Hi All - Cheer Me Up Please :(

[Cooper2085]

Well iv had a pretty bad weekend fish-wise. Well i say weekend, it was more of a sunday night.

My tank has been set up for 6 weeks now, i used mature media but as i added more fish i found it was not fully cycled. Iv held off and took it slow, adding a few fish a week. So Friday night after work i go to a place in Pinxton called Wharf Aquatics, its a nice store, fantastic, prices are good and the people are nice.

I buy some supplied, new air tube, some frozen food and other bits. I needed some cleaning fish, and picked up 3 Albino Corys, and 2 Amona (i think...) shrimp. I also picked up 5 Barbs, they were not tiger barbs and the guy at the store said they were peaceful. There Red with black stripes, seemed really active and look stunning.

So i get home and introduce the fish to the tank

Everything is fine, the fish are swimming, everyones happy. Sunday morning and 1 shrimp is dead.... I check the water levels everythin was fine, Nitrite was a little high but not to bad at 0.25

By Sunday night i notice a divide between the barbs, 4 of them were together, the other one was banished. I figured i would lose that one I woke up this morning and that one was dead, thats life i figure, 1 dead i can handle.

Well my GF just rang, 2 more barbs have died, 1 is on its side and 1 seems fine, zipping about the tank having fun. All the other fish are fine, swimming happily, no other problems. I guess that the PH might be too high for them (7.2 ish) or something but im really gutted. For one they were nice fish, for two its like chucking away £7.50

So now i have a 126L tank with:

3 neon Tetras
6 Harlequin tetras
1 Male Guppy
2 Female Guppys
3 Albino Corys
1 Amona Shrimp
2 Barbs (1 nearly dead >.<)

*Sigh*

 

[Miss Wiggle]

sorry for your losses

any nitrite reading is enough to cause a problem i'm afraid.

since you found out the tank wasn't properly cycled what have you been doing? should be daily 30% water changes to keep the levels low until all the ammonia and nitrite is gone. after that you need to leave the tank for a good few weeks to stabilise before adding any new fish. then when you add the new fish, again monitor the levels and do water changes if you get any ammonia or nitrite.

 

[Cooper2085]

Yeah what happened was that the ammonia was proccessing into Nitrite but the nitrite wasnt filtering out fast enough. This was 2 weeks ago, i added a polyfilter, did water changes daily, and did tests every night. It has been staying stable, nitrite has been around 0-0.2 and i have increased aeriation, with a air stone.

Like i say all the other fish seem fine, just these barbs that are not

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Yeah what happened was that the ammonia was proccessing into Nitrite but the nitrite wasnt filtering out fast enough. This was 2 weeks ago, i added a polyfilter, did water changes daily, and did tests every night. It has been staying stable, nitrite has been around 0-0.2 and i have increased aeriation, with a air stone.

Like i say all the other fish seem fine, just these barbs that are not

sorry to say this but with any nitrite at all in the tank (even 0.001) you should not be adding new fish.

the fish you have now will acclimitise to an extent (although it's still really bad for them) but to the new fish it'll be a shock to the system and can kill them outright.

you need to wait until nitrite is steady at 0, then wait a couple of weeks more before you think about adding new fish.

 

[Cooper2085]

OK thanks for the info

Oh one more thing, how often do you rinse your filter sponges? I know to do them in your tanks water, but how often do you do them?

 

[st24rsap]

the only time i do mine is when the flow through the filter is restricted

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah, only when you notice a drop in the output of your filter

depending on how heavy the stocking is compared to the size of the tanks that could be days, weeks, months or even years! however in an average set up once every few months should be plenty.

 

[Cooper2085]

Ok another question, because i want to make sure im doing it right. I have a fluval 3 and a fluval 2. In my fluval 3 i think there is 2 media pads. In the Fluval 2 there is 1 normal media filter, 1 carbon and a poly filter. Is this right? Do i need to add more?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Ok another question, because i want to make sure im doing it right. I have a fluval 3 and a fluval 2. In my fluval 3 i think there is 2 media pads. In the Fluval 2 there is 1 normal media filter, 1 carbon and a poly filter. Is this right? Do i need to add more?

the carbon you don't need, carbon is chemical media, it absorbs toxins from the water, however it only works for a short period of time. what you use it for is short term removal of nasties from the tank, so if you've finished a course of medication you use carbon for 24 hrs then remove it, it takes the left over meds out of the tank. however the same can be done with water changes so plenty of people (myself included) would say that you don't need carbon at all. whatever people's opinions on it though, it is proven to only be effective for a short period of time so there's no point keeping it in your filter long term, it's not doing anything.

I would replace that with some biological media where more bacteria can grow, something like bio balls or ceramic media. these are just funny little shapes made from plastic or ceramic (and other things sometimes) they are designed to have a v large surface area which means a lot of bacteria can grow on them, you'd be best putting some of these in to replace the carbon.

we do our filtration through big filters but we generally have, a layer of large sponge to catch large bits of debris, then loads of biological media, then a small layer of filter floss to catch the fine particles and 'polish' the water before it goes back into the tank.

 

[Cooper2085]

Ok so i am doing it wrong then >.> Could you explain somemore about Biological media please!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not specifically doing it wrong, just not doing it the best it can be done

well, i'll assume you understand the basicas of the nitrogen cycle, bacteria grow in your filter, they 'eat' up the ammoni and convert it to nitrite, a different species of bacteria 'eat' the nitrite and convert it to nitrate.

so you're main priority for the filter should be making as much space as possible for the bacteria to grow on and encouraging them to do so.

the bacteria are not free swimming, they need a surface to hold on to to grow, so if you imagine you have a cube made out of plastic, envisage the surface area of that cube. Now imagine that the same size cube was made of something porus, something riddled with little holes, imagine then the surface area of that cube... the second would be considerably bigger thus creating more room for the bacteria to live in the same amount of space.

biologic media is stuff like this http/www.aquatics-online.co.uk/addtobasket.asp?skid=5870

this gives a realyl large surface area thus encouraging more bacteria to grow and keeping your tank nice and healthy

 

[Cooper2085]

Thats great thanks!

And please dont hate me for being a bit thick, but i just need a little more info about the media used in the cartridges.

As said before i have a Fluval 3 + and a Fluval 2 +.

I will be removing the carbon filter when i get in, or replacing it with a new one. So in the fluval 3 should i have, 1 normal fluval media, 1 poly filter, 1 bio-media. And in the fluval 2, 1 normal, 1 bio and 1 polishing?

Is that too much? Would they be able to work like that or woul di be clogging them up?

I know i cant just change them all at once, so it looks like half of 1 every other day, it will take time so i want to do it right ^^

 

[Miss Wiggle]

that rate of change is too much, change half the media from 1 filter, then wait a couple of weeks, then do half from the other filter, then wait a few weeks etc.

you don't need to have every sort of media in both filters, i'd fill one with biological media (the bigger filter), then have some large sponge and some filter floss in the other.

 

[Cooper2085]

Thanks for the great advice Miss Wiggle!

Have a virtual cookie ^^