Help With Tropical Aquarium

[pbase5583]

Hi, I am new to fish forums and want to first start off by saying thank you to all who become good help for me. First problem, my asian needle nose gar has a red oval looking birds eye view at him, i dont know what it is. I dont know how to post pictures but i will if i need to. Second off whats a permanent solution for reducing ammonia in a fish tank. My tank is a 3.0 ppm of ammonia with bio filter fluval, 65 gallon tank with 1 angel fish(1 inch) 1 asian needle nose gar(8 inch) 1 tiretrack eel (8 inch) 4 rainbow fish (1-3 inch) 1 black ghost knife fish (5 inch) 1 tilapia ( 1 inch) and 1 blue crayfish(3 inch)

This is the story, I was cycling the tank and then i took my water sample to a different store that does strips which I did not know of at the time. They said it was cycled and then i bought some more fish. take a water sample to the original store and they tell me its bad. They said let the tank ride through this ammonia, 3 weeks later it never did. So I decided to start with water changes at 30-40 percent every week. its still not working and I am putting in prime water conditioner. i already got rid of 5 other fish just to reduce the load, but i feed every three days.

 

[sadguppy]

It could be ammonia burn - at 3.0 I can't imagine he is very happy, to be frank it's amazing that any fish survive like that. It is such a shame that fish shops in general are so adept at giving awful advice, you have a lot of big expensive fish there which they should never have sold to a newbie with a cycling tank

So... How to keep the fishies alive! Do a HUGE (75%+) water change, right now.

OK, done that? We can move on... The only permanent solution to ammonia is to have an established (i.e. cycled) filter. It takes around 6 weeks and apart from getting established media there are no shortcuts, it's a fixed period.

Firstly, you need to get hold of a liquid test kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Then go to the beginner's resource centre here, specifically the bit about fish-in cycling.

You have two options:

1) Change at least 75% of the water daily, measuring for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, until ammonia and nitrite are 0. Not 0.25, not nearly 0, but 0. I know this might seem like a chore but this is why we here advocate fishless cycling with ammonia before adding any fish at all.

2) Get hold of some established filter media from an older tank - if a friend or family member has one, beg for up to a third of the sponge or ceramic in their filter (offer to pay for a replacement of course!) and put it in your filter. It doesn't have to look pretty, just shove it in and let the bacteria spread. You'll have to keep up with daily changes for a while but it will speed things up immensely. If you don't know anyone with a tank then pop into your LFS and see if they will give you some used filter media.

Good luck

 

[pbase5583]

i have a filter thats been running for two months with denitrate, but its not a burn it might be his brain but idk, and i have a liquid test kit, they said not to do water changes so that the water can establish, or something like that.

 

[sadguppy]

With respect, that's rubbish. Unless you want to lose your fish, water changes, big ones, are the way to go.

 

[pbase5583]

yea i am not saying your wrong i just was checking, but whats the permanent solution to this, should i double filter, i have a 90 gallon filter, heater, 23 inch airstone, and sand substrate.

 

[pbase5583]

http/s1056.photobucket.com/albums/t367/panosNoFlex/ this is my fish and my tank btw.

 

[pbase5583]

 

[sadguppy]

yea i am not saying your wrong i just was checking, but whats the permanent solution to this, should i double filter, i have a 90 gallon filter, heater, 23 inch airstone, and sand substrate.

Looks like ammonia burn to me. Maybe post in the newbies section at the top, you'll get a better response I imagine.

Read the beginner's section i linked to above. Once established the filter filter bacteria will deal with the ammonia, until then you just need to be patient and do the changes.

 

[Cu455]

Do a water change now to bring the ammonia down. Try to encourage more biological filtration. You can add a second filter (a sponge filter will be perfect) . The easiest and cheapest way will be to wrap your air tube in the back with a sponge or white filter pads. This will be increase the area which bacteria would grow and the high oxygen levels will scourge large colonies.

I noticed most of you stones are solid non porous stones. If you add lava rock or other porous rocks this will also increase the amount of ammonia converting bacteria. Find a friend with an established aquarium and take their filter pad and put it in your aquarium. Or go to a fish store and ask them to squeeze one of their sponge filters into a bag and then empty it into your filter.