ruthiesmom

So Jan31 I started my tank with 7 fish and 1 snail. I also added tetra-safestart. After 2 1/2 wks all fish were died except the snail. So I left the sanil in the tank and left the water alone. Tonight i checked the water and I am a bit confused. I know the ammonia would be high which it is.
Ammonia 3.0
nitrate-0
nitrite-.25

Is this actully showing that the tank is cycling still? If I do w a water change tommorrow and check the water what would it show?

Lucy

Maybe a mini cycle since you have nitrates but no nitrites.
I'd go ahead and do a 50% change tonight.
Obviously, if you test immediatly afrer a 50% change, the ammonia should be cut in 1/2, so wait till tomorrow to test.

shadowavenger

Safe start fails. I used it too and it hasn't worked.

tomchitown

I think even though you used safestart you should still be checking your water ...... i used it and it wasn't perfect but i was checking my water daily .... better to be safe than sorry

agabr123

with the safe start did you follow the directions explicitly? if you did a water change in the first 7-10 days it probably slowed it down significantly. also i think people have had more luck when adding more TSS than the bottle actually called for, which makes sense. more bacteria = faster cycle (or, at least it should equal a faster cycle)

but after three weeks i'd go ahead and do a water change, hopefully that will get things in order. take another reading immediately before you do the next water change after that and see where you are

Shawnie

IMO and experience, if TSS fails , theres usually a reason...whether it be too soon of water changes, to meds killing the bacateria, to this ...I think tina that the fish store sold you way too many fish for a 10 gal and the TSS was overloaded with too much ammonia to handle and failed...again its just my opinion ...and also, you having ammonia in the tap water, keeps the ammonia up there because of the bacteria not processed yet and it keeps getting overwhelmed you need a few water changes until that tank finishes its cycle, with spring water or something other than from your tap...once the cycle is done, there should be no problems with the bacteria handleing the ammonia in the tap, as long as you dont overstock the tank..

KyWildFish

10 gals can be hard to keep balanced. You might just change the water and wait it out till the tank equalizes. If you do want to add more fish later, do so SLOWLY. The tank's small size makes the adjustments that much more dramatic with bioload changes.

cg49me

I've got a 10gal and a 29gal myself, and I've had infinitely more problems with my 10gal. I used TSS in the 29gal, and it was cycled in less than 2 weeks. I had to give it two cracks in the 10gal, taking almost a month.

Smaller tanks are just more fragile. Don't lose hope!

shadowavenger

I think my problem with safe start was the store didn't handle it properly. It wasn't expired but its likely that during transport it could have been exposed to either freezing or temps above 110 like sitting in the back of a truck on a hot day, or just freezing from the winter depending on when it was transported. You also have to shake it violently because the bacteria adhere to the bottle and don't actually reside in the fluids so you have to knock them off (might help to cut the bottle in half and actually wipe the bionet on the inside of the bottle). With safe start it may just be hit and miss, sometimes you get a good bottle and it works, other times you get one that doesn't.