New Aquarium With Fish Doing Cycle - Worried!

holy cow! that is crazy that he would say that! Those snails will also need a little bit of extra for their shells. I don't parboil the zucchinI some people do. it also floats. I have also tried green beans those I parboil and they will sink. I let it stay in there 2 days and then I remove what ever is left over. Normally the green bean is gone. The zucchinI has holes in it. but I have mystery snails and they are pigs. When the ammonia spiked they did close up their doors super tight. That's when I went and got a 2.5 gallon just for them until the ammonia went down. They opened back up with in an hour and went back to speeding around the tank.

They are zebra snails. Just raw zuchinnI or cooked? Does it have to be super small for them to eat? They seem to hardly move so I feel like it will just sit in the tank. The fish guy at our petco I heard he’s worked at another pet store before. He’s young. Probably my age (24) and he claimed he had fish of his own and he knew we had no idea what we were doing. Makes me wonder how his fish are alive by what he told us. He also told us NOT to float the bags before we put them in our brand new tank. He said (no one does that) and the water they gave us should be the same as our water. We thought that was off. I think that is what killed our angels. The one started laying upside down almost right after we put them in the tank. They also never came up for food the first 2 days.

That makes me want to fly out there and give him a piece of my mind or print out the 500+ page book that is on here to read.

 

The girls at petsmart say they own tanks for years yet none of them new about the nitrogen cycle. I'm glad we can all help. That's what this forum is for and everyone has always been super helpful.

 

That makes me want to fly out there and give him a piece of my mind or print out the 500+ page book that is on here to read.

Me too. I just don’t have the courage to call them up and say something. lol. I also mentioned to the guy what other people have been telling me and he was like “well, I mean everyone has their own opinion.”
He tried offering us more advice but we just ignored him after all of that.

 

Well I can say from personal experience I didn't know about it til I started up my new tanks and I had a heart breaking loss. But now we all know more and how to keep our fishy friends happy. But still this day n age you would hope that people who have aquariums and sell fish even at chain stores would know more. Education I guess is key. Just makes me sad that he said what he said.

 

Losing our angels was pretty sad. They are so big and pretty and didn’t deserve to die right away. made me very upset. We also supposably have a really good fish guy and he told us to use distilled water which on google it says not to use distilled so that is why I have been searching for answers and a lot of the same people on this site have been saying use prime and stability and big water changes for my issue.

 

High Red Koi Angel fish

• Khaleah
• Mar 28, 2018

RIP my little buddies

yeah I had a breeding pair of high red koi angel fish. broke my heart when they died.

I was using API products and had been humming and haaing about SeaChem products. Now that I have them I love their products. Don't get me wrong the API master tests are the best ever. Imo seachem has saved my tanks and helped my fish better. Mostly the difference between the API stress coat and the SeaChem Stress guard with the Prime and Stability. Plus Amazon has them as a good price and fast shipping. but that is just my personal preference

 

Best of luck getting your tank cycled! This is a great site to get helpful information about fish keeping! I have learned so much!! I love that you can post questions and get answers quickly.

 

Best of luck getting your tank cycled! This is a great site to get helpful information about fish keeping! I have learned so much!! I love that you can post questions and get answers quickly.

Thank you! So glad I found this site.

High Red Koi Angel fish

• Khaleah
• Mar 28, 2018

RIP my little buddies

yeah I had a breeding pair of high red koi angel fish. broke my heart when they died.

I was using API products and had been humming and haaing about SeaChem products. Now that I have them I love their products. Don't get me wrong the API master tests are the best ever. Imo seachem has saved my tanks and helped my fish better. Mostly the difference between the API stress coat and the SeaChem Stress guard with the Prime and Stability. Plus Amazon has them as a good price and fast shipping. but that is just my personal preference

I have never heard of them until I went on this site! I bought a few things on amazon. Some fish food and the apI master test kit. I will look up the stress guard!

Results today.. what is next? Shouldn’t nitrate be at 0 still?

 

Looks like your cycle is in high gear. Do a 20-30% water change to get those nitrates down. It will keep cycling no worries.

 

I can’t tell what the ammonia is but looks to be 1.0
Nitrite looks real high to me
Same as nitrate.
Is this normal? I feel like we are making more damage than good. Lol

 

Your doing great. The NITRITE and NITRATE is really high. Just do a partial water change. The nitrites will lower and as you keep going ammonia will be 0 then you nitrites will be 0 and your nitrates will be about 20ish. Just keep up on your daily water changes

 

@Eirlav_mgoo 20-30% and dose with prime and stability again? Same amounts?

 

Your doing great. The NITRITE and NITRATE is really high. Just do a partial water change. The nitrites will lower and as you keep going ammonia will be 0 then you nitrites will be 0 and your nitrates will be about 20ish. Just keep up on your daily water changes

Took the words right out of my mouth!

@Eirlav_mgoo 20-30% and dose with prime and stability again? Same amounts?

You got it. Same as yesterday. Like Khaleah said, your cycle is now if full swing. Id go on the high end at 30% but Keep at it!

 

Ok!! So not 50 right? Want to be sure! Thank you ladies so much!

Bad news today. Our male balloon molly has a red eye. Is this caused by poisoning?

 

It could be the stress as well. It should heal once everything is settled in the tank

 

Looks like this. Isn’t too bad yet

 

Yeah not bad at all

 

Going to try this again.
Currently trying to cycle a new tank with 3 mollies, 4 snails and 10 baby fry. In a 10 gallon tank. (Yes, petco told us all the wrong information) so we added fish in right away. We used Tetra safe start plus and API Stress coat to dechlorinate. We added them at the same time. (more of petcos horrible advice). We are on week 2 and we noticed last week our ammonia was reading 8.0. No fish deaths. Just one snail death. Immediately removed the snail. We were told to do water changes for a week. 25%. To lower ammonia. 6 days later and it’s reading 4.0. How do we get this down faster? Added TSS and stress coat today in our water change. And thinking we may have messed up again. We are new to this and have no idea what we are doing. How do we get our tank to cycle without harming our fish? I am thinking any day now they could die from the high ammonia. Here is our tank set up and our readings from today.

The best way to get it down in doing regular 5o percent water changes once every two day and once a week when ammonia is lower.

 

little Molly female

• Khaleah
• Mar 29, 2018

still in recovery

Here is Mine in recovery. She is still a little white on top and has some white on her fins. but looks 100% better than she did when I first saw her when the ammonia spiked.

 

The best way to get it down in doing regular 5o percent water changes once every two day and once a week when ammonia is lower.

Hi! Thanks, we did 2 50% water changes and the ammonia went from 4.0 to 1.0. We are now concerned about nitrites and nitrates but they should dissapear.

 

They will do down in time with the water changes.

 

little Molly female

• Khaleah
• Mar 29, 2018

still in recovery

Here is Mine in recovery. She is still a little white on top and has some white on her fins. but looks 100% better than she did when I first saw her when the ammonia spiked.

I love the orange!!

 

I love the orange!!

Thank you. My son picked her out. I just wish the other 2 had made it. but this girl is a strong one

 

Praying ours make It! And if they don’t I hope some of the fry do. Still have 10!! I don’t know how they are still alive with what our levels have been.

Levels today! Our ammonia is almost at 0! Yay!
Except our nitrites and nitrates are still really high??

Should we still do a 25% water change or more? I am still so confused on this process. I am probably getting annoying. Lol

 

Nope not a annoying. Yes please do another water change. Just keep at it with the water changes you will see you nitrites go down slowly

 

This seems bad today.. what are we doing wrong

 

Well your tank is going at super speed that's for sure. It's not going to change over night. Just water change water change water change. If you look at yesterday the nitrites are a little lighter and your nitrates are higher. Might be the light. But it looks a bit different.Your BB is doing it's job.

 

Going to try this again.
Currently trying to cycle a new tank with 3 mollies, 4 snails and 10 baby fry. In a 10 gallon tank. (Yes, petco told us all the wrong information) so we added fish in right away. We used Tetra safe start plus and API Stress coat to dechlorinate. We added them at the same time. (more of petcos horrible advice). We are on week 2 and we noticed last week our ammonia was reading 8.0. No fish deaths. Just one snail death. Immediately removed the snail. We were told to do water changes for a week. 25%. To lower ammonia. 6 days later and it’s reading 4.0. How do we get this down faster? Added TSS and stress coat today in our water change. And thinking we may have messed up again. We are new to this and have no idea what we are doing. How do we get our tank to cycle without harming our fish? I am thinking any day now they could die from the high ammonia. Here is our tank set up and our readings from today.

Hello Nicole B. Possibly some info that may help you. The Tank is not cycling.. that's why the Ammonia is still high. Are you getting Nitrites yet? also to much bio load & to many chemicals... Who in the world suggested stress coat? Its only 10 gallons dump it, warsh the stress coat off everything its aloe vera, its cloging everything at this point. Get some API tap water conditioner,that's all you need. Put 2 tiger barb fish in it. plug in the filter,heater set at 75.and leave it be,in a few days test for ammonia,these fish can handle the high ammonia
after a few days or so test for Nitrites,they will get real high real quick, when this happenes you tank is starting to cycle..DO NOT CHANGE ANY WATER...give it a few days start checking for Nitrates,When you start getting Nitrate readings The tank has cycled.Wait a couple of days change 25% water add some fish... This takes around 3 weeks IT works... The short on a cycle.. Google aquarium nitrogen cycle, the Spruce is a good one to read good luck

 

Quote from a different site that I have also used for help

"The basics of this method are to set up your tank, fill, treat with a , add some hardy fish that can handle stressful conditions, test/monitor the ammonia and nitrite levels, and do water changes as necessary.

When your cycle is established, you have a bacteria load that can handle the fish that are in there presently. More fish can be added in small numbers over a period of time, allowing for a mini-cycle to grow the bacteria levels to the new bio-load. You need to pay constant attention to your tank, testing daily, doing water changes when required, not when you can get around to it. Do not assume that you can add more fish just because reading are undetectable or low. Give the environment time to respond.

You will be captive to testing at least twice daily, doing water changes whenever ammonia or nitrites hit .25 ppm. Do not be surprised that even with a cautious approach, you lose some fish."

 

Quote from a different site that I have also used for help

"The basics of this method are to set up your tank, fill, treat with a , add some hardy fish that can handle stressful conditions, test/monitor the ammonia and nitrite levels, and do water changes as necessary.

When your cycle is established, you have a bacteria load that can handle the fish that are in there presently. More fish can be added in small numbers over a period of time, allowing for a mini-cycle to grow the bacteria levels to the new bio-load. You need to pay constant attention to your tank, testing daily, doing water changes when required, not when you can get around to it. Do not assume that you can add more fish just because reading are undetectable or low. Give the environment time to respond.

You will be captive to testing at least twice daily, doing water changes whenever ammonia or nitrites hit .25 ppm. Do not be surprised that even with a cautious approach, you lose some fish."

I am really confused now.

Hello Nicole B. Possibly some info that may help you. The Tank is not cycling.. that's why the Ammonia is still high. Are you getting Nitrites yet? also to much bio load & to many chemicals... Who in the world suggested stress coat? Its only 10 gallons dump it, warsh the stress coat off everything its aloe vera, its cloging everything at this point. Get some API tap water conditioner,that's all you need. Put 2 tiger barb fish in it. plug in the filter,heater set at 75.and leave it be,in a few days test for ammonia,these fish can handle the high ammonia
after a few days or so test for Nitrites,they will get real high real quick, when this happenes you tank is starting to cycle..DO NOT CHANGE ANY WATER...give it a few days start checking for Nitrates,When you start getting Nitrate readings The tank has cycled.Wait a couple of days change 25% water add some fish... This takes around 3 weeks IT works... The short on a cycle.. Google aquarium nitrogen cycle, the Spruce is a good one to read good luck

I’m not sure if you read all of the comments. But we can’t just dump all the water with 3 fish, 4 snails and a bunch of baby fish. We started our cycle wrong in the beginning and now we are having to start over.

 

My "quote" is just change the water as needed because of high levels for the most part.

From what I can tell since you ammonia is going down, nitrate spiked and is slowly going down and now you nitrites are going up like they are supposed to. That's what I would call cycling especially with fish in the tank.

 

My "quote" is just change the water as needed because of high levels for the most part.

From what I can tell since you ammonia is going down, nitrate spiked and is slowly going down and now you nitrites are going up like they are supposed to. That's what I would call cycling especially with fish in the tank.

I think the nitrites and nitrates both went up from yesterday. I can’t tell on the nitrite as My boyfriend did them. He said the ammonia was 0 today though. Should be a good sign? We still have no idea what we are doing but I hope making all the 25% water changes isn’t making it worse? We did do everything wrong in the beginning because of petco so I don’t think our BB was doing anything as it had been 2 weeks and we kept testing High ammonia for a week (not going down) even with 25% water changes. Wasn’t till we added prime in it started going down. We also had no nitrites or nitrates at all. I mean I keep waking up to all the fish alive. Must be doing something right. This is so stressful. I don’t want them to die. Lol I just want our tank to be cycled already. I hope those levels go down soon.

we have been adding 1/4 cap of prime and 1/2 cap of the BB. Is this too much ?

 

I just do the first line on the lid. Each line is like 1 ml I think.

But I read you can use up to 5x the regular amount in an urgent situation

 

Nitrites still the same. Sigh
Nitrates going down? I feel like we are doing things wrong.

 

What are your tap water readings?

 

We only tested Nitrates and Ammonia.
Nitrates 0
Ammonia was like 0.25
We will test nitrites in a bit and I’ll let you know!

Nitrite is 0 too for our tap. /:

 

Humm. I know prime helps detox nitrates n nitrites so that might be why your fish are still going strong

 

I would be doing 50% water changes with those levels. Have you vacuumed your gravel? Over time, old uneaten food and poop build up and cause ammonia build up.
Google Python vacuum.

 

I would be doing 50% water changes with those levels. Have you vacuumed your gravel? Over time, old uneaten food and poop build up and cause ammonia build up.
Google Python vacuum.

Yes we have been vacuuming every time we do a water change. Our ammonia is 0 now after 2 50% water changes. Only thing now is our nitrites and nitrates are very high which I’m not understanding why they aren’t going down still with water changes. Should we use more prime?

Humm. I know prime helps detox nitrates n nitrites so that might be why your fish are still going strong

I wonder if we should use more prime.

 

Prime does not reduce those levels, it only detoxify it for fish for 24 hours. Only water changes or lots of plants can lower them.