Newbie With A Right Mess

[sarah_]

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?

 

[mwood2]

Water changes should be done until ammonia reaches 0 and once detected again should be done again (I think). Have you changed the filter pads at all? The Sate start stuff is a waste of money as it does nothing for the tank even though it says it does. Bacteria needs a source of ammonia to grow thus a bottle with nothing to feed them doesn't really make sense.


Also I believe hearing that bacteria grows slower in coldwater then tropical.

 

[Warehouse]

Hi Sarah, welcome to the forum. What you can do now is to make life better for your remaining fish, and this can only be done by follwoing the "fish in cycle" guide which is here.. The plus side is that your fish can survive quite happily during this cycle, the bad news is that you are going to be sick of water changes by the time it's complete. You have a great water testing kit now and by coming here and posting you will very likely save the remaining fish too. Please keep us informed.

 

[sarah_]

I guess i'll probably be doing daily 50%pwc for a while then but I was worried this would affect the bacteria growing as I'm quite confused as to why i've no signs of any bacteria after 5 weeks unless it's too many water changes. Should I carry on with the stress coat or use the aquasafe which doesn't convert the ammonia? I have spent so many hours reading up on this stuff but a lot of it is contradictory about whats best. I had read some positive stuff about the Safestart so was hoping it would do something.

I forgot to say that when I started the ammonia problems I started feeding only tiny amounts every 2 to 3 days, they're not eating much anyway but carry on or stop for longer?

 

[moochy13]

i see lots of names of various chemicals and meds going in the tank. you shouldnt need to use any of them, i fish in cycled and didnt. if you get to the point where you suspect the water quality, change the water, dont throw endless chemicals in to try sort it out. i only use tapsafe to sort the tapwater out. just keep doing water changes using tapsafe, dont use anything else.

anything thats removing ammonia is removing bacteria food. i might have missed it, but why do you think you have no bacteria ? rinsing the sponges in old tank water wont have affected the bacteria population, not unless you were extremely vigorous with them. you have to consider your fish have already suffered from ammonia poisoning, and leaving the fry it didnt help, expecially in a tank that still wasnt mature.

i agree that i think bacteria grows slower in coldwater. when setting up a tropical tank, its suggested to whack the temp up when cycling, i can only assume this helps the bacteria. when changing the water, bear in mind the new water needs to be roughly the same temp as the water in the tank to avoid shocking the fish.

 

[Wend]

Hello fellow newbie, you have my sympathy. I think Id be about ready to ditch the whole thing and get rid! However I have found this forum sooo helpful and advice doesnt seem to be contradictory. Your information overload can stop now, good luck!

 

[sarah_]

i see lots of names of various chemicals and meds going in the tank. you shouldnt need to use any of them, i fish in cycled and didnt. if you get to the point where you suspect the water quality, change the water, dont throw endless chemicals in to try sort it out. i only use tapsafe to sort the tapwater out. just keep doing water changes using tapsafe, dont use anything else.

anything thats removing ammonia is removing bacteria food. i might have missed it, but why do you think you have no bacteria ? rinsing the sponges in old tank water wont have affected the bacteria population, not unless you were extremely vigorous with them. you have to consider your fish have already suffered from ammonia poisoning, and leaving the fry it didnt help, expecially in a tank that still wasnt mature.

i agree that i think bacteria grows slower in coldwater. when setting up a tropical tank, its suggested to whack the temp up when cycling, i can only assume this helps the bacteria. when changing the water, bear in mind the new water needs to be roughly the same temp as the water in the tank to avoid shocking the fish.

I think I have no bacteria because I have never had any Nitrites and the Nitrates are the same as tap water. I know the fry added to my problems but i'm not the kind of person who could just take them out and kill them. I haven't used meds exactly, mainly water conditioners but I changed brands to one that did chloramines and ammonia because the first one didn't say chloramines and then now i'm thinking to switch to one that does chloramines but not ammonia so the bacteria have a food source.

 

[KittyKat]

I guess i'll probably be doing daily 50%pwc for a while then

...but I was worried this would affect the bacteria growing as I'm quite confused as to why i've no signs of any bacteria after 5 weeks unless it's too many water changes.

Fast growing bacteria and poisoned fish or slow growing bacteria and live fish? Fish-in cycled normally take 6-8 weeks for tropical aquariums, more like 10-12+ for coldwater (29C is optimum for bacteria growth). This is why a fish-less cycle of normally 4-6 weeks is recommended.

Should I carry on with the stress coat or use the aquasafe which doesn't convert the ammonia? I have spent so many hours reading up on this stuff but a lot of it is contradictory about whats best. I had read some positive stuff about the Safestart so was hoping it would do something.

I use StressCoat as my standard dechlorinator. At least until your filter is cycles, I would advise you to use it over one which does not affect ammonia. Water changes are still your priority.. StressCoat is only a safeguard, not a solution.

I forgot to say that when I started the ammonia problems I started feeding only tiny amounts every 2 to 3 days, they're not eating much anyway but carry on or stop for longer?

All they can completely eat in 30 seconds, once every other day is fine for them for at least a month. Standard feeding (when there are no problems) should be as much as they can completely eat in 30 seconds, twice per day.

A 21 litre tank is far too small for white cloud mountain minnows: they are an active fish which should have at least 3ft of space to swim in. You should consider starting from scratch, going tropical and doing a fish-less cycle (maybe even to educate your daughter about responsible fishkeeping, and the rewards of being patient and doing everything right?) and then stock something more along the lines of cherry shrimp (who will have babies) and 3-5 male Endlers.

 

[Lolly123]

Seachem prime is a very good water conditioner, I would recommend that to anyone, very concentrated and treats a lot of water, so fairly cost effective if you wanted to try that in the future, maybe after you've sorted your cycle first, just to add.

I can understand that you did your best to try and resolve the issues you were having and obviously care enough to come on here and seek advice. Sometimes it's really tough with children, especially if promised for a certain reason, but on the whole it can be sticky situation as the kids wont understand why it's not the best thing to just dump fish in and then take it from there. I think someone on here had their child involved in the fishless cycle, and helped out with the water testing and all the other stuff, but then again it really depends how old the child is. But I always think its a good idea to teach them patience, even if they stamp their feet and demand for fishies lol.

I think you were unfortunate to get stuck with a load of fry, but then again its not uncommon.

As some of the others have said, if you do some reading up on fish in cycling it should give you a better idea of how to manage if you encounter anymore problems. The most important thing is to keep those levels down, fish-in cycling takes generally longer than fishless, so overall fishless, I feel, is the better way to go. But whats done is done and i'm sure you will get all the advice you need to get your tank on track.

Also remember that the tank is very small, so if there is any waste, such as from the fishes and excess food, it will pollute very quickly.

 

[sarah_]

So did 50%pwc yesterday, did tests few hours later in evening and ammonia was in between the colours of 0.5-1ppm. Tested today and ammonia was 0.5ppm, i'm quite hopeful about this as it's the first time ammonia has gone down in between water changes. Done 50% pwc and ammonia is 0.25, will check it again this evening.

 

[Tizer]

Now you are down to .25 ammonia its at a level your fish should be able to cope with until the tank is cycled properly.

what you want to have, is a 0.25 reading when you test, then do a 30% water change. the next day at the same time, do the same again, and as long as the reading doesnt go over 0.25 you know what you need to be doing every day until you see a nitrite reading. If its above 0.25 when you test, change a larger % of water. You need to keep your fish alive, but you also need to be feeding the filter with ammonia. As long as the ammonia is present and only builds up to 0.25ppm every 24 hours, you can fish in cycle relatively safely.


When you see a nitrite reading for the first time, your ammonia reading should zero itself and then you will be doing the same process until the nitrite becomes zero.

I cycled my 240 Litre tank with quite a few fish and didnt lose any, its doable, but it really is hard work with the water changes as you cannot afford to not do it every day.

If it helps you to compare, my fish in cycle started on day 1, on day 4 i started to register ammonia, i started with 40 litre water changes for the next 4 weeks, every single night bar one. The night i didnt do the change meant the reading the next day was double (0.5) so i did a 50% water change which put me back on track. After 4 weeks i got zero ammonia and a nitrite reading of 0.25. I carried on doing the same for another week and a bit. Then nitrite went to zero along with ammonia. Tank DONE. It was quite exhausting and i wont do it again soon, but i got through it with no fish loss.

 

[sarah_]

Ammonia 0.25 this morning so did 30%pwc as suggested. I don't know whether i'm always reading the test right as when I do the test in the daytime it looks like 0.25 but when I do the evening ones, so under artificial light it looks more between 0.25 to 0.5. I'm still not sure about my tapwater either,i've done a few tests and it always seems to be yellow but with a slight lime green tinge and i'm not sure whether this is what 0ppm looks like or whether indeed there is a slight trace of Ammonia in the tapwater. I've ordered some Prime now, lots of people seem to recommend it and i'm starting to worry that i'll get past the Ammonia stage then lose fish to high Nitrites so will feel better having the Prime to help I think.

 

[//stuart]

Do you know anyone who can donate sponge filter media you could bung in your filter to kick start the bacteria?

 

[fluttermoth]

Do you know anyone who can donate sponge filter media you could bung in your filter to kick start the bacteria?

I sent sarah some yesterday; hopefully at least some of the bacteria will survive in the post...

 

[sarah_]

Hi, yes Fluttermoth has kindly sent me some but it's in the hands of Royal Mail so hoping some survive until they deliver it. I don't know anyone in real life to get some off, as i've said the few people I know with aquariums don't do it right, 1 has a bowl with no filter and the other 2 do complete water changes/scrub everything (don't even think they use chlorine removers to be honest!)