Teething Issues With My New Tank

[JoshuaA]

Even more bad news...

My girlfriend told me to another neon had died... down to 1 now. I asked how it looked etc and what she described sounded very similar to neon tetra disease. What striked me the most was that she said the "the fish was f***ed, its back was all crooked". This is an extremely bad sign isn't it...

So with the expectation this remaining neon will unfortunately pass away, it would be wise to completely empty the tank and start again? Thoroughly clean the tank/filter/heater/gravel/ornaments?

The final one just died within minutes of posting that comment.

Water reading (Just taken)
Ammonia - 0~02.5
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
PH - 7.6

Interesting...
Could someone possibly guide me on the actions to take? Should I disinfect everything or use some sort of special stuff to remove any traces of bacteria/parasites. Or should I go for a fishless cylce now? I have been reading posts on this forum and someone said the Ammonia from Boots is perfectly acceptable to use. Possibly could Assaye confirm this?

-

Finally, thanks for your help throughout this awful scenario. I know I definitely won't ever be buying fish from petsathome again.

 

[Assaye]

IMO you have two choices -

Use the bacteria you have developed to launch straight into a fishless cycle. Need to start very soon or the bacteria will die. This leavs the risk of disease lingering in the tank but gets you going quickly.

Nuke the tank with hot water and bleach, including filter, and replace the filter media. Rinse everything and leave to dry for a few days. Start from scratch with a controlled fishless cycle.

Sorry about the neons =(

I didn't use the stuff from Boots - I grabbed something in a independent hardware store. Others have used Boots ammonia so I imagine it's fine. You just need to make sure it is just ammonia and water, no perfumes or anything else. Give it a shake and open the lid to check it's not foaming.

In the Beginners Resource Centre there is a good article on fishless cycling.

 

[JoshuaA]

This leavs the risk of disease lingering in the tank but gets you going quickly.

Yeh that's what I'm worried about, however if I were fishless cycling and it took up to 30 days or so would there be risk of parasitic infection? Assuming the Ich hadn't killed it wouldn't be able to live the whole 30 days without a host... right? Or wrong?

Nuke the tank with hot water and bleach, including filter, and replace the filter media. Rinse everything and leave to dry for a few days. Start from scratch with a controlled fishless cycle.

~

This seems like the sensible option to me.

Since there was no conversion of ammonia to nitrite there is still trace amounts of ammonia from the build up from last nights water change and the death today.

Edit:

To top it off... I had to visit the dentist today! ARGHHH!! Dentist ended up saying he didn't feel the need to replace my broken filling (it broke within 2 weeks!!).

 

[waterdrop]

Should we take a guess that Joshua had a bad day? Sorry.

I agree with Assaye on the choices. I'm not very knowledgeable about the chances of the disease having been diagnosed correctly or of it lingering through a fishless cycle. Its possible you could query Wilder over in emergencies and get further insight prior to nuking a filter that probably has significant progress.

WD

 

[JoshuaA]

Should we take a guess that Joshua had a bad day? Sorry.

I agree with Assaye on the choices. I'm not very knowledgeable about the chances of the disease having been diagnosed correctly or of it lingering through a fishless cycle. Its possible you could query Wilder over in emergencies and get further insight prior to nuking a filter that probably has significant progress.

WD

The diagnosis of NTD was made as after reading through hundreds of web pages and comparing the symptoms. The most concerning was the irregular curve in the neons back, however that was only prevalent in one of the deaths. Didn't have a chance to get the ammonia last night so will have to grab a bottle sometime soon, Ammonia hasn't shown a dip yet.

I'm pretty gutted that those neons popped their clogs, though we were going to be home and dry once our ich treatment finished.

My dentist trip wasn't all that bad though! The dentist is rather attractive so it makes it even worse when you cringe at things.

 

[waterdrop]

What were the hardness and pH stats that the neon was living in? WD

 

[JoshuaA]

What were the hardness and pH stats that the neon was living in? WD

PH 7.6, hardness I have no idea where it lies. I was informed at the store that the water quality is fine for the neons. Obviously a lot of the stuff they said has been hot air. Im not even sure how to go about testing hardness.

I've started a fishless cycle now. Managed to pick up a bottle of 9.5% ammonia and fragrance free!

 

[waterdrop]

Your higher pH might indicate that your water is a bit hard and those two parameters, if true, might have added some stress to the neons, which thrive in very acid, soft water. Still, that would be unlikely to have been the only thing.

Glad to hear you found your ammonia! I won't be around much tomorrow but I'm sure the members will help you get started if need be.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JoshuaA]

Hey,

Been doing the "fishless" cycle for a week now with the ammonia artificially added and keeping in mind the tank has been up and running since the 30th of March. About the water "hardness" all I know is that the area that we live in is one of the softest water supplies in the UK (United Utilities data, water company in the UK). So its been a week and I added 3.6ml which took it up to about 5ppm on Ammonia. We've been doing tests each day to keep track and on some occasions the ammonia seems to have dropped (however further testing suggests not), the tank has 2 small Canadian pond weeds in. However upon testing Nitrite as I believed the cycle had actually finally started there was once again no traceable amounts of nitrite. So I tested nitrate to just make sure by some magical chance it had shot straight through and no 0ppm of Both Nitrite and Nitrate. So I did a high range Ph test and the Ph test came out at 8.4. I know we can expect the Ph to be high after adding ammonia, however is this likely to harm the chances of the tank cycling?

Furthermore the tank has been running for 40 days and there is no trace of any cycling taking place, of course we have changed the filter but this bacteria is after all a surface adhesive isn't it so it should of at least been on the mature gravel media I introduced. Is there by any chance that there is NONE, none of the bacteria we want, as in zilch as in does not exist in our tank? I've been trawling through pages and pages and people seem to be able to at least getting the cycle started after a week. However 40 days later we still see nothing. We had hoped that adding the ammonia artificially would of resulted in something perhaps encouraging the bacteria that may exist in the tank to begin flourishing. Nothing, not a sausage.

I understand cycling takes a long time, however the fact that this tank still hasn't EVER converted any ammonia into trace amounts of nitrite or nitrate begs the question, are we fighting a lost cause?

Ammonia 4ppm
Nitrite/Nitrate 0ppm
Ph - 8.4

40 days the tank has been up and has had ammonia levels ~0.25 for 33 of them, the other 7 days its been 4ppm.

- Josh

 

[waterdrop]

Unfortunately my experience is that when we talk about fishless cycles taking one to two months, we are talking about the time -starting- from when we dose the ammonia significantly. The 33 day period with .25 type readings I'm afraid will not be significant for you, especially since there were filter changes. The difference between autotrophic bacteria in the filter vs. autotrophic bacteria on other surfaces in the tank is huge. The other is real, but not likely to help you much. Now, don't get me wrong, your "preamble" period won't have -hurt- anything and it may have helped a little but its going to be better to think of yourself as 7 day in.

Speaking of 7 days into the fishless cycle, its very common for us to see the first significant ammonia dose not dropping at all for 2 full weeks and sometimes even 3 weeks. So don't let it bother you. Just concentrate on getting all your parameters right and doing good clear logging and communication.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JoshuaA]

Unfortunately my experience is that when we talk about fishless cycles taking one to two months, we are talking about the time -starting- from when we dose the ammonia significantly. The 33 day period with .25 type readings I'm afraid will not be significant for you, especially since there were filter changes. The difference between autotrophic bacteria in the filter vs. autotrophic bacteria on other surfaces in the tank is huge. The other is real, but not likely to help you much. Now, don't get me wrong, your "preamble" period won't have -hurt- anything and it may have helped a little but its going to be better to think of yourself as 7 day in.

Speaking of 7 days into the fishless cycle, its very common for us to see the first significant ammonia dose not dropping at all for 2 full weeks and sometimes even 3 weeks. So don't let it bother you. Just concentrate on getting all your parameters right and doing good clear logging and communication.

~~waterdrop~~

Nothing wrong with the high 8.4 ph? Don't need to dose it with anything to make it drop?

Edit:

My GF went to another LFS and asked about mature media, instead she got a mouthful from him about the way we went about setting up and putting the fish in. He apparently then proceeded to act as if he thought she was stupid for cycling without fish in the tank and further ignored any questions she asked about possibly purchasing some mature media. He is specifically fish in for cycling, however she did notice quite a few dead fish in the tanks which had been ignored. She had repeatedly attempted to explain we were in the scenario as we had followed advice by the word given to us from P@H. He was more in tune for telling her off over something that actually attempting to help her.

I find it utterly frustrating when they give you their life experience with fish and how they know what is right for the fish etc etc. Yet they try and replace the tried and tested method of mature media introduction in a new tank with "bottled bacteria" when they have just explained to you how they have always cycled the old fashioned way (fish in) or with mature media. Blatantly attempting to sell you a product which has a really low success rate is ludicrous to say the least. I have come so close to purchasing a bottle of TetraSafestart, however each time I pick the bottle up I picture myself inside a cardboard box without any food for months at a time ranging for tropical to artic weather conditions (Fridge and back of a lorry!). The fact the sell by date on one bottle was for 06/2015 made me really think how they get away with this?

Finally, does anyone know of a store chain or even a LFS around Wirral/Merseyside possibly even North Wales assuming my car passes its MOT that sells mature media? I hear about stores where you buy them the new filter media from their shelves and they will replace their mature media with the item you just bought. I never see these stores!

P.s Thanks for all your advice so far once again, its been a great learning curve. Hopefully from what I've learnt trawling through these topics on this forum I will be able to implement them successfully.

 

[Shelby]

If your friend has a mature tank why not see if you can get some of his media for your filter? If you keep adding the amonia and keep up with your testing your friends media will give you a jumpstart. Or did you check the list and see if anyone on here is close to you and could donate some to you?

 

[OldMan47]

With very soft water, you have almost no buffering capacity in your water. I have read reports from people in the UK of water at less than 3 degrees from the tap, so if you are among the softest, it may be difficult to control pH in your tanks. That means the pH raising effect of ammonia will be felt by the water. I have used ammonia to raise the pH of very pure water to 9.2 in an industrial setting, it was why we were adding ammonia to the water. The 8.4 pH is fine for growing your bacteria. Do keep a close eye on the pH since any water that jumps up that easily will come back down just as quickly. As you start processing the ammonia, you are removing a weak base, ammonium hydroxide, and replacing it with weak acids that use nitrite and nitrate negative ions. They can pull the pH down as fast as the ammonia raised it.

 

[Shelby]

Isn't there a particular rock or something that will raise your Ph? I thought I read that somewhere on this forum.

Edit**
Limestone I believe raises Ph.

 

[JoshuaA]

If your friend has a mature tank why not see if you can get some of his media for your filter? If you keep adding the amonia and keep up with your testing your friends media will give you a jumpstart. Or did you check the list and see if anyone on here is close to you and could donate some to you?

He has a rather big Einhem filter or whatever the brand is, the filter "foam" is quite odd and cutting it up/sacrificing it would probably ruin the filter. That was what we were thinking about but we didn't want to risk potentially ruining his filter. We did give it a good strain into a bowl of tank water which I added along with gravel media but nothing happened. Most the people who are in a reasonable distance from me to drive as I would prefer to deliver it into my tank same day that It is removed from there have not been active on the forum for some time.

With very soft water, you have almost no buffering capacity in your water. I have read reports from people in the UK of water at less than 3 degrees from the tap, so if you are among the softest, it may be difficult to control pH in your tanks. That means the pH raising effect of ammonia will be felt by the water. I have used ammonia to raise the pH of very pure water to 9.2 in an industrial setting, it was why we were adding ammonia to the water. The 8.4 pH is fine for growing your bacteria. Do keep a close eye on the pH since any water that jumps up that easily will come back down just as quickly. As you start processing the ammonia, you are removing a weak base, ammonium hydroxide, and replacing it with weak acids that use nitrite and nitrate negative ions. They can pull the pH down as fast as the ammonia raised it.

I like the science here, to explain how soft the water is... There is absolutely no calcium residue on any kettles we have had/washing machines or taps which have been used for many many many years! So assuming the cycle goes smoothly when it does begin to pick up, I can expect when it is actually processing the ammonia in 12 hours the water remaining will be roughly where it was before (7.6) at 0ppm nh3 and no2? Or will the massive water change that I am required to do before adding fish sort this one out? Just remembering to keep an eye on it?

Also could you possibly describe the method or products to use for hardness testing and whether there are products to adjust the levels that I will require?

Isn't there a particular rock or something that will raise your Ph? I thought I read that somewhere on this forum.

Edit**
Limestone I believe raises Ph.

I'm under the impression once the cycle is complete and it is happy processing 4ppm in 12 hours then I will see the PH level at a reasonably neutral level due to the fact the Ammonia which is altering the PH will bring it down.