Worried about new tank!

[jvis0606]

It doesn't sound abnormal, everything you are going through. Try adding a product called Cycle, some people say it doesn't do much but it is supposed to add beneficial bacteria to your ecosystem. Keep with water changes, those are important, but little ones. Make sure to de-chloronate the water. I forget what fish you have in there now, total, but aquarium salt - small amount - might be a good way to keep the fish stress free. Otherwise, its difficult to do much since the tank has to go through this cycling process. Good luck! I am sure it will be fine in time.

 

[wrs]

you should stop using ammo lock, and do 3 water changes every 24 hours to get the ammo lock out of the tank.

like 33 or so percent of the water so all the ammo lock is gone, for all you know the ammonia could be gone. ammo lock is a waste.

 

[MattM]

here are the latest water test results taken approx 24hrs since the major water change/gravel cleaning last night and approx 30hrs since the last and final dosage of ammo-lock:


Jungle Strips:
----------------
pH: 7.2
Akalinity: 60
GH: 150
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: ~10



Marine Labs:
---------------
ammonia: ~2
nitrite: ~0.05
nitrate: 0


Aquarium Pharm:
---------------------
ammonia: ~4
nitrite: 0

The fish were last fed approx 36hrs ago and the tank has received ~5hrs of real light since then, with nearly all of the light before the water change. The tank heater is set to 75 degrees.

Based on the above, I am assuming that the earlier aquarium pharm test results were off and that as the ammo-lock drops out the ammonia readings will approach the marine lab results.

Therefore, I should be assuming that ammonia is mostly under control but still at levels that are much too high - and that the appropriate reaction is to continue with daily 30% water changes until the ammonia reads < 0.5ppm?

 

[njnauticalnut]

You want your amonia to read 0ppm, nitrite to read 0ppm and your nitrates as low as possible.

I recently finished a fishless cycle, but the cycle is the same. A question, did you ever notice your nitrites rising?

The first part of the cycle is to develop a good bacteria that converts the amonia to nitrites. Once the nitrites rise, the amonia should and will lessen. Then additional good bacteria will form converting nitrite into nitrate which is safe for fish in low amounts. The nitrates will rise and the nitrites will lessen. When both amonia and nitrites are at 0, the tank is cycled.

I tend to agree that the amonia lock product has possibly been inhibiting your bacteria growth or giving you false positives. I think that your best bet is to get rid of the amo-lock as folks on here suggested and then continue to do daily water changes. You may want to raise the temp just a bit as the fish should be okay in 76-78 degree water. The raised temp helps the bacteria grow. In a fishless cycle you can raise the temp into the 80s, but do NOT do that with fish in the tank. Keep testing daily, eventually the tank will cycle. It sounds like the fish are doing okay. The water changes will help to keep them alive, but will add time to your cycle.

Be patient, you are doing a good job and eventually the tank will stabilize.

 

[njnauticalnut]

Oh, forgot to state, raise your tank temp slowly one degree at a time.

 

[cichlidtank]

MattM you said that you are using a stress coat dechlorinator, but whenever I read the labels on them, non say that they break chlormine bonds. Chlormine leaves behind ammonia after it breaks down naturly and during summer you water provider may be buying water from sources that use this (but Im not making any claim to know if the stress coat stuff does or does not break the chlormine bonds). I would have to say that the immediate problem (if your ammonia levels begin to rise again) is to expell all the sources of possible ammonia production. Keep ontop of vaccuming your gravel and introducing new carbon to you power filter (at least once a month), dont overfeed, and dont overstock of course (I know someone said that you were, but I think you are just about right right now). It sounded to me like you had most of your fish early on (prior to a 4 or 6 week period of cycling) and since you started using the ammo lock substances your tank never had a chance to go through it normal startup processes. So dont use ammonia prevention chemicals or substances for more than a month AT THE MAX, because they do stifle the production of good bacteria culturing.

For the cloudiness there are also some water conditioners out there that may be able to control small particles. On the other hand the brown coloration from the photos and the smell you complained about point more to nitrogen or sulfur based gasses (probably released from bacteria).

I hope that you get everything going good and have gotten some good advise from this forum, but remember: theres no such thing as too much filtration.

 

[MattM]

I gradually raised the tank temperature to 77 degrees and performed a 4G water change tonight.

As for my source of water, for most of the last month, I have been using:

a) large reverse osmosis mechanical filter by aquarium pharm. You connect it to a faucet and it pumps out supposively dechlorinated/pure water at a modest rate after 5-10 minute wait. I've taken this water and added a "stress coat dechlorinator" dose and waited an hour or two just to be safe. I believe it also said it handled "chloramine" but I'll have to check next time I am at the tank.

B) a stockpile of arrowhead mountain spring 5G tanks that we've had laying around here (we fell behind on using what was being sent out and I never got around to reducing the subscription). Stress coat dechlorinator was also applied to this water, just to be safe- but w/o a really long wait.

c) when I ran out of the arrowhead water and didn't feel like using the reverse osmosis, I would take tap water ....put it in an old arrowhead bottle, add dechlorinator, and wait 12-24hrs before using.

Would one of these sources be completely incorrect?

regarding nitrite levels, I wasn't checking on these until this week as I didn't have a clear understanding of what they were before I have regularly tested ammonia, ever since the first fish died...which is how we got into the ammo-lock mess.

 

[MattM]

Unfortunately, things aren't going too well....

I went several days w/o any ammo lock and continued to make regular water changes w/ three 15% changes spaced 6hrs apart in the last 18hrs. The fish
were fed yesterday, but not today - light has also been minimal.

Still, the ammonia level continued to increase and reached 4-5 on both test kits this evening....also, the water in the tank continued to get ever more cloudy.

The fish themselves appeared normal until this morning, at which point I began to notice decreased activity. Some fish were still swimming exciting at the top of the tank, but most were on the bottom just treading water. This evening I saw two guppies appearing to lay at odd angles on the bottom of the tank (they were not dead, but gave me a scare for several minutes).

I think I am going to have to get a second tank to put all the fish in for a few days while this tank finishes the cycle process.... What do I need to setup a temporary tank? Should I use ammo-lock in the temp tank if an ammonia issue arrises? I will just let the main tank continue as it is with just a few hardy fish.

I appreciate your guys earlier help but things just aren't working out at the moment...

also, reading in another topic, I noticed the recommendation that the GPH rating of a tank filter should be roughly equivalent to 10 X tank size - so that a 45G tank should have 450GPH. The specs on my current filter is 180GPH (penguin 170 biowheel). If I upgrade to an emperor 280, that would provide 280GPH. A secondary mini-biowheel could be added for an additional 100GPH, although I'd rather not. I'm not sure how much this all could be playing a factor...

A guess a secondary under-gravel filter could also be an option, especially if placed on the other side of the tank from the primary.