Started cycle with fish

[zippy19]

Hello, My daughter got a 10 gal. tank for Christmas. We got it set up with fish about 3 weeks ago, but we didn't know about cycling. Long story short we treated for ich last week when we had a much bigger problem. Amonia is at 4 to 6 and nitrite is at 0 last night. I'm pretty sure I'll be sending home the last of the school tonight, all drains lead to the ocean

We started doing 20% water changes the last 2 days, should we continue these? I planned on getting some good gravel from the lfs tonight (lfs is fish store, right?) Then we would need to start adding amonia since the fish are gone, correct? Our water is well water, so we didn't treat for chlorine. But its kinda hard, would it make a difference if we used soft water?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Jo1980]

Sounds to me like you've got the right idea - but i'm only new at this as well...

I think that if you don't have a fish in there, you don't need to worry about the water changes, but YES you do need to add ammonia with no fish.

Not sure about the water tho...

Good Luck

Jo

 

[clutterydrawer]

Hiya

Some fish like hard warter, some prefer soft water. You can get a test kit from your lfs, check how hard your water is, and get fihs whihc can tolerate that hardness. *or* you can ask your lfs (Local Fish Store) how ahrd their water is - if it's like yours, the fish you buy from there will already be acclimatised to that sort of water.

You need to buy some pure household ammonia - no perfume/whatever. shake it, if it froths ltos, you cant use it. Or see if it has an ingredients list - should be jsut ammonia and water. If you look at the pinned topics in this section you will find some ace instructions on exactly how to cycle fishless.

However there *is* still a slight chance that you cansave the fish you have - you need to be doing big water changes every day to dilute the concentration of ammonia in the water. good luck!

 

[MammaKitty]

I am new also but if she already has a reading of 4 to 5 for ammonia does she still need to add some ?

 

[zippy19]

Well, the algae eater seems to be doing fine, I thought these were fragile fish, so I'm not adding any amonia. Last night amonia was about 3 to 4, the test kit says dangerous. Nitrite and nitrate are 0. I got a small net full of gravel from a tank at the store and suspened it in a stocking right next to the filter inlet. I'll keep up with the 20% water changes unless someone has some advice.

 

[MammaKitty]

Is there any other fish in there besides the algae eater ? from what I have read you should put the stocking directly on the gravel in your tank, just set it on top of your gravel. When you treated for the ich did you take the carbon out of the filter ?

 

[clutterydrawer]

keep up with the water changes, only add ammonia if theres no fish there.