Complete Newbie Needs Help With Tank Cycling

[Tefex]

Hey there, Bit of a story here.

Couple of weeks ago on a friday I picked up everything for my tank. They told me in the shop to just add the "Tapsafe" to my water get it all set up and that by Tuesday it would be fine for some fish. So, did all of that and on the Tuesday I went back, told them how I had only had it for a few days and they sold me 4 Zebra Danios. Then of course over the next few days 3 died, doing what appeared to be gasping for air and so forth, after looking into it all I discovered about cycling a tank, went straight out and bought an API Test kit. (I had been doing daily water changes)
Straight away tested and found my ammonia to be up at 2.0. Not good, got this down to 0.5 before my other fish died

So as it stands my tank is totally fishless. How is that going to affect the cycle? The ammonia in there is down to 0.25, the Nitrites are at about 10 (This was done with a strip test) and my Nitrates are at about 1... I just dont know what to do to keep the cycle going as the bacteria in there feeds off ammonia? Without the source won't that bacteria in there die? I dont know

Just wish I had been informed about it all at the shop >.> Wouldn't have bought the fish just for that to happen to them

Running a 28L with a "100F series maxi internal filter" and a 25Watt heater.

 

[FishFanatic04]

First off, This happens to A LOT of people. I did the same thing recently. The good news is that you can cycle your tank without fish. I also learned this recently with great success!! The best thing to do is find some ammonia. here's a thread on ammonia You can use this to cycle your filter. Don't feel bad. Most people in Fish stores do not realize that there is a better way to cycle a tank. My local fish store is full of wonderful people! But, they think that you should waste the lives of a few fish to cycle a tank. It's not true. Good luck! I am sure many people will pop on here and help you out!

Oh..Welcome to the forum!!

 

[Tefex]

Will check it out, Thanks I'm just confused as to.. The fish were in there for... 5 days, There has been none in there now for 4 days, shouldnt all of my levels be at 0?

 

[frapadoodle]

Get a bottle of ammonia and a liquid test kit. Do a fishless cycle, and find the salesperson who gave you the bad advice and punch them in the nose, lol.
We all make mistakes. The key is to learn from them.
The best advice is research! And don't give up.

 

[Tefex]

Haha xD Might be a plan to be honest

So, Should I just, take all of the water totally out of my tank, give it a good clean and start from fresh?

Also... I was picking up Nitrates for a while.. Still am picking them up.. Isn't that a good sign?

 

[Essjay]

Will check it out, Thanks I'm just confused as to.. The fish were in there for... 5 days, There has been none in there now for 4 days, shouldnt all of my levels be at 0?

You will have ammonia in the tank if you had fish in it for 5 days as they made the ammonia. It is still there because there are no bacteria in the filter to remove it - unless you replaced all of the water since the last fish died. Though it is possible that you have ammonia in the tapwater you filled the tank with as well.

The nitrates in the tank probably came from your tapwater. Cycling (that is, growing the bacteria in the filter) takes a lot longer than a few days. Are you sure you got the nitrite and nitrite readings the right way round in your first post?

Get yourself a bottle of ammonia, and do a fishless cycle. While you are doing that, use the time to research what fish you can keep. You said your tank is 28 litres - that is too small for danios. They may be small but they are such energetic swimmers that they need a long tank, something like 4 feet long. There are quite a few 'nano' fish that would be suitable, or perhaps a single betta (siamese fighting fish). There's a thread around somewhere on nano fish........



Edit: here it is http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/388573-nano-fish/ Though this is for fish suitable for 15 gallons not 7.5 galls (28 litres) though it will be a starting point for research.

 

[Tefex]

Ah, that does make sense :3 thank you
Yeah, I noticed my Danios seemed to not really suit it all too well, looked into everything a bit and was thinking about getting a Betta just with a few ghost shrimp

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Tefex. A new tank that has any source of decaying biological material will show some ammonia. Once the filter cycle progresses a bit, the ammonia will give way to nitrites. In our typical fishless cycle, we add some ammonia and expect to watch the nitrite spike followed by a rise in nitrates. Have you had a chance to read through the fishless cycle thread yet? If not, there is a link to it in my signature area.

 

[Tefex]

Welcome to the forum Tefex. A new tank that has any source of decaying biological material will show some ammonia. Once the filter cycle progresses a bit, the ammonia will give way to nitrites. In our typical fishless cycle, we add some ammonia and expect to watch the nitrite spike followed by a rise in nitrates. Have you had a chance to read through the fishless cycle thread yet? If not, there is a link to it in my signature area.

Just picked up my ammonia and sorted that out Thanks for the link for the fishless cycling thread, it answered a lot of questions for me

 

[balajake]

im on day 17 of my fishless cycle in my 64 litre and my nitrites spiked to over 5ppm last night finally. i expect it will be another 15 or so days till my tank i done

 

[OldMan47]

It will be about another 34 days before you are done balajake. The second phase often takes about twice as long as the first part. It is just how it works out in most cases.