muddled

Hello! Nice to meet you all! I'm sorry that my first post is so long, but I need some help. ;-;

Two weeks ago I bought a 10 gallon fish tank, because of a huge discount that made me want to carry forward the idea of adding a Betta Fish with a small shoal of community fish. I made several mistakes that I'm trying to correct!

The fish sales person at Petsmart told me that I could add fish 24 hours after I set up the tank, cleaned up the gravel, decorations, and so on. So 24 hours later I go to Petsmart again, ask for what kind of fish would be good with a Betta (I wanted to add the community fish first so the betta wouldn't see the other fish as intruders or something), and she suggested 4 zebra danios to start.

It was all good, until I fed them the next day; I looked a couple of hours later, and the water was so cloudy! I did a bit of google and found out about the nitrogen cycle; after asking questions in many fish websites and doing a 50% water change, I decided to buy BioSpira which didn't arrive until last Saturday -- four days after I added the fish.

It was recommended to me that I do a huge water change AGAIN to make down the ammonia levels as low as possible for the BioSpira, but this is where the bad part comes in. (I use AP liquid test kits, btw)

I noticed that the ammonia wasn't going down... it was going up! It went from .25 to .75 to 1! I knew something was terribly wrong, so I did a test on my tap water and sure enough I noticed that the tap water contained 1 of ammonia. D: I asked around again, and I was told to put the BioSpira and leave the water alone -- I had treated the water with Tetra AquaSafe, so that should make the water safe, right?

The BioSpira really didn't make any changes in the water until this Monday (three days ago) when I saw .25 nitrites popping up.

Yesterday I saw .5 nitrites and a wee bit of Nitrates (I'm assuming 2.5, because it was in the middle of both levels)

Today I'm seeing 1 nitrites and around 7.5 nitrates...

The odd thing is, that the ammonia keeps showing up as 1! The PH hasn't moved from 8 either. Am I doing something wrong? I've been feeding the fish every other day to avoid the ammonia getting higher.

I hope this is normal -- the fish seem happy, and they swim around everywhere, but I'm concerned about the water levels.

Thank you so much to anyone who answers, or even reads this!

Shawnie

HI muddled and welcome to fishlore!! seeing how you have ammonia in your tap water, you might want to buy spring water for changing out your tank...that way you can get your ammonia to 0...your cycle is coming along because you have some nitrate readings...im not sure how lon gago you added bio-spira, but no readings or water changes for 7-10 days with that..then continue from their depending on your readings...do you have your betta in with the danio's now? keep an eye on fin nipping if so..betta's usually like to be alone but have broken those rules before..LFS arent always great on advice but the fact that you know this and have read about things, is great...goodluck

Alessa

WELCOME TO FISHLORE!!!!

I dont know... just keep an open eye on the fishes and their behavior. I used biospira on my tank and I got a bad batch so everything went wrong. (not saying it doesnt work, just saying sometimes you may get bad batches) so just wait a week (ish... and as long as your fish arent behaving weirdly) and then test. like shawnie said after that you will either have a cycled tank... or have to do daily 50% water changes until it cycles.

muddled

I first put the BioSpira last Saturday, that's about five days ago. I don't really have any other fish in the tank with the exception for the danio! I read about the danios, and that they could either bug the betta or perhaps they could even nip at the colorful betta fins, so that's made me sort of nervous about getting a betta fish. The fish at aquabid.com are so gorgeous though, it's hard to resist hehe But who knows, I'm still considering the stocking options.

I thought I had a bad batch of BioSpira because Mr. Postman couldn't wait for me to answer the door, and left a notice instead of giving me the package, thus delaying the shipment for one day -- the BioSpira was not chilled, so I figured that for the first two days that I used it and didn't see anything that the BioSpira was probably bad, until Monday when I started seeing some nitrites.

I guess there's no other choice than waiting at this point? I don't understand why there's ammonia in there with the nitrites and the nitrates, but I guess I'll make the water take it's own course! ;o Be good, water!

Alessa

Dont get a betta. (unless youre planning on getting another tank) they... dont like (or are liked) by other fishes usually.

and the biospira.... it happened to me too, exactly the same thing as you, I started noticing nitrites soon but it still took me 3 weeks to cycle and after the first 7 days ammonia was very high so I had to start doing water changes... and I lost one fish during my nitrite spike. So, just keep an eye open and wait a perhaps 2-4 days and as long as your fishes dont start acting funny before, you shouldnt do a water change until then.

Shawnie

Patience is the toughest part of cycleing with fish..but your getting close...the ammonia is all part of that process...but be glad you have a nitrate reading as that means its comeing along perfectly...it might not happen as fast as you want, but its faster than alot of others..my 75 gallon took 9 weeks so you can see that time is your best friend....i cant answer if the bs is bad or not..was it really cold when you finally did get the package? give it another 4 days or so then do some testing and go from there

if you dont have the betta, dont get one with danio's as you are right..they are nippers and your betta just isnt fast enough to get away ...

Evelyn1919

Welcome to fishlore!!!

like others here said just wait a little longer for the cycle to finish. you are not supposed to be checking your water when you ad biospira for like a week i think. like Shawnie said "Patience is the toughest part of clycling with fish". it also happend to me with my 75gal tank. for the past few day finally i've had readings of 0 ammonia and it was cycling for the last 4 months or so!!! and many many fish died because of me not knowing about the nitrogen cycle.

good luck and keep us posted!

jdhef

Hi Muddled,

You get the honor of being my first post!

I don't know what is up with you having ammonia in your tap water. Is that before adding water conditioner (stuff to dissapate chlorine)? I believe that if your water has chloramine (which is chlorine and ammonia) instead of chlorine that the water conditioner releases some ammonia.

I am cycling my tank with danio's. They are very hardy and will probably make it through the cycle. It is four weeks ago today that I added the danios, and I just finally started getting nitrite readings and zero ammonia on Tuesday.

I really didn't expect to be seeing any Nitrate readings yet, but last night I checked for nitrates anyway and found a reading of 10ppm. I was surprised by this and started reading the instructions that came with the test kit to see what the upper limit was supposed to be. In the instructions it said that tap water many times contains nitrates, so I tested my tap water and sure enough, it contained 10ppm.

My danios are a bit nippy with each other, so you may find that they will be nipping at a betta, if you choose to get one.

Good Luck,
John