Added Fish 5 Weeks Into Fishless Cycle

[the_lock_man]

Nut, you need to consider 0.25ppm your absolute maximum level for ammonia and nitrite, then you need to do some easy maths.
 
If you do a 50% water change, you are taking away 50% of the ammonia and nitrite. If you have a level of 1.0ppm, then taking away half of it will leave you with 0.5ppm. If you have a level of 0.5ppm, then taking away half of it will leave you with 0.25ppm. You need to remember, though, that the level won't stay at 0.25ppm for long, it will soon build back up. So, if you have a level of 0.5ppm then you need to do a larger water change than 50%, to build in some leeway to allow levels to rise somewhat until you are able to test and change again.
 
Have a read of the green link in my signature area.

 

[nut4clife]

Ok the_lock_man you've gotten thru to the "nut"!  My readings this morning before leaving the house and after exchanging out 10 gals was Ammonia .50ppm Nitrite .50ppm.  I'll retest as soon as I get home and be prepared to do water changes to bring levels "mathmatically" to .25ppm or below.
Something else I noticed is I think I've to much gravel in the tank which is harboring quite a bit of waste.  Petsmart Tech advised when setting up initially to use 35 punds of gravel for the 29 gal aquarium.  I noticed on another site's thread that the gravel should only be 1/4 inch. 
What I currently have amounts to about 2 or 3 inches of gravel.  Is this to much?  I do notice quite a bit of waste when I'm siphoning through the gravel and at first I was only siphoning the top layer of gravel.  By accident I went deep into the gravel and was amazed at the amount of waste found deeper into the amount of gravel I'm using and found an area with the greatest amount of concentrated Nitrite (presumably). Your thoughts?

 

[ech0o]

I generally use around 2 inches, 3" may be a little much, but that really takes no precedence in what is happening with your tank right now, you are just going through a VERY NORMAL cycle that every single tank has to go through before it can be inhabited.  Definitely keep up on gravel vacs, don't mess with the filter, keep the nitrite under .25, and it will be no time at all that you will start noticing that the level of nitrite stops raising each day, and then it will eventually actually start to lower a little each day until eventually you will not detect it, once it starts happening, it happens quick.

 

[nut4clife]

Thanks ech0o very comforting

 

[ky*weremiej]

Hows the tank going ?

 

[BriansAquarium]

Nut, you need to consider 0.25ppm your absolute maximum level for ammonia and nitrite, then you need to do some easy maths.
 
If you do a 50% water change, you are taking away 50% of the ammonia and nitrite. If you have a level of 1.0ppm, then taking away half of it will leave you with 0.5ppm. If you have a level of 0.5ppm, then taking away half of it will leave you with 0.25ppm. You need to remember, though, that the level won't stay at 0.25ppm for long, it will soon build back up. So, if you have a level of 0.5ppm then you need to do a larger water change than 50%, to build in some leeway to allow levels to rise somewhat until you are able to test and change again.
 
Have a read of the green link in my signature area.

Just reading this. Your tap reading, like mine shows 0.50 PPM ammonia, so no way to get it less than that, only the bacteria will lower it more, so every time you water change and your ammonia is less than 0.50ppm, doing a water change will actually raise your ammonia levels. I'm doing a fish in cycle on my 20gallon right now as well and it is very frustrating, so I totally understand. My goal has been to keep nitrites less than 1ppm. If I see fish that are sluggish or not swimming as they usually do, or gasping for air at the top of the tank, I immediately do a 100% water change. Nitrite is to fish what Carbon Monoxide is to humans. Ammonia can cause burns and black spots on fish, and kills at a much lower level. That being said, ideally you want nitrite to be 0.25ppm or less. But with work and family, anything under 1ppm should be ok, just keep an eye on your fish and what they are doing.

 

[nut4clife]

Well mixed reviews.  I haven't posted in a while as I made a crucial mistake that cost me 2 of my Tiger Barbs.  I so tried to save them but couldn't and couldn't bear the backlash here.  I was removing water using the manual hand pump method and would replace the water with treated water (dechlorinator).  This was back breaking work lugging 5 gallon buckets to and fro.  So I bought the siphon with the 25 foot hose and faucet attachement.  Cool...until I forgot to run the water into the buckets and treat it with dechlorinator before adding it to the aquarium!  I ran the untreated water directly into the aquarium and when I turned to look at the aquarium 3 of the 6 Tiger Barbs were lying on their sides at the bottom of the aquarium!
I immediately knew I had made a grave mistake!  I grabbed the API Dechlorinator and poured 10ml into the tank along with 10ml of the API Stress Coat.  I had to hand swim the 3 to keep them alive, yet sadly 2 still died.  I was changing the water because the Ammonia reading was 2 ppm, Nitrite was 5ppm, and Nitrate 5ppm.
After this debacle the Ammonia was .50ppm, Nitirite .25ppm, and Nitrate was 0!  I guess the chlorine in the non treated water knocked out my bacteria Nitrate as well. 
The remaining Tiger Barbs are well and spunky.  So is the plec.  Unfortunately it seems I'm back to square 1 with my cycling.  Ammonia has been hovering around .25 to 1ppm, Nitrite has been up to 2ppm but no Nitrate.  Everyday has been removing at least 10 gallons or more to reduce Ammonia and Nitrite which the levels drop to .25 or below but within 24/48 hrs its back up.  As I remove H20 I make sure I'm cleaning through the gravel.  H20 is then ran into 5 gallon buckets, treated with dechlorinator and stress coat.  It sits for 15 minutes before adding back into the tank.  I retest the water for decreased Ammonia/Nitirite levels.  After 15 minutes I add API bacteria and API Sea Salt. 
Somewhat exasperated and demoralized at my ineptness but never quitting.
FYI This incident occured on 9/14.

Correction: In my last post above I stated 3 of 6 Tiger Barbs and it should be corrected to 3 of 5.

 

[4seasons]

Due to the .5ppm ammonia in your tap water, the only good option you have is to return the fish or give them to someone with a mature take to keep until your cycle is done.  You could by Prime to use as a dechlorinator due to the fact it detoxifies ammonia for 24 hours.  This will give your filter bacteria time to remove the ammonia.  But certainly don't change any of you filter media until it is falling apart.  The whole "replace every 4-6 weeks" deal is a sales pitch and only gets rid of some of the very bacteria you are trying to grow. 
 
But now for the real bad new.  Your cycle not being able to process nitrite yet combined with the ammonia in your tap water means you can never get ahead of the nitrite and will quickly kill fish.  The reason for this is the bacteria that turn ammonia into nitrite do it at a rate of 1 to 2.7.  In other words for every 1 ppm of ammonia in your tank it will become 2.7 ppm nitrite.  Then the nitrite converting bacteria have to do 2 and a half times as much work to get the nitrite down.    So for most people doing a fish in cycle we recomend doing a large water change every time you read any ammonia or nitrite.  But in your case the water change will only bring your ammonia down to .5 so you can never get rid of ammonia with a water change.  Then to make matters worse once you have the bacteria to change ammonia to nitrite every water change will reduce nitrite but only for the time it takes for the bacteria to change ammonia into nitrite.  So until you get the nitrite bacteria grown you will never get the nitrite under 1.35ppm with a water change. 

 

[4seasons]

One other thing you could try.   If you can find someone who could donate you some mature filter media you might get an instant cycle and not have to rehome or lose your remaining fish.

 

[nut4clife]

Current Stats:  9/21 8am Ammonia .50ppm, Nitrite 1.0ppm;  Tap Reading 8am Ammonia .50ppm Nitrite .0.0ppm; conducted 10 gal/3% water change; 
9/21 10am Ammonia 1.0ppm, Nitrite 0.0ppm (heading to Pet Store for Ammo Lock).  Also see pics of filter media.  It's normally brown and nasty looking in there but since the untreated water change 1.5 weeks ago it now appears bleach white everywhere within the media.  What should I do about this?
View attachment 71371View attachment 71372View attachment 71373

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Two quick notes:
 
1. I do not agree nor endorse the courses of action being suggested in this thread for how to deal with the situation. I believe yhey will cause more problems than good solutions. I hate to harp on it, but folks who want to cycle with fish in a tank really do need to learn the difference between NH3, NH4 and total ammonia as well as the difference between the total ion scale used in most hobby test kits vs the nitrogen scale used by science in determining the toxicity levels of short term exposure to ammonia and/or nitrite.
 
2. The addition of large amounts of dechlor and other products to make ammonia less toxic can and will slow down a cycle. They really should only to be used very short term to enable one to come up with a good solution. I would never over dose Prime or similar products more than once to enable one to organize a better response. They will also make your ammonia test kit useless for a while.