Just Started And Need Advice!

[mozza7avfc]

Hi i have just started my first tropical fish tank!
I have a 24 x 12x 14 inch aquarium, i left my tank treated for 8 days fishless.
The treatments i added were tap safe de-chlorinate, and tetra safe start with live bacteria.

Today i purchased the API master test kit and tested the levels, they were as follows:
Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrate: 5.0
ph: 7.6
Nitrite: 0

I plan to do a 10% water change tomorrow!


After testing the levels i added four fish, 3 zebra danio and 1 leaprodanio!

Any help or advice,
especially about tank cycling!

thank you

 

[Athena]

Welcome to TFF!

Unfortunately, you have already put fish in your tank so you are now going to be going through a fish-in cycle. Ideally, the filter should have been cycled without fish in the tank (by adding ammonia to the tank). Here's a link to a topic on these boards for newbies re cycling:

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=277264"]http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=277264[/URL]

Do you have any friends or family that have aquariums already established? If so, could you perhaps ask them if you could cut a piece from their filter sponge (where all the good bacteria live) and put it into your filter in order to give your filter a kick-start?

You will also need to do small daily water changes to help remove the excess ammonia from your tank that will build up from the fish producing waste that your uncycled filter can't convert to nitrite and then the safer nitrate.

You already have an ammonia reading so, yes, best do that water change as you planned.

If you keep on top of the water changes, you might just be lucky and not lose any of those fish. Keep an eye on them for any signs of distress/illness, though.

When you do further water tests, do the test before you do a water change and only change the water if you see any trace of ammonia (or any other toxins) present. That way you'll know how effective your filter is becoming as the bacteria colony grows. You should soon reach the stage where you get a zero reading for ammonia and nitrites and nitrates should be lower than 40. Then you can just do weekly partial water changes.

Remember that when you come to add any further fish you will have to introduce new fish a few at a time so that your bacteria colony can grow to suit the new stock level. Adding too many new fish at once can cause sudden deaths (from ammonia poisoning).

Hope that's helped a bit. I'm sure there'll be more advice from others on here soon.

Regards - Athena

 

[mozza7avfc]

THANK YOU, that is very helpful, i will do my water change in the morning then as ive got to go to work now!!!
When doing a water change do i jus add the chlorine remover into the water??

And lets say if i do a 30% water change will change in temperature affect the fish or shall i add warm water???

 

[Athena]

Hi, sorry I didn't get to answer you last night but I was offline.

Some people add the dechlorinator into the tank after adding the fresh water - others (like me) add it to the bucket/bowl before adding it to the tank.

I've just got into a routine of doing it that way. I worked out how many litres my bowl held, then worked out how much of the dechlorinator to add to it. The dechlor works instantly - you have to give it a good stir around in the water to make sure it's all thoroughly mixed in.

Regarding the temp - well, yes, it's always best to try to get the replacement water to as near the tank temp as possible to avoid shocking/stressing the fish. If you added very cold water into their tank, the shock can cause them to get ill or even die suddenly (in the more sensitive fish).

There are various ways of getting the water warmed up before adding it. I add a bit of hot water straight from my taps because I have a combi boiler which means that all my water supply comes from the same source - the cold mains - and it is heated by the boiler when I turn the tap on. So it has the same chemicals in it as the cold. I think the only time people say not to use water from the hot tap is if you have an emersion heater. Not 100% sure why but I think it must have something to do with the possible high levels of copper and other stuff (maybe the dechlor doesn't remove all of the chemicals found in an emersion heater?).

Either way, always run your taps for a few minutes to get rid of any water that has sat in copper pipes for too long.

You can also add a little boiled water from a kettle to the cold water. I've heard of members doing it that way.

I don't bother putting a thermometer in the bowl of new water to check temperature - I go by the feel of it. I dip a finger in the tank water, then into the bowl - I do that several times until I'm sure they are about the same temp. You can be more precise and use a thermometer if you like LOL, but you tend to get used to judging the temps by hand after a while.

If you need help with anything else, just shout.

Regards - Athena

 

[waterdrop]

Hi mozza and welcome to TFF!

Athena's advice is good. Don't be timid about the water changes. With conditioner and rough temperature matching via your hand, those danios won't suffer from temperature shock as long as you're roughly close. They are not particularly sensitive to it. But they can indeed suffer permanent damage from the process of a fish-in cycle if you don't keep the ammonia and nitrite levels quite low, so larger water changes (on the order of 50%) are your friend. Your API kit will help you keep the toxins below 0.25ppm between water changes.

If you have to be in a fish-in situation, at least you have a very good ratio of 4 little danios to a reasonable volume 2-foot tank. That should be good for a fish-in cycle, which in general is rarely a happy situation.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mozza7avfc]

thanks for the advice, ive just done a 30% water change, as my ammonia shot upto 0.5, i will test it again tomorrow and maybe do a 50% depending on the levels, i added the chlorine treatment into the water before putting it back into my tank and got the temp of the water as close as possible.

Danios are doing well though, very mad fish lol, everytime i put the light on they look for food!

 

[pammy172]

personally - it's not a massive tank so I'd do another water change today to get that ammonia level down to below .25ppm