Coffey5030

I started a 55g tank 2 1/2 weeks ago. My ammonia levels are pretty high but, there are still no traces of nitrites or nitrates. How much water should I change and how often. I know about the nitrogen cycle and have been adding Stress Zyme.

Shawnie

Welcome to fishlore coffeey!!

if you are doing a fishless cycle, no water changes needed...just feed the tank a lil bit of fish food a night...goodluck!

Coffey5030

That was a quick response! I should have elaborated. There are in fact 12 fish in the tank. I was misguided when setting up my aquarium and tried to do everything at once. Now i have lost a few fish and wishing i had done my homework first. Along with stress zyme i have added Ammo-Lock because some of the fish were getting stressed. My opaline gourami seems to be itching himself on different things, my pearl gourami is puffy behind his gills and not eating. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Shawnie

I didnt think you had fish as your aquarium info just stated plants....thats signs of ammonia poision ....do you have a test kit and have you tested the water??

I would do DAILY water changes of at least 50% and treat the tap water with some prime ...that way you get a lil bit of control on locking up the things that would kill the fish..ammonia and nitrites always should be 0 with nitrates under 20...

Alessa

Then 50%+ water changes daily, preferibly with prime (water conditioner) otherwise you'll keep loosing fish!

Coffey5030

My water is from a well so should i still add the conditioner? My ammonia is .50ppm (mg/L).

Shawnie

the prime if you can get some, helps lock that down a bit...so yes it wouldnt hurt at this point..but the water changes daily are most important so you dont loose any more fishies ..

Coffey5030

Will a 50% daily water change slow down the nitrogen cycle? is it worth it to keep pouring in things like Stess Zyme and Ammo-lock?

Shawnie

no it wont slow down your cycle..beneficial bateria is on your decorations and in your filter media...you need the water changes to decrease the ammonia..and daily changes until its at 0 with nitrites at 0 also...stress zyme is better than anything at this point and im not familiar with ammo-lock...I hope someone comes along with info on that....

Evelyn1919

don't use ammolock. i used it while cycling and it didn't help. all you can do are the water changes and add tons of stress coat. if you keep doing this there won't be more dead fishies. i also didn't do my homework before getting my fish in my 75gal and my fish were dying then people here told me that i needed to do the daily water changes and add a good water conditioner ( went with stress coat by api) and there were no more dead ones. try not to use any chemicals in your tank because you will be better off. by just doing water changes it will help a whole lot.

good luck and welcome to fishlore!

pepetj

Hi Coffey5030.
At this point I wouldn't worry about the time it takes to cycle. You have fish in it, so the 50%water change (that's around 27 gal of water, changed daily) will keep your fish alive. The good thing about Prime (read it here recently, never used it) is that it removes chlorine/chloramine -which you don't need- but also prevents your tank from toxic spykes -which you do need.

In a fishless cycle, you want those spikes to happen, then to fade out. Not this case. You will need the two types of beneficial bacteria to grow in your 55gal tank. Your cycle probably needs to last longer, since you can't afford to have a sustained ammonia, and then nitrite, spikes (lethal to fish), so aim at keeping ammonia and nitrites at least at tolerable levels (the only safe level for ammonia and nitrites is zero). Log the info of all parameters, using liquid reagent test kit (don't trust strip tests). Good thing you have plants. A "silent" cycle is possible to achieve. At this point you would do better underfeeding than overfeeding your fish. Do careful substrate vacuum -focusing of solid waste only. The microscopic fellows you need grow in the substrate too. And of course leave the filter media untouched.

Another option you have, is to spend some money in Bio-Spira. I have no personal experience with it, but have read interesting stories around here. If you go with Bio-Spira, you don't need to log water parameters for the first week after adding it.

We are here for you. You can pull this off. I'm going through a mini-cycle myself, with fishlore help, I'm keeping things in order.

Good luck, wellcome to fishlore

Pepe
Santo Domingo

tzqng8

It has been re-formulated here in America as Tetra SafeStart and no longer needs refrigeration. Still not so easy to find in some places, but if you need help with that, let me know.

Coffey5030

Thank you all for the the help. I bought the tank and fish to relieve stress but it was having the opposite effect. I am very glad i found this forum.

Lucy

Hi Coffey, We're glad you found us to too.

I don't have any advice to add, the others have covered it very well.
Follow their advice you'll be fine and enjoying your fish.

Good luck.