Help! New Tank With Tss

Hello lovely fish people
I'm new to tropical fish and have a 7.5g? (28 litre) tank, I hadn't intended on getting fish until it had cycled but my children's grandfather looked after them for afew days and I came home to 4 zebra danios (pet shop advised him wrongly but I will upgrade my tank when I have room) returning fish isn't an option as my young children already adore them! I have added tetra safe start 8 days ago (bought it the day I got home and added it) and I know you shouldn't check the water for two weeks but yesterday and today my ammonia is at 2.0ppm, nitrite 0 nitrate was 5 yesterday and 10 today using the apI master test kit, I only have one small plant and two small moss balls in there but heading out to get more plants shortly, so to my question... shall I add another dose of tss or leave it and trust it's doing it's thing? Fish all seem fine and eating well but I'm a worrier and want them to be as happy as possible. Any advice greatly appreciated, thank you

 

Stick with the instructions! Most of the time tss fails because people get concerned and do a water change. Tsss will not "test" properly in those 14 days.

 

Stick with the instructions! Most of the time tss fails because people get concerned and do a water change. Tsss will not "test" properly in those 14 days.

Thank you for your reply, I'm definitely not changing the water until the 14 days are up. I'll just leave it be and not add any more tss for now I was just concerned about the ammonia levels.

 

As long as the ammonia and nitrates don't go into dangerous levels, go ahead and leave it alone.

If they get too high, you'll want to do a small water change. To do that safely during the first 2 weeks of tss, put enough water for a small water change and dose it with water conditioner then let it stand for 24 hours. By that time, the actions of the water conditioner that can interfere with the tss are over and you can safely do a small water change (around 10%). With your tank, you'll just need about 1 gallon.

I did this when I was cycling with tss. I had a 5 gallon bucket and kept 4 gallons treated Nd aged at least 24 hours and did a 4 to 3 gallon change 2 or 3 times the second week.

One other thing to consider is if you have enough media in your filter for the bacteria to grow a large colony. Modifying the filter by placing a small bag of fluval biomax in the open area in a filter doubles or triples the area the bacteria can grow in. This allows the bacteria to grow faster and the colony to grow larger.

 

As long as the ammonia and nitrates don't go into dangerous levels, go ahead and leave it alone.

If they get too high, you'll want to do a small water change. To do that safely during the first 2 weeks of tss, put enough water for a small water change and dose it with water conditioner then let it stand for 24 hours. By that time, the actions of the water conditioner that can interfere with the tss are over and you can safely do a small water change (around 10%). With your tank, you'll just need about 1 gallon.

I did this when I was cycling with tss. I had a 5 gallon bucket and kept 4 gallons treated Nd aged at least 24 hours and did a 4 to 3 gallon change 2 or 3 times the second week.

One other thing to consider is if you have enough media in your filter for the bacteria to grow a large colony. Modifying the filter by placing a small bag of fluval biomax in the open area in a filter doubles or triples the area the bacteria can grow in. This allows the bacteria to grow faster and the colony to grow larger.

Thank you so much, I've read so much conflicting information on tss I want sure what to do if it got to toxic levels in there. My filter came with the tank it's an aqua one 320 and only has a small sponge, I'm off to my lfs for some more plants now as I was totally unprepared for having fish in there so soon so I'll see if they have some biomax I can add. Thank you again for your advice.

 

Welcome to FishLore!

I think that if your ammonia is at 2ppm on day 8, something isn't working correctly. If it were me, I would do a large water change, or even back to back water changes to get the ammonia level as low as possible, wait 24 hours and add another entire, well shaken, appropriate size bottle of TSS.

But one thing you can do, is test your pH, if it is too close to 6.0, the TSS will not work due to the fact that ammonia consuming bacteria will not establish in a pH too far below 6.0.

 

Welcome to FishLore!

I think that if your ammonia is at 2ppm on day 8, something isn't working correctly. If it were me, I would do a large water change, or even back to back water changes to get the ammonia level as low as possible, wait 24 hours and add another entire, well shaken, appropriate size bottle of TSS.

But one thing you can do, is test your pH, if it is too close to 6.0, the TSS will not work due to the fact that ammonia consuming bacteria will not establish in a pH too far below 6.0.

Thank you, this is my concern too. I'm happy to leave it the 14 days if it is doing what it should but I'm very concerned about the ammonia. My ph is 7.4, I've just returned from my lfs he's told me to take a water sample in tomorrow and said tss isn't very good but they have a better bottle of bacteria that treats 1000l at only £5.75 (I'm in the uk) so now I'm very confused but don't want to add something to my fishes on the word of the lfs after seeing so much wrong advice given by fish shops to get a sale, I think I'm going to water change today and add tss again tomorrow and start the 2 weeks again. Because even though I have nitrates going up my ammonia isn't coming down.

 

Thank you for your reply, I'm definitely not changing the water until the 14 days are up. I'll just leave it be and not add any more tss for now I was just concerned about the ammonia levels.

If you test the water you’re stressing yourself out when you see the results then you do a water change and ruin it. Just leave it and don’t test

 

Thank you, this is my concern too. I'm happy to leave it the 14 days if it is doing what it should but I'm very concerned about the ammonia. My ph is 7.4, I've just returned from my lfs he's told me to take a water sample in tomorrow and said tss isn't very good but they have a better bottle of bacteria that treats 1000l at only £5.75 (I'm in the uk) so now I'm very confused but don't want to add something to my fishes on the word of the lfs after seeing so much wrong advice given by fish shops to get a sale, I think I'm going to water change today and add tss again tomorrow and start the 2 weeks again. Because even though I have nitrates going up my ammonia isn't coming down.

I understand your frustration. It took several weeks of bad advice and conflicting advice before a got to tss plus.

I would advise you not to listen to the fish store about using another bacteria. Most other bacteria use a land based strain of bacteria which does after a few weeks and competes with the aquatic bacteria you need. So, they will work but you'll get stuck in a cycle of having to redose every month.

Tss is unique because they use the strain of aquatic bacteria that a tank needs so once it establishes itself, you don't have to redose unless your tank crashes.

Tss can increase ammonia for a while because it is kept in an ammonia solution in the bottle to keep it alive. So, the bacteria has to eat it's way through what was in the tank and what's in the bottle.

Expanding the area for bacteria to survive does help. My 20 gallon tank with 4 jollies and a bn pleco got up to over 4 ppm ammonia and I was dosing it with ammo lock before I found a post in here with a letter from tetra explaining exactly how to use tss. I had to do a bunch of large water changes to get my ammonia down to then wait 24 hours to add it and I added the amount for a 30 gallon just to be sure. I also modified my filter with 2 small bags of the biomax and fluval sponge to help collect the large debris and my tank was cycled in 1 week. Then it took 1 more week of small water changes every other day and adding plants to bring my nitrates under control. I did add a booster of tss (the amount recommended for a water change) about 5 days in but that's all.

I haven't added anymore tss in over a month and my ammonia is always at 0

I'll put in the link for the letter from tetra because it has a lot of good info on tss and cycling.

Q & A With Tetra about Tetra SafeStart