New fish keepers and we need a lot of help

Me and a couple of friends were bored at the store when we decided we should try setting up a fish tank. My dad had a successful chiclid tank for awhile so I knew we had all the supplies we needed. Once we got home we cleaned out the tank (no soap, don't worry) and bought some new ornaments, plants and gravel. We filled it up with water and then dechlorinated the water, put all our stuff in, and set up our under gravel filter, our filter, our bubble wand and let it sit over night. Here's our first mistake: we went to petco and the "fish expert" gave us the okay to put fish in. We sadly listened to him and bought 10 guppies and put them in our tank. They lasted awhile, I think our first death was after 5 days or so. But fast forwarding a little we're now on day 13. All of our guppies died, but while they were alive one of our females gave birth to 6 babies. 5 of the babies survived. So we have 5 guppy fry and 1 oto. I now know we didn't cycle our tank and I feel horrible that we put these fish through this. I got my water tested and the lady told me my ammonia levels were high (She said likely due to the dead fish) but I figured it was because my tank wasn't cycled and it was all out of wack. She told me to get some ammonia detoxifier and use it and then come back and see if I could save the rest of my fish. I used it as directed, although I think I over used a little and used it 2 days in a row as I was a little ancy to try and fix the problem. I went and got the water tested today and here's the results PH: 6.0 Ammonia: 0.5 Nitrite .25 Nitrate 10. Here are our major questions: Are we screwed? Should we just start over and humanely kill the remaining babies and oto we have and do a complete water change? Or is it possible our water is save-able? should we try something/wait it out? I really hope its save-able but we can restart if need be. I hope you don't think were some mindless fish hating teenagers we just didn't know what to do and we wanted to see the results as fast as we could. Thanks for you time.

 

Welcome to Fishlore!
It would be great if you could get your own test kit (API Freshwater Master Liquid is a good one), so you can easily test the water yourself. It would be a good idea to get your tap water tested to make sure you don't have ammonia or anything in your water. If it is clear start doing large water changes. That is definitely the bast way to get those high levels down and save your fish. What size tank is this by the way?

We would never think that of you. Many of us started the same way. Because you have the desire to learn and do right by your fish, you are on the road to success already!

 

Welcome to Fishlore!

You can still cycle it. Get some Tetra Safestart. Get an API Master Test kit (much more reliable than strips), and do frequent water changes til it cycles. When you do the safestart you won't be able to change the water until its had time to work (unless levels start to get to high).

Edit: Beat to the punch! A note on the Safestart -- you may not need it as you're already 2 weeks in, others can provide better info, but what it does is kinda jump-starts your cycle by adding beneficial bacteria.

 

Oh by the way we have a slight over-feeding problem so now we have quite a bit of excess food floating around in the water. We tried a little bit to gravel vacuum it out, but with little success. So basically there is still a lot of food floating in the water now.

 

alright we will go to the store and buy some. We just have a few more questions. What's considered high for these levels? How long should we wait for the safestart to work before we do water changes? How much water should we take out during a water change? like 20%?

 

The excess food will cause ammonia spike, do another water change and get as much out as possible. The fry won't need to eat much/just often, and the oto eats algae/veggies. Using prime will help detoxify the levels and make it safer for the fish. However prime and tetra safestart can't be used together. What size tank?, filter, temperature, any live plants?

Don't worry, I made same mistake, but noticed it a lot later and lost a lot more fish. Just don't buy more fish yet. hope fishies make it! Good luck!!!

Edit- ammonia and nitrIte should be 0 nitrAte should be under 40(lower the better) Ichange 30% weekly. I would do the same, for now atleast

 

You need to get the food out and be careful not to over feed. You want 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. You will need to do frequent water changes (possibly everyday about 50%) to keep those levels safe until your tank does cycle. Don't add anymore living creatures until your tank is cycled and then research VERY througly before adding more.

What size is the tank?

 

29 gallon tank, Millenium 2000 (160 gallons per hour), 78 degrees Fahrenheit, and no live plants. Thank you very much!

 

That's a really good sized tank to begin with, it gives a lot of options for fish without a ridiculous amount of cleaning

 

I would definitely do lots of water changes. And like already mentioned, try to get as much food out as possible. When feeding the fish, if any is left over after a minute it needs to be removed so it doesn't make the tank dirtier.

 

The ammonia lock is that what you are using? When I started I had the same problem that you are having but it will get better promise. The ammonia lock did work for me but what I found was that if you use it the tank don't cycle because its a process ammonia turns to nitrite and nitrite turns to nitrate that is the safest for the fish. So with the ammonia lock slowly dose that down so there is some ammonia or you will never cycle. I have learned that fry are VERY resilient I have fry and my 40B tank is having an issue at the moment and the fry are just fine. I do suggest a live plant they do help and they are pretty.

 

Welcome to FishLore!

With a pH of 6.0 the ammonia has turned into ammonium,which is far less toxic to the fish. You're issue now will be dealing with the nitrites. While you do not have quite enough bacteria to convert all the ammonia, you have enough to convrt some into nitrite.

One problem is that ammonium is not as good a food sourse as ammonia and there's a good chance that safestart will not help getting you enough ammonia/ammonium converting bacteria.

But since ammonium is so much less toxic it might be worth using safestart to help out with the nitrites (which are not effected by pH levels).

Best of luck!

 

alright thank you so much guys for all your help! We just did a 20-25% water change and added safestart and we cleaned out a lot of food from the gravel. How do you guys clean food that doesn't get eaten? with a net?

 

Yes, a net would be fine. I find that the best way to avoid feeding too much, is to feed bit by bit. You know, put in a tiny bit, then put in a tiny bit more etc.

 

You could also use a clean/new turkey baster to get food or random unwanted gunk in the tank that the net won't get