Avoiding And Treating New Tank Syndrome

[Underwurlde]

Am I the only one who thinks that hanging dead rotting things in a tank to cycle it just sounds wrong when you can just go down the shops and get a nice bottle of pure Ammonia?!

I mean, dead rotting meat in water, God only knows what else is going to end up in there!
Andy

 

[NutMutt]

Great thread, Anna. But I noticed that no one else mentioned that fish also breath out ammonia. Just like we (us humans) breath out Co2 after we take in oxygen, fish breath out ammonia from their gills with the exchange of oxygen.


I am new at fishkeeping (two months now), so I HOPE this info is correct???

 

[Benauld]

Am I the only one who thinks that hanging dead rotting things in a tank to cycle it just sounds wrong when you can just go down the shops and get a nice bottle of pure Ammonia?!

Using a food source is supposed to encourage bacteria which; amongst other things, mineralise the food which helps convert it into ammonia quickly. (Obviously, this is useful for when you start feeding your fish, so that you don't have ammonia sources persistently degrading in your tank). As with anything else in the natural world higher diversity of bacteria species should, through lack of dependence on one or two particular species, result in better stability of your water parameters.

However, that said, my attempt at cycling using food ended in dismal failure!

 

[ibbledibble]

Ive got a water testing kit for crimbo and now test water my self. what i would like to know is what are the ideal readings for these tests for a happy aquarium and fish.

the fish i have are ;- 2 clown loaches (had from start of tank 3 year ago)
4 black widdows
4 male guppys
1 penguin
1 lemon tetra

recently bought 5 neon tetras yesterday
they all seem happy and i havent lost any since the change touch wood

the tests i have in my kit are ;- Amonia
PH
Nitrate
Nitrite
I have also been advised to remove my nitrate filter sponge from mecanical filter as the plants need the nitrate.
The filter also has a carbon sponge and some people tell me to leave it in (lfs) and others tell me to take it out/ which ot these is the best for a happy aquarium?

please help i would be greatfull of you advise

you want the readings from your ammonia and nitrite test kits to read 0
nitrate gets used by plants in the aquarium and has never been proven to be harmful to fish, when you do water changes you will remove certain amounts of nitrate(but it can also be present in tap water) not sure what an "ideal" reading of nitrate would be, but its lees important than the other tests.

ph is a matter of preference with fish for example lemon tetras prefer a ph of 6.0-6.5, neon tetras prefer 5.5-6.0 and livebearers such as guppies prefer ph of 7.0 and above.

BUT this is primarily a preference, so long as you have a stable ph most fish will be fine

 

[vinylman]

For my new tank I filled it and left it for a week then I got fish BUT I also bought some bacterea to start the cycle, this makes it fairly safe for the fish as the cycle complete's it's self. The only trouble I had was at the very end of the cycle when the nitrites spiked to levels my chart wasnt even able to read. Also at this time I had a very pregnant female that had just gotten over a bad case of mouth fungus, so she didnt make it and she got horribly sick again from a missing scale by her cuadal fin. She didnt make it along with some small harlqiun rasboras that got constipated or wouldnt eat. I believe the fishless way of cycling may have the same effects when you add some fish to it so both ways seem to work but I learned the very hardest way not to add fish to a 24 hour old tank with no bacteria living in it! Also befor you add new fish to a tank you should do a gravel vacume and 20% water change the day befor. I would also suggest you don't add more then 3-5 fish at a time depending on their size.

What kind of bacteria did you buy? Bottled?. Waste of money. Getting a squeeze of some already cycled filter material is light years better than hoping bottled bacteria will work. Bacteria need a source of oxygen to survive - there's no oxygen in those 'miracle' bacteria in a bottle potions. Harlequin Rasboras are way too fragile for an uncycled tank, too.

 

[Gillymore]

Fantastic thread....informative AND easy to understand. Well done everyone!!

This fishless cycle wasn't mentioned or suggested during my first visit to my lfs!!

 

[aquila]

RTFM!

-giggles-

Excellent article, let's have it pinned!

Even better, something like this would fit onto an A5 sheet of paper that could be given out with every purchase of a new aquarium; it'd cost pennies to photocopy and distribute to LFSs and because it's simple and entertaining to read people might actually take notice.

 

[sunpirate2u]

i agree! It should be pinned and should be an A5 sheet given out to new fish owners.

I agree with "Cycling my tankis so boring, can't i put the fish in now?". My friend saw that i loved fish and he wanted to try it. I told him to cycle the tank and he didn't listen to me. All of his fish died in a week.

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Anna,

Well written article and worthy of pinning, but we've had a few others of similar elk which haven't been pinned simply because there are already similar threads pinned.

Anyway, as i said, well done but may i point out a few errors and ommissions?

Here's what I do to give my fish the best chance:
1. Immediately do a 10-15% water change with dechlorinated water and continue to do this at least once daily until your tank is cycling (i.e. ammonia and nitrite are at zero).

Quite often a 10 - 15% water change won't be enough to bring the fish back to relative safety. You should maybe advise that a 50 - 75% water change be performed in the first instance, and then test again. I would also emphasise more that its almost impossible to change too much water so long as temp, pH and kH are closely matched. I feel that this is a very important point which newbies need to know.

You could maybe also advise a level of ammonia and nitrite to aim for whilst cycling. It is popular on TFF to suggest that if either ammonia or nitrite rise to above 0.25mg/l, a water change should be performed to bring it back down. This is a realistic level to aim for (0 wouldn't be realistic in a cycling tank), and although 0.25mg/l is still toxic, it is about as low as is realistic to achieve in a cycling tank.

5. Avoid using medications, if at all possible, as many medications kill off beneficial bacteria. Your fish may well get ick, fungus or other infections due to the stress of the ammonia and nitrite but the priority is to get that water quality as good as possible.

I feel this may be slightly misleading. If the fish have Ich etc, the damage has already been done, and although correcting water conditions is critical, treatment is also. I wouldn't rely on correcting my water parameters to kill Ich, because it probably won't. I feel that in this situation, a combination of treatment and correcting the water conditions is essential.

The LFS sold me a product that locks away ammonia. Can I use that to save my fish?

Thirdly, theoretically, "locked" ammonia can't be utilised by the beneficial bacteria and may possibly retard its growth.

This is incorrect. Locked ammonia can be used by the biological filter just the same as un-locked ammonia. It won't impair the growth of the bacteria at all.

But I tested my water when I first set my tank up and it was fine!

You won't get ammonia or nitrite unless you have fish, or an artificial source of ammonia (such as that you add during fishless cycling).

May i suggest that it would be useful to add in here that many an LFS will send you away with tank, filter etc and tell you to come back in 1 week with a water sample. You go back 1 week later, and due to no ammonia source being added to the tank, the LFS says your water is fine as theres no ammonia or nitrite to speak of. This of course is nonsense as the levels aren't 0 because the tank is cycled, but actually because the cycle hasn't started yet. In my experience this is something which seems to catch out many beginners in the hobby.

I also agree with NutMutt that it would be useful to mention that fish also produce ammonia through respiration, so although not feeding will cut down ammonia prduction, it won't halt it altogether.

Lastly, may i suggest that you could also link to RDD1952's pinned article on fishless cycling which appears on this forum. It's one of the best i've seen.

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/[/URL]

Well done again on a good article and i hope my comments help.

Cheers

BTT

 

[kryton55]

I'm returning to Fish keeping after 30 years.
All this talk of water testing and adding ammonia to an empty Aquarium is an education to me.
Would you use tap water then leave the tank empty for 2 weeks?

 

[fishsupper]

Hi, welcome back to tropical fish keeping.Have a read of the fishless cycle in the pinned section then let the questions begin

 

[waterdrop]

I'm returning to Fish keeping after 30 years.
All this talk of water testing and adding ammonia to an empty Aquarium is an education to me.
Would you use tap water then leave the tank empty for 2 weeks?

Quick answer: Yes, that's the basics of it, you have an aquarium of conditioned tap water, you start the filter running, you heat the temp up (bacteria grow faster at a higher temp than even tropical fish like) and you begin adding a certain amount of ammonia (finding the right ammonia is important and can be a bit tricky but there's help here), very plain clear household ammonia once a day. You measure ammonia, nitrite and pH once or twice a day. Then, depending on luck and the extent to which you can follow carefully, you eventually see the signs in a few weeks or months that you have grown the two species of bacteria and thus created a properly working "bio-filter."

When you buy a filter, it is just raw hardware and not ready to carry out all its functions in an aquarium. It has 3 functions: mechanical filtration, biological filtration and chemical filtration. Chemical filtration is special and only needed at certain times, so carbon, the thing that does that function can just be left on the storage shelf for those times. Mechanical filtration, the catching of particles in the water will already be working pretty well, but will improve as the bacterial biofilms build up on the mechanical media. Its the biological function that is absolutely the most critical and its also the one that takes all this elaborate preparation we call cycling. But bio-filtration has the biggest pay-off of all, being the key, more than anything else, to having healthy fish.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GatorJ]

Good post thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Ah, good to see you take your reading seriously, GatorJ.

 

[B13]

3. Some filter companies recommend you change the filter media every month (Well they would say that, wouldn't they??? ). Not only is this an expensive waste of time quite often (filter sponges usually just need a rinse in some old tank water), you could be removing the beneficial bacteria. If you want to replace a filter insert, leave the sponge or floss in the tank for a week or so beforehand.

Ah!!

This is interesting! I have an Interpet PF3 internal filter and the blurb in the box says that I must replace the filter pads every 6 - 8 weeks, but this was flagging a major "####??" in my head because even as a newbie fishkeeper, I'm thinking that if I replace the pads, I'm removing the good bacteria and will be back to square one with my problems (which is the LFS not telling me about 'cycling'... Grrrrrr....)


So I've got a black carbon filter and a whie gawd-knows-what one in the PF3. As far as I can work out, the white one just needs the occasional jolly good rinse in tank water and the carbon one needs replacing from time to time.

Or...


Does the carbon filter foam only need a rinse in tank water too?