I think my cycle crashed?

I have had a 40 gallon tank running since Mar 20th. I did a fishless cycle using pure ammonia. I waited until the bacteria could convert the ammonia from 3ppm to 0ppm in one day. I then waited another week just to make sure everything was good for a fish. My ammonia was still dropping to 0ppm in one day so I decided to buy a black moor. I have had my fish since the 19th and have been checking the water constantly. Today my ammonia is 0.25 and my nitrites are also at 0.25! Why am I seeing these again? I dumped another bottle of TSS in the tank in hopes of pushing it along. I did the entire fishless cycle just so my fish wouldn't have to go through this but now it is. I couldn't be more frustrated!

 

Now that the TSS is in, your fish should be okay through the cycle. It has worked for me. Do you use Prime? If you do and you used it within 24 hours of TSS, it can effect the TSS. One thing with TSS is that you're not supposed to do water changes or test the water for 7-10 days as it will give you false readings.

As to why it happened, black moors produce a lot of waste. I don't know what that would equal in ppm per day, but it is possible that you went through a mini-cycle when you added him/her. It is frustrating when things don't work out how you want them to, but at least you got the TSS to help him out. Try not to worry and test the water during the TSS 7-10, you'll drive yourself nuts!

 

It has been 48 hours since I last used prime !

 

That's good. Hope your fishie friend does well! I'm sure he's happy to be out of the pet store.

 

Good morning,

Hopefully the Tetra Safe Start (TSS) will get your tank back on track.

Have you cleaned the tank and or filter recently? If you have, perhaps you have over cleaned which can remove too much beneficial bacteria causing a minI cycle.

Ken

 

I did do a gravel vac a couple of days ago and changed some of the water then.

This is Kiba

 

Hello,

I have to think that you may have simply over cleaned with your tank being so newly cycled. More than likely, a few daily water changes and Prime or Amquel + water conditioners would have done the trick to get your tank back on track.

On a well established tank, one that has been cycled for 6 months or so, a full vacuum probably wouldn't have been an issue. You may want to consider vacuuming 1/2 the tank one week and do the other half the next week, at least until your cycle has had time to get well established.

Remember that your beneficial bacteria is attached to all surface area of the aquarium with the highest concentrations of it being in your filter and your substrate. The filter housing most of your beneficial bacteria.

Hang in there!

Ken

 

Ooooh! I will definitely do it like that next time! I did vac the entire gravel so maybe that was it. I also added some salt to the tank. Do you think that could have had an effect?

 

Hello,

Salt should not be an issue with your cycle. However, I would stop adding salt as it may do more harm than good for freshwater fish. Beautiful Goldie!

Salt Info:



Ken

 

That is a great photo of your fish!

 

I just did another water test my ammonia and nitrites are sitting somewhere between 0 and 0.25. My nitrates are at 40ppm which is starting to get a little high. If I put water inside of a bucket and use prime on it, do you think it will be okay to add to the tank after 24 hours? To make things worse the two panda goldfish that my parents ordered just came in the mail. I opened the box and the company actually put three fish inside instead of two! Although the gesture was nice, I think now I am overstocked, or on the verge of being.

 

I am not sure. But I'll bump this since usually the people here are quicker at responding than this. Hopefully someone will see it if I bump it.

 

Letting the water treated with Prime sit 24 hours before adding should make it work with the SafeStart.

 

Okay, I will do that then. This is day 5 after adding the TSS. Everyone seems to be happy enough. Here are two of the smallest goldfish that I was given. The one with the large white patch is Oso and the other one is Pescado

 

Day 6 of TSS I am really worried about the levels! PLEASE HELP!!

pH 8.2
Ammonia 0.50
Nitrite 2.0
Nitrate 80!

Pescado looks really lethargic... he is kind of just floating around the tank and has his fins clamped. I also noticed that he has a rip in his tail and dorsal fins. Oso swims up to him and nudges him and then he follows him around for a little bit before going back to floating around. I noticed that Orca has lost a couple of scales. I am just about to toss all of the water and just start again treating it with prime. Please advise ASAP I don't want to lose any fish!

 

Oso, what are you using to test the water, liquid test kits or strips?

If your fish aren't currently doing well, no matter what testing method you are using, you will need to do a water change inspite of the fact you are using TSS. Do a 50% change along with a gravel vac. Refill the tank and then do another 50% water change. Nitrites cause a fish's body to not be able to utilize oxygen even when there is plenty of oxygen in a tank. Take a look at their gills. Are any of their gills kind of brown or purple in color? If they are it is an indication that the nitrites are indeed affecting their oxygen levels. Their gills should be a nice red inside. You should be able to get a look just by watching the gill movement. If the gills are discolored, do another 50% water change again Tuesday. (It's already tuesday but after you have a sleep and of course this is providing you do the water changes yet tonight. If you don't do them tonight, do them as soon as you can tuesday and then another one on wednesday.

Once you have the levels nice and low, you can try using TSS again, but make sure you wait until 24 hours have passed since the last water change or when prime was last added so that prime doesn't interfere with the TSS.

 

Pescado's gills do look a little dark. Oso, Orca, and Kiba look just fine. Pescado has deffinitly perked up a LOT since I did the water change. His dorsal fin is still clamped but he is now using his other fins to swim as apposed to just lifelessly floating around the tank. Do I have to dose prime each time I do a 50% water change or only once?

 

You'll have to dose both times. I'm glad he's looking a little more comfortable.

If you decide not to use TSS again, you will have to do daily 50% water changes along with Prime until the tank finishes cycling. Remember to always wait 24 hours after using prime to test the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. With doing 2 water changes tonight and another one again tomorrow (tuesday), don't test until wednesday, (24 hours after tuesday's last water change), then go ahead and test and either add TSS or do another 50% water change, which ever route you choose to go.

 

I think that I will just use prime this time. TSS is too nerve wrecking for me and it only takes a couple of minutes to do a 50% water change.

 

Ok, sounds good. When I cycle a tank in this manner, I like to try to keep ammonia and/or nitrites around the .25ppm mark. If levels go higher than that, don't be scared to do either an even larger water change than 50% or a double water change such as tonights. Your fish will appreciate your efforts and Prime is designed to treat and protect the fish from low levels of toxins (under 1ppm but I feel most comfortable keeping them around .25 as I mentioned). .25ppm ammonia is plenty to fully cycle a tank.

Good luck with your fish. Let us know how it all goes for you.

 

Do you think that I should get a small tank to put pescado in? He seems to have a hard time swimming with his ripped fin. Also Orca is nipping at him. Pescado is the smallest fish out of the bunch

 

You could separate them to give pescado's fins time to heal but please remember... no matter how small a goldfish is, he is a really big waste producer. If the tank is too small it will be very difficult cycle it. Filtration is something that should be oversized when dealing with goldfish to allow for more biomedia for a larger bacterial colony to establish. With HOB type filters, 10x the tank volume per hour is recommended and 5x if it's a canister type filter. With goldfish, I would use even more filtration than the recommended. As long as the currents don't become so strong the fish have problems swimming in them there is no such thing as too much filtration with a good portion of it containing biomedia such as Biomax. This is something you should consider for the 40G as well to help cycle it. I'm not sure what filter you currently use, but check out the volume per hour rating to make sure you aren't under filtering your tank.

 

On the 40 gallon I have two filters. One is a tetra whisper ex 70x. The other is an EHEIM Classic 250 External Canister Filter 2213.

Do you think that I should just get another canister filter to go on the 40 gallon instead of another tank? Any recommendations? I did find this it seems to have a much higher output than most of the other ones

 

With the combination of the two filters you have on the 40G, you should be ok. Canister filters are able to hold a lot more biomedia than HOB filters which is why most people prefer them. There is nothing wrong with a combination of filtration just make sure to use as much biomedia in the canister as you can to give the BB as much surface area as you can.

I'm always in favor of a quarantine tank. My only concern when you mentioned it is putting your goldfish in a tank that is too small and fish waste building up too rapidly in the small water volume. If you could manage a 15 or 20 gallon tank to use as a QT, I think that is about as small as I would want to go for a goldfish.

 

I am getting really frustrated with my tank...

I checked my water parems and they are at 1.0 ammonia 0 nitrite 80 nitrate
I am glad that the nitrites are back down to zero but why is the ammonia going up?
I have been doing daily 50% water changes and dosing with prime.
I skipped the water change and prime yesterday so that I could get a water reading today.
Will my tank ever cycle again?

 

If you are doing daily 50% water changes and your nitrates are at 80ppm, that would indicate that you have a huge amount of ammonia being produced (unless your tap water contains nitrates). So I would seem as if you have more ammonia than you have bacteria to process it. This could be due to just not having enough bacteria at the moment, or possibly you don't have enough filtration to hold enough bacteria to handle the ammonia load.

 

I have two canister filters and one hob filter.. isn't that more than enough? I will check my tap water for ammonia. I know it does have nitrates in it, but not 80ppm.

 

One would think you have enough filtration. How much nitrate is in your tap water? Having ammonia in your tap water also could explain the ammonia in your tank.