I've Been Really Stupid..!

[shelley]

Erm,

As I said in the previous request.. I'm new at this and didn't get much advice from the shop when I bought a new tank..

I treated the water first (Aquasafe & Nutrafin CYCLE)

BUT

I didn't do a fishless cycle.. !! I got two fish..(mollies), yesterday and I just got another mollie and 3 platys today and they seem fine..(perhaps too soon to tell!)..

but I have tested the water - Nitrate, (0ppm), Amonia, (0ppm) and Ph.(7.6)..

Am I heading for disaster? If so, what can I do to prevent it?

thanks!

Shelley

 

[mandiemoo]

There is a post just down from here called MY FIRST FISH TANK, basically has the same details in as this, give that one a read

 

[loachman]

Erm,

As I said in the previous request.. I'm new at this and didn't get much advice from the shop when I bought a new tank..

I treated the water first (Aquasafe & Nutrafin CYCLE)

BUT

I didn't do a fishless cycle.. !! I got two fish..(mollies), yesterday and I just got another mollie and 3 platys today and they seem fine..(perhaps too soon to tell!)..

but I have tested the water - Nitrate, (0ppm), Amonia, (0ppm) and Ph.(7.6)..

Am I heading for disaster? If so, what can I do to prevent it?

thanks!

Shelley

Hope is not lost. Read up on a cycle with fish on the stickied post on beginner questions.

The cycle stuff MAY have helped your tank cycle, but it's a random guess.

Best bet is to monitor the ammonia and nitrIte daily and do water changes as need to keep them low. You will probably need to do the water changes for a few weeks. THIS post by Wiggles should give you some good guidelines to follow.

If you have a friend with a fish tank, get some filter media from them, keep it wet in tank water, and dump/put it into your tank/filter. This will help immensely. This is the ONLY sure-fire way to quickly cycle a tank.

 

[mcdanielnc89]

they should be fine.. ur ph,ammonia,nitrate,and are fine.. i did the same thing u did and mine are ALL stil living..

Note: What's ur nitrite?

 

[shelley]

Hey, thanks to all of you...!

I will follow what yoiu have said and I will be able to do more research now that I have found this site..!

p.s. my nitrate was 0ppm

Shel..

 

[mcdanielnc89]

ok. then r fish should be able to survive. jsut be more careful nextime.. as i will too. lol...

 

[loachman]

Hey, thanks to all of you...!

I will follow what yoiu have said and I will be able to do more research now that I have found this site..!

p.s. my nitrate was 0ppm

Shel..

be careful with the nitr-tes. There are two different ones and are commonly confused.

NitrIte is very toxic and should be as low as possible.

NitrAte is virtually non-toxic. Anything up to 100 ppm shouldn't really hurt mollies or platies. Lower is better though.

Bacteria convert ammonia to nitrIte, then nitrIte gets converted to nitrAte. This is the "cycle" that people will talk about.