Hi

OK, here's my situation.

We set out tank up on the 15th of May and left it for a week. We then took a water sample to the pet shop and they said it was fine, so we bought 4 guppies.

Sadly, after about 10 days, 2 of my guppies died of what I realised a little too late was velvet. I then noticed that the remaining guppies had a tiny bit of white spot.

I've read, just about everything on whitespot. I've added some salt, turned the heat up, added a tiny bit of malachite green and done a couple of 15% water changes. I'm just a little concerned that doing daily water changes will harm the cycling process.

What do you think? Should I be doing daily water changes at this stage? Will it extend the cycling process? I tested the water a couple of days ago and it was ammonia - 0.7, nitrite - 0.1, nitrate 5 so I imagine with a couple of water changes it's gone down now.

Thank you so much

Kathryn

my experience with cycling with fishes its been all a sucess thnx to these lovely ppl and i think that 15% daily water changes should help i dont think its a bad idea...just make sure you de-chlorinate it first and then put it into the tank *stress coat* its a good choice to de-chlorinate water also what size is your tank? and for 21 bux u can get a master kit i cycled with 4 gupps too! none of them had yet died they scaped from stress 2 females are pregnates m currently 3 gups in the 10 and 1 male in the 29 helpin the angels and otos to cycle the tank


hope that helped im sure u'll have plenty of answers hopefully better than mine (more exactly info) but dont be afraid to do as i sed before


edited: did you dechlorinated the water previously put the fish in the tank?

This post has been edited by DOLORES: Jun 4 2004, 09:13 AM

Hiya, Sorry to hear about your loss, doing water changes does prolong the cycling process, i would say IMO you should do it once a week, your ammonia seems high, since your tank has been going for some time, now. it probably wasn't a good idea to start with guppies, as they are not very hardy, tetras would of been better but its too late for that now. also max 15-20 % and use some sort of water conditioner.

Hope this helps.

Hi

Thank you for your replies.

Yes, we dechlorinated the water before we started and I've added some stress zyme. I was originally planning on doing one water change a week, but all the articles on white spot say that I should do a daily vaccuum of the gravel to get rid of the tomites (?)

My tank is 60 litres, which I think is about 15 US gallons, 13 UK gallons.

That's interesting what you say about tetras being more hardy than guppies. We were specifically told not to go for tetras by our fish shop because he said that they were less hardy and not suitable for a cyling tank. Ho hum.

i find tetras weaker than guppies, none of my guppies died its about 2 month old (my ten) and my 29 is about 3 weeks

I have to disagree about the tetras and guppies. I cycled my 30 gallon 2 years ago with red eye tetras and he's stilla live today.

All in all though I find Platy's to be the hardiest.

As for the water changes. Its a very good idea to do small 10% water changes daily. This way your fish will not get amonia posioning. It will take the cycle long to complete but all in all you'll have happier healthier fish and no deaths!

Good Luck!