Dont know what is happening in my aquarium!

ok... I got biospira and I added it at the same time I added the fishes to my 28gal tank (wednesday). (1 platy, 2 dwarf gouramis, 2 mystery snails ). Now it is sunday and the tank stinks! .
my current readings are:

Ammonia:0.50
Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0.50

I haven't done any water changes because of the bio-spira.... Any comments or suggestions? I don't know if the smell is normal or if I should do water changes...

 

dont do any readings or water changes for at least a week...other wise you will freak out ....after the 7-10 days, do a test and go from there as far as what your readings tell you....ive never sniffed my tanks after adding bio so not sure what that's about..maybe someone else has and will know what you mean ....

 

ive never sniffed my tanks after adding bio so not sure what that's about..maybe someone else has and will know what you mean ....

Okay...call me curious but I have. Yeah--it can stink a little, but I didn't find the smell to be too strong.

Your numbers should be lower by now, I think. But the cycle appears to be coming along. No water changes for now--that's good. Did you treat your water with anything when you setup the tank? Many water treatments include ammonia binding agents, which are not recommended with Bio-Spira.

How about feeding? Are you sure you are not over-feeding?

-Cal

 

I had to do a water change after a week of adding the biospira because my ammonia levels are tOOOO high!... I don't know what to do? I am seeing spikes of everything but neither the ammonia nor the nitrites are coming down...

 

It appears Bio-Spira didn't work. What water conditioner did you use? I used Kordon NovAqua+ Plus Water Conditioner (no ammonia binding agents) with Bio-Spira. Your fish stocking level looks okay. Some "dwarf" gouramis get pretty big, but I assume you have all small ones so are you sure you're not feeding too much? It got stinky pretty fast, that's why I ask. If your fish are small, the tiniest possible pinch is probably enough.

Bio-Spira must be refrigerated, but not frozen. It's always possible that you got some bad Bio-Spira. I can only recommend replacing as much of your water as possible, with as many water changes as it takes and trying again. You'll know when you've change out enough water when the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates read close to zero. Personally, I match my water changes to the old tank water (ph, GH, KH, temperature) and do nearly 100% water changes, when necessary, to correct a problem (or suspected problem), but most people here don't recommend doing more than 50% or so at a time.

What kind of filter(s) are you using. Unless it's a very small filter, it's probably enough for those fish. I believe in 6x to 10x water turnover for most fully stocked tanks. 10x would be 280 gallons per hour filter flow for your 28 gallon, but your fish load is not terribly high so you should be able to do okay with less than that.

Bio-Spira works great but, recently, I've been testing "Right Now" bacteria and the Hiatt system. It can be a little more complicated to setup correctly than a HOB filter with Bio-Spira but I had complete success cycling my 10 gallon test tank in 24 hours with the stuff. I'm about to setup a 125 gallon tank with Right Now bacteria and 21 lbs of carbon tube filtering. Let me know if you are interested in trying something different and I'll try to help out. Do you have any plants in your tank?

-Cal

 

No... no plants. I also have some cycle and stress zyme that came as free samples with my tank... I believe that after I do the water change tomorrow I will add some...

I didnt freeze biospira, it was shiped in the night and I put it in the refrigerator as soon as it came... I also added the fish with the biospira so I don't know what could be going wrong... probably just a bad badge of biospira...

to top things off I had to use prime for my water change today... since I ran out of novaqua+

 

btw

ammonia: 3.0
Nitrites: 3.0
Nitrates 10 ...

 

hI alessa...what test kit are you using?

 

I was using the stripe things... now I am using the liquid one.

 

api? and I think you have too many posts about this going on LOL there's all kinds answers on different posts about the same thing...maybe a mod can collect them all together then you can see all the answers and solutions ppl are trying to help with...your cycle is comin along as you have nitrites and nitrates...

 

yes... api. well I am going to look around and meanwhile do water changes... I will also try with the cycle and stress zyme (although I have heard they don't really do anything... )

 

if you go with cycle, you will need it for the life of the tank...just continue with daily water changes...your so close!! .goodluck!

 

Yes! I just read about it... that if you use cycle you'll need it forever... what about stress zyme? is it the same?

 

I didnt freeze biospira, it was shiped in the night and I put it in the refrigerator as soon as it came... I also added the fish with the biospira so I don't know what could be going wrong... probably just a bad badge of biospira...

It's very hard to say what went wrong. In a former job, I flew night freight in heavy jets. Depending on where they are carried on the plane, packages can freeze. Was the package well insulated? It's such a small packet, it could freeze very quickly, if not well insulated, and there would be no way to know it had frozen upon receiving it.

 

that's true... it was just wrapped around a plastic attached to the cold pack that was suposed to keep it cold... not very well inssulated I guess

I'm going to try now with stress zyme...

 

Ok...
Ammonia 2.0
Nitrite 0.3
Nitrate 5.0

keeping up with the water changes...

 

ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0.50ppm
Nitrate: 8ppm