choochiegirl

My tank has been up & running, it was cycled i believe, but i was using a hagen test kit where it was hard to read the levels. I added 2 fish and lost them in a week. I went & got the API kit and found my nitrites really high so got more fish and did 50% changes. My nitrites now go between .25-1.0 so am changing water a lot which I know won`t help this mini.

When i was at the LFS store, i noticed they sell seeded gravel in a mesh bag. I bought some in hopes that this will increase my bacteria so the nitrites will go away. any idea how long it will take to catch up?? Also should I just leave it in there indefinitely in case I have a problem with MTS?

Butterfly

I wouldn't add anymore fish right now. The seeded gravel should help, just keep checking the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. when you get to ammonia 0, nitrites 0 and some nitrates the it will be safe to add more fish.
As for water changes you may have to do small ones to get the nitrites down and help your present fish survive.
Ccarol

poppet

Hi i would probably be doing 20-25% water changes every second day to keep your reading under control, without harm to your fish. This cycle may seem that it will never end, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

choochiegirl

I'm keeping a close eye on the levels. I have a small ammonia reading now as well, not sure if it's from the fish or the seeded gravel. it was at 0 for a few weeks now

Man this fish keeping is hard!

poppet

Once your water is right, its not that hard.

choochiegirl

patience stinks but It will happen soon I hope

choochiegirl

i think my tank is backwards, my nitrItes finally got to 0 again but my ammonia is up slightly and my nitAtes have disappeared.

Butterfly

Since the ammonia is showing up the Nitrites and Nitrates won't be far behind
Carol

choochiegirl

*kicks mini cycle* I've been monitoring my water daily Ammonia goes between .5 to 1.0 which usually prompts me to do a water change, but won't that mess with the cycle? If I am using Prime in the water which claims to detoxify Ammonia, will my fish be safe with ammonia at 1.0 or should I keep up with the water changes?

0morrokh

I believe you want to aim for an ammonia level of .5 or lower. It will certainly slow down your cycle, but anything above .5 can start to be very toxic. Just make sure you are not doing so big of water changes that you remove the ammonia completely, which would starve the bacteria. Nitrites are less toxic so they can get up to 1.0 if I remember correctly.

choochiegirl

can't wait to see the water bill this month I'm thinking it wasn't the fish that started this but the seeded gravel from the LFS. Definately won't do that again!

Luniyn

Depends completely on the pH of your tank. If you have a pH of 6.5 then you "could" let your ammonia rise all the way to 11+ without seeing distress. Of course you should never do that, but just saying you "could". On the other had if you have a pH of 8.0 then that ammonia level cannot go above 0.5 without being very harmful to the fish. And even that's too high a level when your pH is that high, in which case I would highly recommend Prime or Amquel+ to detoxify the ammonia.

With fish you just don't have a choice, you have to do the water changes to keep the levels low. Yes it slows the cycle, but they will live through it. Just keep at it... it will resolve sooner or later (let's hope for sooner ).

choochiegirl

My pH is over 8 which is why I worry. I hope all will settle soon *crosses fingers*

0morrokh

Hmmm, yeah better keep that ammonia pretty low.

Yeah like Luniyn said Prime would be a very good idea. It detoxifies ammonia for the fish but doesn't actually interfere with the cycle. (Somehow it doesn't actually remove it, but does something so that it no longer can harm the fish but can still be "eaten" by the filter bacteria.) I'm not sure about the Amquel+...it might actually remove ammonia, which you don't want to do.

Luniyn

Nah... essentially Prime and Amquel+ are the same. The only thing that makes them different (besides the cheaper price of Prime) is that Prime has several other additives like slime coating and other helpful things. Kordon (the makers of Amquel+) decided to not put those things into Amquel+ and instead make a separate additive called NovAqua+ which has all the good extras that Prime adds plus a lot of others. They sell these as a combo pack if you want all the goodies, but it's again upping the price. Also Prime is more of a concentrated chemical so you only have to add 2 drops per gal of water, so it lasts a lot longer. But in the end they match up pretty well, especially since you can't always find Prime locally. So either will work fine, and they only bind up the toxic form of ammonia (NH3) so it's not harmful to your fish. The non-toxic form of ammonia (NH4+) is left alone so they really don't hurt your cycle at all. As far as I know, there isn't any product on the market that actually can removed ammonia from your tank. Well chemically... Bio-Spira and other such bio-additives say they remove ammonia because they actually have bacteria in them to eat it... not the same thing as Prime or Amquel+ at all... but that's a different post entirely.

choochiegirl

I've seen those posts Luniyn, very informative tho!!

things seem to be settling down & moving again. Ammonia is at .5 consistently, nitrites have gone back up to .5 and I have nitrates again at 5 to the filter is working again. Going to test again tonight and see how they are moving along