Fishless Cycle

[Wordy]

Got home last night and 2 of the fish have disapeared, moved all the hardscape, checked inside the filter and couldn't find them. Going to do a 50% water change tonight and gravel vac the tank to see if they're under the substrate.

No idea why though, been testing the water everyday and everythings ok: PH 7.6, Amonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 20-40ppm.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hmmmmm, how many days have they been in the tank now then?

water stats are clearly fine so no probs there, probably just acclimitisation problems which does happen from time to time. Odd to not have any problems for a few days and then loose two the same day though......

 

[Wordy]

today is their 6th day in the tank, the others are swimming around fine, apart from getting a bit spooked last night whne I was moving the hardscape around to look for the missing ones.

 

[Wordy]

Last night we did a 30% water change and I re-arranged the hardscape and tried to re-plant some of the bedding plants, found two more dead fish

The water is fine PH 7.6 Amonia & Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 40ppm before the water change and 10-20ppm after.

The only thing I can think is I fed them some frozen Bloodworm on Sunday but only used half the block, so I re-froze the other half and gave it to them Tuesday night, is that ok to do or once it's defrosted don't re-freeze it?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

don't know specifically with bloodworm but a lot of human food you shouldn't re-freeze if it's defrosted so could be a problem.

the only other thing i can suggest is that this does re-inforce our view that it's best to wait a few months for the tank to mature before adding cardinals.

 

[Wordy]

It probably does, but as I'd got two survivors from the BiOrb I wanted to get some more for them to form a shoal with, (wasn't til I'd started reading here that I found out about waiting to add them) but I won't be replacing the dead ones for a few months.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah I understand the decision and I'd have probably done the same thing myself, but we did all know there was a possibility that they wouldn't do well in such a new tank.

 

[Wordy]

Guess whats happened tonight?

Yep they've got whitespot, this week is just getting better.

I was going to get some guppies tomorrow, guerss it's going to be whitespot treatment instead

 

[Miss Wiggle]

oh wordy i'm so sorry, i hate it when it turns out like this despite your best efforts.

yup get some king british ws3 if you can, one of the best whitespot treatments out there. crank the temp up a little and increase aeration.

 

[Wordy]

It'll work out.

6 months from now when it's fully stocked and planted and aquascaped the way I want the 1st week won't matter