Fish-in Cycle

[greenscooby]

Hands up, i was wrong. i didn't do my research(slaps own wrists). I bought a Juwel Rekord 800, 80 x 35 x40cm, 110ltrs approx 24.5 gallons with aJuwel bioflow 400 pump and filter nearly 3 weeks ago, my lfs told me to fill the tank with water and the de-chlorinater run it empty for 24 hours then add fish, i ran it for 24 hours then added 6 small platties(reccomended by my lfs), the following week i added 2 baloon mollies and 2 black neons(also recommended by my lfs), last week i added 5 lemon tetras, i also have 5 moss balls and 12 live plants - I must point out that i have not put anything into my tank without consulting my lfs and having their ok and assurance that it would be fine for a tank as young as mine - my levels last week were, Ph 7.4, Ammonia 1, Nitrate 0, and Nitrite 0, my lfs said to do a 50 water change as my ammonia was too high, which i duly done, left it for 1 day and done another water test, the Ph stayed the same as did the Nitrate and Nitrite and my Ammonia dropped to 0.25, i've done another test today-Thursday- and my Ammonia has risen up to just under 1, all the rest of my readings have stayed the same, what should i do now?

All advice will be welcomed with open arms,

Many thanks,

Mark.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Hands up, i was wrong. i didn't do my research(slaps own wrists). I bought a Juwel Rekord 800, 80 x 35 x40cm, 110ltrs approx 24.5 gallons with aJuwel bioflow 400 pump and filter nearly 3 weeks ago, my lfs told me to fill the tank with water and the de-chlorinater run it empty for 24 hours then add fish, i ran it for 24 hours then added 6 small platties(reccomended by my lfs), the following week i added 2 baloon mollies and 2 black neons(also recommended by my lfs), last week i added 5 lemon tetras, i also have 5 moss balls and 12 live plants - I must point out that i have not put anything into my tank without consulting my lfs and having their ok and assurance that it would be fine for a tank as young as mine - my levels last week were, Ph 7.4, Ammonia 1, Nitrate 0, and Nitrite 0, my lfs said to do a 50 water change as my ammonia was too high, which i duly done, left it for 1 day and done another water test, the Ph stayed the same as did the Nitrate and Nitrite and my Ammonia dropped to 0.25, i've done another test today-Thursday- and my Ammonia has risen up to just under 1, all the rest of my readings have stayed the same, what should i do now?

All advice will be welcomed with open arms,

Many thanks,

Mark.

If you can, re-home the fish and do a fishless cycle, but if you cant here is what to do. You have to check your water EACH DAY and keep a very close eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels. If the Ammonia goes above .25, do a water change. Try to keep the ammonia below .25, anything above .25 is toxic to fish. They may not die right away or show any signs or anything, but if the ammonia stays over .25 for too long, it could damage their lungs and shorten their lives. After the ammonia has dropped to zero, your nitrite is going to go up. Do the same thing with the nitrite as you did the ammonia. When you start getting a nitrate reading, then you know you are nearing the end of your cycle, and when your ammonia and nitrite are zero, and your nitrate is going up, you now have a cycled tank. Don't let your nitrate go above 40-60, keep this down by doing like a 25% water change every couple weeks. Since you have a lot of fish in your tank, the cycling process might tank longer than expected. When doing a fish-in cycle, on your 24 gallon tank, you shouldn't have more than; I would guess 6-8 fish. So, having too many fish might hinder the cycle. Doing a fish-in cycle is a lot harder then doing a fishless cycle, and it puts a lot of stress on the fish if done improperly. You have to make sure you check the water everyday and keep a very close eye on your readings or you may jeopardize the fishes lives.
-Hope this helps out a little, and best of luck with your aquarium!

 

[greenscooby]

Should i do a large water change, say 50% or would a 25% water change be sufficient on a daily basis?

 

[greenscooby]

Just spoke to my lfs and they are saying to purchase a bacteria feeder to add to my filter and an ammonia remover to add to my water once a week when i do a water change, they also reckon that some mature media will only work in a mature tank. I'm so CONFUSED now, do i do daily water changes - lfs say no - and add these products they are reccomending and hope all goes well, or do daily water changes for several weeks, i'm not looking for any shortcuts just want to make sure i'm doing the right thing for my fish and tank.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Hi there,

Unfortunately the situation the lfs have got you into is not uncommon. It's a difficult distinction for a newbie to the hobby to make but you must rememember that the fish shop is exactly that, a shop. It's a commercial enterprise, not an advice centre, and while most of the staff are fishkeepers they are not marine biologists and they're advice will always be tempered with what is commercially best for the business.

Unfortunately too many fish shops are unscrupulous, they will sell you some fish that they know will most likely die or get ill, then you go back and they can sell you some bacteria supplements and some medications then they can sell you another batch of fish when the first one's die off.

That makes much better business sense than selling someone a bottle of ammonia and a test kit for a few quid and telling them they need to follow what can initially feel like quite a complicated process for 6 weeks before adding any fish. It may be best for the fish but it's not best for business as most customers will just go to the shop down the road which will sell them fish straight away.

So the situation you are in now is a fish-in cycle, the fish are producing ammonia but you have little or no bacteria to consume the ammonia. Bacteria supplements are a brilliant idea, however unfortunately bacteria can not live in a bottle on a shelf forever with no food or oxygen, so the majority of the time they don't contain any live bacteria and as such don't work.

What you need to do is to dilute the ammonia as much as possible, your target is to keep ammonia and nitrite as close to 0 as possible never letting them get above 0.25ppm. So do as many large water changes as you need to achieve this. I would start now with an 80% water change, test your levels 1 hour afterwards and see how they are, if they're not down to your target levels then do another water change. You'll need to do this every day for a few weeks, when the filter is cycled you'll get readings of 0 for ammonia and nitrite without needing any water changes. Then you can just go through the usual weekly maintenance of roughly 30% water change once a week.

Now if you don't fancy all those water changes which can be a bit back breaking, then return the fish to the shop and do a fishless cycle as per the link in my signature, it is much less hard work and it's better for the fish, however we understand when people don't want to return their new pets (and sometimes the fish shop won't take them back) so we won't look on you too harshly if you continue with a fish-in cycle.

 

[greenscooby]

ok so an 80% change NOW lol, then depending on readings can i lower it to a 50% change an a daily basis?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's difficult to predict the %age size changes you need, if you can keep within the targets with just a 25% change every day then that's absolutely fine, also it will change as the cycle progresses, you'll be doing quite large ones to start off with and this will then reduce over a few weeks.

start with 50% and see what your readings are afterwards, if 50% easily takes you to 0,0 for ammonia and nitrite then you can try 40% and see if that works, it's just a bit of trial and error on your part so see what you need to do to hit your targets.

 

[greenscooby]

ok, just doing another ammonia test as i type, to see if it's changed since yesterday.

 

[greenscooby]

Just done another ammonia test and i'm down from 1 yesterday to 0.5 today, i'll stiil do a big water change now, am i right in thinking not to clean the substrate to thoroughly as this will remove the stuff that will help with bacteria growth?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

nope with fish-in your priority is to keep the fish healthy not to grow the bacteria. they bacteria will grow of their own accord as long as fish are in the tank but the fish won't survive regardless.

so clean the substrate and keep the water clean with water changes, remember all you're removing with water changes is any excess ammonia that the bacteria have not been able to process.

 

[greenscooby]

Brilliant, thanks for all the advice, gonna do an 80% change now, fingers crossed in 6 weeks i'll be up and running 100%.

Once again many thanks,

Mark.

 

[greenscooby]

Just done a 80%water change, left it for an hour and done another water test, my readings are as follows,

Ph - 7.4
Ammonia - 0.25
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0.25 (approx)

Hoping this is moving in the right direction.

 

[fatheadminnow]

One thing you can do when trying to figure out how much water to change every time is... EX: Say your ammonia is at 1.0 and you know you need it down below .25. 75% of 1.0 is .25, so performing a 75% water change when you have 1.0 ppm of ammonia will bring it down to .25. So say you have .5 ppm, doing a 50% water change will bring it down to .25 ppm. Just a little simple math that you can apply for any amount of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. This should help you out a little so you will not have to guess as much every time you do a water change.
-FHM

 

[BobbyBray]

Consider yourself lucky in some ways. Before I found this website, I had lost 6 fish over the course of a month as they were introduced to my tank. And unfortunately the LFS didn't have any answers on why all the fish had died. Lucky for me they had a 3 day money back policy if something was wrong with the fish, so think they actually lost money on the deal.

 

[tez2k007]

Hi mate. I would test your water twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Do water changes whenever you have traces of Ammonia or Nitrite anything over .25. I fell into the trap of fish in cycle and it was very hard work. It took me about 8 weeks to finally get it sorted and by the end I was fed up with water changes. However as sick as I was I did keep on top of all the water changes and only managed to lose 2 fish during the whole process. Just need to make sure you keep an eye on the levels and keep up with the water changes. Your in for a long haul but it can be done.