Dead Guppy

[finalfantay85]

The ammonia levels are coming down slightly with 50% water changes so i guess i'm in for a long time and lugging thousands of litres of water. Never mind. I'm hoping the gravel vac i get later will help bring it down a bit quicker by taking out any hidden rotting material.
Yeah i know that guppies are sensitive, in a way it was a good thing cos i found out my water chemistry was all wrong but still sad that he died.
Nearly time to lug another 30 litres of water

 

[ZoddyZod]

So what is the other stock in the tank? The higher the stock, the quicker your ammonia levesl will rise, the more you'll have to water change until the filter an handle it.

If, however, you have too many fish for your filter bacteria to handle, you may never see your ammonia levels rech 0 'naturally'.

 

[finalfantay85]

Ok well the good news is the levels are dropping, i'm somewhere around 1ppm now which is a lot better than last night, not great i know but it's going in the right direction.
I have 6 flame tetra, 8 copper harlequins and my surviving 5 guppy.
All are still relatively small fish i'd say under 2cm

 

[shelaghfishface]

shouldn`t take many more water changes to get that right down to zero then
as mentioned, dont, for goodness sake add anything that claims to drop it for you,,will result in tears.. all you need are water changes
arc at you moaning about a measly 30L .. wait till you get addicted to the hobby and end up with a 5ft tank and no hose pipe


come on it wont take you too much longer

 

[finalfantay85]

Na not moaing about it really just trying to make light of a bad situation. Yeah i'm already eyeing the huge tanks thinking...hmmm one day.
Hopefully it will be under control by this evening when i can vac the gravel clean and make sure there's no hidden rotting matter.
One other question. I tool the two carbon and fine wool filters (they are a single panel in the filter) out yesterday cos i was adding Melafix cos one of the guppies has a damaged tail but now cos of the hourly water changes there's not a lot of point continuing with the Melafix plus he seems to be healing fine without any help, so is it best to put the filter pads back in? I'm thinking yes?

 

[shelaghfishface]

no, you dont need to run carbon at all times anyway and your water changes will get rid of the melafix.. throw them out they are good as useless after a few days use, you can stop using melafix if you wish , this will hopefully clear it up for him

EDIT, tonight when you vac in there, you will likely raise the ammonia again i think by disturbing it all.. cant you get in and do it now while you are waterchanging anyway??

 

[finalfantay85]

No i don't have a gravel vac at the moment which is probably part of the problem. I will do a test tonight when i get the vac and if the levels still need me to do more water changes at that point i will do it then, if not i'll wait until my next water change.

 

[shelaghfishface]

ah right,sorry i missed that part, yeah make sure you have a good testing kit too- and let us know what happens when the vac is done
good luck
shelagh xxx

 

[finalfantay85]

I've got the API liquid one. I will keep an eye out for any other problems. No doubt i'll be begging for help again soon lol

 

[Spishkey]

do you know anyone with a well established aquarium? you could ask them for a piece of their mature filter media, you would then stick this straight into your filter and it will help greatly with your fish in cycle (the mature filter media will contains lots of healthy bacteria to help kick start your own bacteria colony in your filter...which in turn will eventually help keep the nitrite and ammonia down in your tank)

if you dont know anyone you could have some off...how about asking your lfs to sell you a chunk of theirs?

 

[finalfantay85]

I don't know anyone with a mature filter no. I am not gonna be able to get to the lfs until friday at the earliest but if i've still got no control over my readings by then then it might be the only option i have left.
But it looks to be heading in the right direction because i've got the ammonia down to around 0.5ppm