JOE MONGA

hi there i have a problem today i went to petco to buy a test kit for my aquarium and as i was living a man and his family stop me if i want it so fish for free because they were aggressive to his other fish ( one is an albino rainbow shark and a zebra danio) he had them for over a year and he was goin to put them for adoption at the store, they told him they couldn't take them at that time and i said yes. right now fish are floating in their bag in the tank and i already put water in some of the tank water inside the bag im not close to finishing the cycle. I am wondering to do the water cycle with fish but im not sure if they'll survive i check with petco and they are hardy fish but what sould i do?

also my ammonia level is 0.25 and my ph is 7.4

COBettaCouple

The cycling would be hard on them. You would have to go to a cycling with fish process of daily water changes and using Prime to treat the water.

JOE MONGA

oh thax good thing too cause i bought some prime when i went but since im new can u help me on how to do the water changes

COBettaCouple

You could use gallon jugs to fill up with water after putting treatment in them or add the treatment right after adding water if you're using vacuum/hose equipment to fill the tank.

angelfish220

I like using plastic milk gallon containers because they are

a. around the house already
b. a known amount of water, so you know how much treatment to use
c. have lids and narrow openings making it much less easy to spill
d. have handles for easy carrying

luna

29 gallon tank...you're probably going to want/need to change at least 6 gallons every day. Do you have 1-2 buckets that have the volumes marked on the sides? It'll make keeping track of how much water you've changed out easier.

You'll want to measure out the amount of water you're going to be adding in and put it in one bucket, then condition it (and stir). Use another bucket (or more than one if you have to) to siphon out some of the old tank water, but don't stir up the substrate - it holds a lot of your beneficial bacteria, as well as the waste that feeds it.

Keep that water aside to test JUST your ammonia levels (until they start going down, chances are you won't have anything else to test, and will just be using up your test kit...you DO have a liquid test kit, right?), at least for now.

Now you can siphon/pour the new CONDITIONED water into the tank to replace the old water you've removed. The specifics of the method you use may vary based on what equipment you've got, but this is what I've found works for me and my (currently twice daily) water changes. I'm cycling with a fish (not on purpose, I wanted to cycle fishless), and I'm near the end of the cycle, when my levels are quite...volatile...and require more constant study and maintenance. It isn't easy to cycle with fish, and the bigger the tank the more work it will be (that's a lot of water to carry daily, but it's a good workout!), but it can be done.

What equipment DO you have...and does what I said make sense?

JOE MONGA

well like i said i bought a test kit to day and also took a sample of water to petco and they told me my ammonia was low, the water was soft but my nitrites were low

JOE MONGA

if every thing goes well my tank is going to have semi aggresive and aggresive fish i was thinking of on 1 blood parrot and four electric yellow cichlid and i already have the zevra danio and the albino rainbow shark cycling the thank what do u guys think

sp33drhno

blood parrot fish get big, around 8-10 inches. it's best if they're in a tank of at least 50 gallons. also the danio is a schooling fish, and would be happier with some company.