Advice Please

[magicsgirl]

Hi I'm a newbie who found this brill site yesterday. Any advice would be great. My boyfriend bought a tank about 3 weeks ago. He has kept fish before but I think mostly by trial and error. I am completely new to fish but after losing three fish in two days read most of this site in the last 24 hrs, particularly the pinned articles on cyclying, tank maintenance etc.
As I said, he got his tank about 3 weeks ago. Didn;t wait for his tank to cycle (he'd never heard of cyclying until I told him about it) Put five neons and four guppys in on day 3. We lost 2 neons. A week later he put in a red finned black shark. A week later two silver sharks and 2 little frogs. On Sunday I bought 5 guppys. We have lost 3 of the new guppys in the last 2 days.
So. We bought a test kit but it was a 5 in 1 and we didn;t understand it
After reading loads last night we did a 25% water change, using some hot water from the kettle to keep temperature up and adding stress coat to dechlorinate. Today I have been out and bought a gravel pump/vac and individual testing kits for ph, nitrate, nitrite and ammonia. I asked my LFS if they could sell me some mature filter media from their filters or gravel but they just wanted to sell me chemicals!! Is there anyone out there in West Norfolk that would be prepared to sell us a little bit? I was planning on testing the water again tonight and recording the readings and then doing another water change (not sure whether should do 25% again or less - 10%?) oh and will vac gravel. LFS wanted to sell me Ammolock but from what I read yesterday it's better to get your water right naturally? Am so worried about getting all this right and preventing fish from suffering. Don't trust any of our LFS enough to take fish back so want to try and sort it ourselves. Is there anything else we should be doing?

 

[rabbut]

Do large 50% waterchanges dayly untill you have a good test kit that you cna understand and use correctly. Once you have the test kit, read [topic="224306"]this thread[/topic], if you haven't already, as it explains how to take things from there When cycling, large waterchanges are the order of the day.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[magicsgirl]

Do large 50% waterchanges dayly untill you have a good test kit that you cna understand and use correctly. Once you have the test kit, read [topic="224306"]this thread[/topic], if you haven't already, as it explains how to take things from there When cycling, large waterchanges are the order of the day.

HTH
Rabbut

Thanks Rabbut, I did indeed read your fish in cycling last night, very useful thanks. Just seems very scary changing so much water - am worried that it will stress the fish - all the activity and having to turn the pump off and the change in temperature for a short while (although was using some kettled water). By the way, do you recommend RO water?

 

[rabbut]

The larger waterchange will be less stressful than the ammonia. Temp changes aren't too bad as long as it doesn't rary more than a few degrees, as this may caures a whitespot outbreake.

RO has its uses, but in most trop tanks, there is little need to use it. I would just use strait tap. Using RO also caurses complications with stablising the pH and hardness values.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[magicsgirl]

The larger waterchange will be less stressful than the ammonia. Temp changes aren't too bad as long as it doesn't rary more than a few degrees, as this may caures a whitespot outbreake.

RO has its uses, but in most trop tanks, there is little need to use it. I would just use strait tap. Using RO also caurses complications with stablising the pH and hardness values.

HTH
Rabbut

OK great thanks, wish us luck!

 

[magicsgirl]

The larger waterchange will be less stressful than the ammonia. Temp changes aren't too bad as long as it doesn't rary more than a few degrees, as this may caures a whitespot outbreake.

RO has its uses, but in most trop tanks, there is little need to use it. I would just use strait tap. Using RO also caurses complications with stablising the pH and hardness values.

HTH
Rabbut

OK great thanks, wish us luck!

Did a 50% water change last night as readings for Nitrite and Nitrate were off the scale
pH 8
Nitrite 80
Nitrate 8
Ammonia 0 - 0.2

Tested again this morning
ph 8
Nitrite 40
Nitrate 4
Ammonia 0 -0.2

Will do another 50% change tonight

 

[magicsgirl]

The larger waterchange will be less stressful than the ammonia. Temp changes aren't too bad as long as it doesn't rary more than a few degrees, as this may caures a whitespot outbreake.

RO has its uses, but in most trop tanks, there is little need to use it. I would just use strait tap. Using RO also caurses complications with stablising the pH and hardness values.

HTH
Rabbut

OK great thanks, wish us luck!

Did a 50% water change last night as readings for Nitrite and Nitrate were off the scale
pH 8
Nitrite 80
Nitrate 8
Ammonia 0 - 0.2

Tested again this morning
ph 8
Nitrite 40
Nitrate 4
Ammonia 0 -0.2

Will do another 50% change tonight

Oops I mean Nitrate 80 Nitrite 8 and then this morning Nitrate 40 and Nitrite 4

 

[rabbut]

I would consider a 75% if nitirite is that high. At that level for a long time, nitrite will caurse gill damage and could potentialy lead to death of the fish you have ATM. The stress of a large waterchange will be far less than leaving them in there to deal with the nitrite

HTH
Rabbut

 

[magicsgirl]

I would consider a 75% if nitirite is that high. At that level for a long time, nitrite will caurse gill damage and could potentialy lead to death of the fish you have ATM. The stress of a large waterchange will be far less than leaving them in there to deal with the nitrite

HTH
Rabbut

Thanks Rabbut will do big water change tonight
Cheers