what am I doing wrong?

[annie]

Can anyone advise me on what I'm doing wrong? I have had tropical fish for about 15 years on and off, I have always used an under water filter and never had any problems. I have a community 4foot tank set up this way, running well with happy fish, so happy that
I now have a pair of angels which have paired off and are breeding well so I set up a tank just for them taking advise from the man in the shop. He sold me a Jewel 60 tank with a fluval filter, I used water from the original tank and left it for a couple of days before moving the fish, she layed 2 days later but they didn't reach free swimming. one week later the tank is dirty, and fish don't look happy. I have followed the instructions to the letter so what now?

 

[cometcattle]

annie, I dont think your new tank fully cycled.

 

[Lateral Line]

>>> , I dont think your new tank fully cycled.

Spot on. Have a look through this.

 

[annie]

So what would you suggest I do now?
I was thinking of changing the filter to under gravel but don't want to mess the fish around any more than I have to.

 

[CFC]

Undergravel filters are a bit out of date now, the built in juwel internal power filter is a far better piece of equipment. What went wrong is that you didnt allow for a build up of the benefitial nitrobacteria within the sponges of the internal filter.
Do you have a understanding of the nitrogen cycle and test kits which test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? If the answer to this is no then you should buy some as soon as possible and read the pinned articals in the top of the begginers forum.
The best thing you could do now is to try and find someone who keeps fish and has sponge media in their filtration system, ask them if they could give you a small ammount of their already mature media to add to your so it will give your filter a kickstart, remember when transporting live media you must treat it in exactly the same way as a live fish.

 

[BIGMAC]

Once your tank is fully cycled you should be fine with that fluval filter i have them in every tank,providing the filter is big enough there should be no problem.