Jinx3742

So yesterday i did a test on my water and found my nitrates a little High so i did a partial water change today and let it sit for a few hours and then i walked over to the tank to check on my fish and found my guppy had died he had been just fine earlyer swimming around and chaising the females no sighns of stress whatsoever we had named him soldier becuse he was the only fish that survived my tank set up and high levels oh PH and now my mollys look like they are stressed so i tested the water and came up with
10 ppm Nitrate
2.0 ppm nitrite
7.2 PH
0 Amonia
my tanks been set up for 2 months i thought i was cycled maybe im wrong
im treating the tap water with Aqua safe water conditioner and aquarium salt
and i have the aqua clear filter with the incerts one to help clear the amonia and the other is the charcol packet
the water is a little cloudy so i added some crystal clear which the guppy did fine with before can anyone help me figure out what i need to do before i lose any more fish

Well now my male molly is lying on the bottom acting like hes dying i just dont know what to do


before my little soldier died we had
3 guppys 1 male two female
2 mollys 1 male one female
1 platy male
in a 20 gallon tank
temp is currantly 78

armadillo

How much water do you change at water change time? Under 25% may not really have made that much difference to your nitrates, and over 50% may have been too harsh a difference? I would advise you between 25% and 50%. 50% if you have nitrate problems.

Do you treat your water with anything else than AquaSafe? Like a pH control product?

How often do you do water changes/filter rinses/gravel vaccuum? 50% WC and 50% gravel vaccuum should be 1x per week. Filter rinse as and when required - i.e. when your filter's clogged up.

How much were your nitrates, and how much are your nitrites/ammonnia now?

Wasn't the temperature of the water you put back in much lower after resting for 1 day? I don't bother resting the water if I use conditionner.

You could use a nitrate/nitrite/ammonia-treating conditionner to give you a safety margin on your waste levels. Amquel + and Prime do that.

You are absolutely positive he's a male? Could it be a female about to give birth?

How are your other fish? Are they also behaving odd?

How big is your tank, and what fish are in there?

Jinx3742

I did a 35- 40% water change and i also used a PH down, i do water change once a week and clean the filter eery other week in the bucket of aquarium water

nitrate is the same 10ppm
nitrite went up from 2.0 to 5.0ppm
amonia went from 0- 0.25ppm

i only set the water out for an hour because if i poor it in right away its cloudy and if i let it sit its clear again

And im positive he is male

my two guppys are acting fine and so is my platy just the 2 mollys are acting odd and my guppy passed we have a 20 gallon tank

Jinx3742

ok so i went to petsmart and had them test my water they said the nitrites were very very very high so she suggested some Cycle now my question is should i still do partial water changes every day to try and get those nitrites out and if i do, do i add more Cycle? My mollys still look stressed, my guppys look just fine and my platy is now looking like he is stressed, what do i do

sgould

Your nitrites are critically high. You should do 50% water changes daily (may want to even consider twice per day) for a few days until those readings come down. Also, cycle really does not seem to accomplish much, other than draining your bank account. In fact, many who have used it have reported that it ends up causing them mini-cycles.

sirdarksol

The way that Cycle works, as I understand it, is that it contains nitrifying bacteria. They begin consuming the various waste products, as the ones in your filter do. However, they are not the aquatic version of the bacteria, and, in the long run, they die, pumping all of the waste back into the tank.
I would can the Cycle.
Water changes are your best friends right now. If you don't have any live plants, you may want to consider adding a bit of anacharis. The stuff is really hardy (though you can't do a bleach dip), and grows quickly, which means it sucks waste out of the water to feed itself.

Jinx3742

How often should i do a water change and how much?

sgould

Once your readings come down, and you are (re)cycled, 20% once per week would be sufficient.

armadillo

Why does it make the water cloudy if you pour it in, and what is the difference if you wait an hour to pour it in? I use a 10L watering can to put the water back in to avoid cloudiness. Hope that helps.

I think if you let it sit an hour, you can't control what temp it's at and depending on where you live, there could be a 10-15 degree C difference between what's in the tank and what you're putting in (our room temp is about 17C, and our tank temp is 27C, for example).

armadillo

I wouldn't use cycle. I'd just do a lot of water changes for 4 weeks or so (at least 2x a week). The alternative is to buy a liquid test kit (people report a lot of success wiht the API kit) and do a water change every time you see your nitrates > 15, nitrites > 0, ammonia > 0. This may work out less than twice a week, depending on where you are in the cycle.

In the longer run, once you're through your initial teething problems, about 25% water change per week should be OK.

Oh, and airstones help with the whole nitrates/ites/ammonia, so I'd add one of these if you haven't already.

Jinx3742

i have the test kit your refering to i just took the water there so they could help me figure out what to do and they suggested cycle she said its what she uses in her tank,but now im thinking i wasted my money, i have been doing the water changes daily about 20-25% and the readings are stiil the same my fish look a little better today i have an air stone in the tank, i have no clue why the water is cloudy maybe its just extra air in the water it allways clears itself up ive never had a problem with the temp in my water going up or down if i leave the water out,
i think my issue with the Nitrites were when i was cleaning the tank i dug deep into the gravel severla times to get the debree out and even moved the gravle around and now i know i shouldnt do that so hopefully this well all fix the problem
im soo glad i found a place to go and ask questions from peoples experiance

sirdarksol

Some water is cloudy right out of the tap, possibly due to minerals that need to fully redissolve, or due to aeration. Letting the water sit makes it clear again.

Note that this cloudiness shouldn't hurt the fish, though.

capekate

Hello Jinx3742,
It doesnt sound like your tank was cycled with those readings you got and they were high enough to effect your fish's health. I would do those water changes every day til your nitrite level drops.
Also, you mentioned you used a PH DOWN. Its possible that the product changed the PH level drastically and that would not be very healthy for the fish. Was there a reason why you used that product? What is your PH level before and after using the PH down?

~ kate

Jinx3742

i used the PH down cause my PH was over 8.0 and it never dropped more than 1 notch down

sirdarksol

The problem with pH down is that it puts a coat of paint over rotting wood. It makes it look (to your tests) like there is no problem, but the basic problem still exists. What happens is that the pH drops for a little bit, but all of that stuff that makes the pH high attacks the acidic additive and raises it again. The resulting rollercoaster ride plays havoc with your fish.
What's the pH of your tap water?

The only really effective way to lower the pH of tank water is to use some type of special filtration, such as peat moss. (I'll see if I can dredge up a thread on this later. I'm off to work right now)

Jinx3742

So ive been doing the partial water changes on my Aquarium and the Nitrites arent going down at all so i bought some prime 3 days ago and still no luck and now im noticing brown algea spots on some of my fake plants, my black mollys still look stressed infact i think my pregnant one aborted her babys because she isnt big any more, the mollies are eating and swimming around but there tails are hunched over and when they breath in it looks like they have a light blue under there gills, and there tails arent as faned out as when i got them , my guppys are doing just fine and so is my platy oh and when i did my water change i decided to rinse the filter sponge, the charcol packet and amonia packet (in the tank water) and it turned the water black, ive never had that happen before im just at a loss and dont know what to do any more

sgould

The brown spots are diatoms and while they are not pretty, they are nothing to worry about...they will not hurt your fish. They are quite common in a new tank and will eventually go away on their own, or you can just wipe them off yourself.

How large are the partial water changes you are doing? Remember, the nitrite is being continuously produced, which is why it is hard to get those numbers down. The Prime is a great idea as it will chemically bind the nitrite so that it is not harmful to the fish. Keep up the water changes...50% daily, and keep using the Prime with every water change.

As to rinsing the filter media...I would not do that at all until your cycle is complete. The sponge is where the bacteria from your cycle are trying to colonize and you don't want to disturb them. The black you are seeing is dust from the charcoal that was distrubed/stirred up from the rinsing. Whenever you put new carbon (charcoal) in, be sure to rinse it very thoroughly first to remove as much of the dust as possible. When you rinsed, did you do it in the tank? You should rinse in a bucket of tank water that you have siphoned out during your water change...never directly in the tank.

Keep the faith...you are doing the right things, but they cycle just takes time. The warning signs you want to look for in the fish are red gills, lethargy, hanging out at the surface constantly, and gasping.

Jinx3742

im doing about a 30% water change every day and i rinsed the filter in the bucket of aquarium water



how long does drift wood last could this be my problem