Fish Cycle

[bmc99]

Hello First post so be gentle. I had a 8 gallon tank with 6 small fish for just over 3 months
at first i was loosing a few fish but soon everything settled down and i had a happy tank. I soon caught the bug and wanted to expand so i got my self a 24 gallon. What i am trying to say is during setup i transferd
water from the old tank to the bigger tank over the space of 10 days putting fresh water back in the small tank then moved the plants and gravel to the tank. Then on the day of the big move the filters and fish. The fish all seem happy they have been in the new tank for nearly 2 weeks. Will this new tank be cycled. Water test reading CH-120 KH-180 PH-7 Nitrite 0 Nirate 20 I did introduce a silver tip shark catfish yesterday but it suddenly died today. one minute it was swimming around then it started to show alarming signs swimming funny sinking to the bottom then going back up then boom it was gone. This was fast somthing like 30 minutes from being healthy to droping dead.It was so distresing watching this poor fish die that way.

 

[Defiance]

Hiya,

You've really just moved the fish + filter/s from A to B

So yes the tank should be fine bioload-wise

As for the shark, not 100% up on those but do they need brackish (slightly salty) water ?

On a different note, i've had barbs both plain tigers and green tigers from the same batch/supplier, had a few die pretty rapidly for no reason really, then had some for another tank that seemed to have swimbladder problems and i saved most of them with meds

To me if a fish seems fine by all the usual visual checks and the water it's going in is suited to it and there's no obvious signs of lethargy, then a few points could come into play

Scenario 1: Fish is stressed, by my thinking the number one fast killer

Scenario 2: Fish just happens to peak from a internal bug etc as you happen to give it a new home

Scenario 3: The fish was from a weak batch of overbred/inbreds

The scenarios just go on really

To me death is the only thing 100% guaranteed on this planet, everything else maybe 99.9% but there's always the 00.01% that isn't

I don't think many fishkeepers over many years have'nt had a sudden death they can't explain unfortunately (even term it 'sudden death syndrome' or 'new tank death syndrome')

ATB

Tony

 

[waterdrop]

Hi bmc99 and Welcome to TFF!

Pretty much agree with Defiance that you may have just lost a weak individual from transport stress or tank moving disturbances, these things do happen.

However, your first post does reveal that there may be a nice set of baseline skills for the hobby that we practice here in the beginners section which you possibly have not had information on. Its great that you have questioned whether your new tank was fully cycled, this shows you're aware of the term "cycle," which puts you ahead of a good percentage of beginners!

One of the first things I'd consider would be a good liquid-reagent based test kit. To me it sounds as if you are testing with paper strips perhaps and we've come to regard those as worse than bad, as they can lead to incorrect numbers and actions sometimes. Many of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, the Salifert Tests or the Nutrafin Mini-Master Test Kit. One of the most important tests is the Ammonia test, often not present in paper test kits. Our three articles, The Nitrogen Cycle, The Fishless Cycle and the Fish-In Cycle in the Beginners Resource Center form a good basis for questions which you can then pose to the members and strengthen your knowledge of this all-important process and the ways we observe and deal with it.

Its highly likely your loss of fish during your first 8G experience was due to lack of real information about the growing of biofilters and the testing involved to qualify them. Starting up tanks is all about focusing on water chemistry, after which the fish themselves can almost follow with ease, although the art of stocking is another skill that one builds on throughout one's time in the hobby.

Moving a set bioload of fish along with their matching mature filter to a new tank is a time-honored way of upsizing, but there can be a few glitches to watch out for. One of them is the disturbance of the substrate. Often, moving time can be associate with substrate cleans and disturbances that release significant amounts of ammonia or debris leading to ammonia into the environment the gills are using. Another problem, usually rare thankfully, is the disturbance of the bacterial biofilms themselves, such that the bacteria seem to shut down for a bit, leaving you with elevated ammonia and nitrite at levels possibly big enough to kill fish.

Anyway, your problem sounds minor but there are just a number "ways to think" around the edges that you should be able to pick up on by your experience reading other beginner threads here in our wonderful beginner section and forum set at large. The members here are great! There's a very nice mix of people into the heart of the hobby and being very active, mixed with some old timers of great experience, enthusiastic re-beginners like me and excited new beginners thrown in to the mix, so everyone seems to help each other out - advice for the beginners and stimulation for the old-timers I think!

~~waterdrop~~