrates 40
17 Mar: Same readings.
Well done if you've read all that and followed it. I hope you can see I have been trying to do my best? So how can I have no bacteria in my tank after 5 weeks? And 48 hours after safestart? I don't know whether to do daily pwc now or if that will stop the safestart working but I really want to save these last 2 fish. Any advice welcome, though I can't take the fish back/ put them somewhere else and I don't really have access to used media. 3 of my friends have small fish tanks overcrowded with goldfish and completely scrub them out and do 100% water changes, their fish live but I try and do it right and have problems! At a push I could ask one friend for some dirty gravel if the tank hasn't been cleaned for a while but am worried about putting diseases in my tank. I have bought some tetra aquasafe today as i'm not sure if the stress coat turning the ammonia to ammonium would stop the safestart working, i've looked for info on this and opinion seems divided. But if I use that instead of stress coat I'm going to have ammonia poisoning again?