Beginner Questions On Cycling...

[mrvillicus]

Hi everyone, I can imagine this has been asked a million times allready so apologies in advance.

I have recently picked up a tank which was mature of approx 1 year. Included were fish so this is a step through of what I have done so far...

1) completely emptied tank to clean
2) Re filled whole tank with tap water treated with aquasafe
3) Fully cleaned filter
4) Put the fish back in
5) After 2 weeks no deaths all happy fish
6) took all fish out to give away due to being overstocked
7) planted dwarf hairgrass, vallis torta, african lotus, java fern, java moss
8) replaced 25% of water and changed filter cartridges
9) put in my new fish, 1 siamese fighter, 10 neon tetras (4 of which died within the hour) and 4 red fin columbian tetra.

now my qualms....

The tetras were floating either upside down or at a 90 degree angle, 1 of which was doing this in the bag the shop gave me so it looks like this problem was there before they got into my tank as all other fish are fine SO, do I really need to cycle?

I have ordered a PH kit, I will get a full testing kit for ammonia, nitrate and nitrite...but all seems to be ok even though I havent cycled, or tested the water properly.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated because I want to do this right!

 

[Cazgar]

How long was the filter out of the water & how did you clean it?
If in tap water you will have lost a lot of the good bacteria.
You say you changed the filter cartridges, so it sounds like you're now doing a fish in cycle.
Have a read here
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/

 

[mrvillicus]

Thankyou cazgar, well the filter was out for around 10mins and i just cleaned it under tap water. Yes I changed all but one filter cartridges....I have a new filter coming so I will read that thread and get clued up!

 

[OldMan47]

f you still have some of the original filter media, keep it. It is all that your fish have to rely on right now for processing their wastes. Many new fish keepers make the mistake of cleaning everything spotless in their filter. That dirty looking brown color of a filter pad is caused by the beneficial bacteria that a filter uses to process the ammonia produced directly by fish and by the decomposing fish wastes. Without those bacteria, the fish will not thrive. What we do is try to simply rinse the filter pads from our filters in used tank water, the stuff you drained to do a water change. After that rinse the filter pads go right back into the filter. As long as the filter stays damp, the bacteria will survive their trials. This evening I was doing some fish rearranging and removed a sponge filter from a tank to make it easier to catch the fish. I simply set it in a pail where it was kept wet until I got back to it about 2 hours later, it will be just fine for removing ammonia tomorrow because I kept it wet.

 

[4seasons]

Thankyou cazgar, well the filter was out for around 10mins and i just cleaned it under tap water. Yes I changed all but one filter cartridges....I have a new filter coming so I will read that thread and get clued up!

Doesn't cleaning in tap water mean chlorine killed all your bacteria and you now have to start your cycle from the beginning again?

 

[Aqua Tom]

Thankyou cazgar, well the filter was out for around 10mins and i just cleaned it under tap water. Yes I changed all but one filter cartridges....I have a new filter coming so I will read that thread and get clued up!

Doesn't cleaning in tap water mean chlorine killed all your bacteria and you now have to start your cycle from the beginning again?

Well it would have killed a lot of the bacteria but probably not all of it. Bacteria of any strain are tough little beasties.

Tom

 

[mrvillicus]

i will see what the test kit comes up with and go from there!