Tigerfishy

I just sometimes seem to get a little confused what to do as my pet shop tells me one thing, all you guys tell me something else
I got told to do daily water change on here which i started, but pet shop said no as it takes out any bacteria that has built up and it will take longer to gain that bacteria. I never had a prob with my first tank and all i did was use Cycle, Aqua Plus and added first fish after a week as I did here with new tank. The other tank I only lost 2 fish to New tank syndrome and 1 looked a bit dodgy from the beginning anyway, (poor little danio guy, RIP!)

Lucy

I understand your confusion, who wouldn't be confused with people telling you different things!
Something to keep in mind, we're not here to make any money. The shopkeeper is.

There's very little bacteria in the water. It lives on the gravel, decorations and more so on your filter media.
The thing about cycling with fish, it does prolong the cycle but not because you're removing bacteria but because you're removing the ammonia that the beneficial bacteria needs to feed off of.
But.....we do that for the health and safety of our fish since ammonia and nitrites are toxic to them.

Shawnie

im sorry for all your losses and troubles also...we have all been there many times....just remember one thing, we dont make any money off you by giving advice and we are all out to help and love our fin babies...the pet stores are out to sell sell sell...I would shop around until you can find prime or amquel+ and just do partial daily water changes until the tank cycles properly....

Tigerfishy

OK, cool, thanks for that!
So maybe keep changing water then! I noticed Martini'smommy does a lot of breeding (and is amazing at it!), would love to know what she thinks too as well as everyone else.
Need to stop off at the shop tonight (managed to lose my net ...) so any recommendations, and what do these things do (so i know for future and can learn from this.)??
Shoud I keep with the stress zyme until he gets better, or use something else in case he relies on zyme eventually?
Haha you must think i'm a pest!

haha thanks shawnie! just as I was posting!

So had a quick look and seems like prime and amquel+ mainly available on internet (as not many UK people have access apart from online to it from what I've read so far). It seems like these 2 products are also water conditioners?
if so, it would be a million times better to use prime or amquel+ as it would be 1 for water conditioning and ammonia reduction instead of 1 to condition and also 1 to reduce ammonia...

Shawnie

yes if you get one of those, you do not need a water conditioner also...but ONLY one of those will detox the ammonia/nitrites and still leave it for the cycle process...dont let anyone talk you into anything else at this point....I know there are some members that can get the products and maybe starting a thread about the uk members finding it, would help more

Tigerfishy

I ordered Prime yesterday, should arrive today. The stress zyme I used will begin to wear off on Sat (a week after added) and so I will monitor the water conditions after that (at the moment conditions are within parameters and have been stable for days, prob due to the stress zyme eliminating the ammonia for now until it wears off).
When they begin to change, will monitor ammonia, daily water changes to control and Prime for maintenance and wait for everything to settle. Will be coming up for a month the tank has been running very shortly so should not take too much longer I hope.
At the moment, my betta boy has his tail fin and bottom fin fully uncurled and the top fin is nearly completely back to normal as well. Would love to know which kind of tail he has but has been difficult for me. Will try to get pics on here (but he has always had raggedy fins so excuse him, but I had to buy him when I saw him despite this, his personality makes up for it!)
It sounds like a plan, many thanks for all your help!!