Let Down By Bad Advice, Need Help With Cycling

[thothtp]

Too long didnt read, skip to last paragraph. Otherwise, here it he full story.

I am a newbie having some issues with cycling. I received a 6 gallon Fluval Edge tank for Christmas, and set it up per the instructions as this was my first tank. Conditioned my tap water with the included conditioner, added the "bacterial starter" stuff that I now know is BS, waited a couple days, and went out and bought a pair of guppies. They were doing great for a week or so, bought a couple ghost shrimp. Still doing great, doing 25% or so water changes every couple days like it said. Waited another week, added some cherry red shrimp and another guppy. Shortly after that, one of the first guppies died, but the other looked fine. Figured that was part of the startup process and I got a sick one, bought 2 more guppies on advice of the pet store.

Thats when the real problem began. One of the guppies I bought immediately started losing his tail, and died 2 days later. At the same time, the original guppy I had started with started frantically swimming in the filter outtake, and then died about 12 hours later. This is when I was frantically researching things, and learned a ton about the nitrogen cycle and all the horrible things I had been doing to my fish by following the instructions and the pet store advice.

So now I am left with 2 guppies, and a bunch of shrimp, all of who look 100% healthy. I bought a test kit to find out what was wrong, and did a test tonight. My ammonia is at .25 ppm (immediately did another water change) but my nitrite is still 0. I am on city water, but I have been conditioning my water with the included conditioner and now a bottle of seachem conditioner that I bought. My other tests are 0 nitrates and a PH of 7.4. Shouldn't I have some Nitrites by now, after 3 weeks? Do I just need to keep waiting and doing daily water changes, or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks guys, really appreciate it!

 

[thothtp]

one thing i forgot to mention, i do have a few live plants in the tank as well, they came with the shrimp. i have a moss ball, some java moss, very small amounts of crystalwort and subwassertang, an anubias, some najas grass, and some hornwort. pretty small amounts of each. i noticed one of the anubias leaves has turned yellow and the shrimp are eating it, but otherwise the plants seem normal.

Not sure if this matters but figured i would add it just in case.

 

[RZayneC]

the cycle can take up to 10 weeks.

If you want to keep your fish iI suggest you read the silent cycle.

but if you dont follow that route you will have water changes everday for 10 weeks.

Also remove any yellowing plants/leaves they will ruin your water as well.

 

[balajake]

large 90% water change. test after an hour then do another large 90% water change and test again after an hour, remember to dechlorinate the water before you add it to the tank. remove plants as stated poo and food gets trapped in them and can cause ammonia and nitrite to build up.

reduce feeding to once a day (if you were feeding more often) and give them a little at a time, let them eat it then add a bit more, when that had gone give another flake etc. i usually put 2 flakes in at a time in my small tank and wait til its gone before adding more. test again tomorrow. keep up the testing and water changes as it needs to be at 0 ammo and 0 nitrite

 

[the_lock_man]

large 90% water change. test after an hour then do another large 90% water change and test again after an hour,

What's the point of testing, if you're going to do a waterchange anyway? The point of testing is to tell you how much water to change. 2 guppies in 23l aren't going to cause ammonia and nitrite to build up that quickly.

TO answer the OP, every cycle is different. I would have thought you would ahve seen some nitrite by now, but it's not a definite that you would. You need to keep testing the water daily, and probably changing the water daily - but let your test results tell you how much. There is a link in my signature area which gives you much more detail on how to conduct a successful fish-in cycle.

As and when you have any more queries, please feel free to post them.

 

[balajake]

large 90% water change. test after an hour then do another large 90% water change and test again after an hour,

What's the point of testing, if you're going to do a waterchange anyway? The point of testing is to tell you how much water to change. 2 guppies in 23l aren't going to cause ammonia and nitrite to build up that quickly.

TO answer the OP, every cycle is different. I would have thought you would ahve seen some nitrite by now, but it's not a definite that you would. You need to keep testing the water daily, and probably changing the water daily - but let your test results tell you how much. There is a link in my signature area which gives you much more detail on how to conduct a successful fish-in cycle.

As and when you have any more queries, please feel free to post them.

didn't see how small it was. had a problem with my 60 litre and an ammonia spike. i did very large water changes over the space of a week and now have it all under control now and luckily i caught it before any fatalities occured. im leaving it for 48 hours before i test again now as im getting 0s on ammo and nitrite

 

[the_lock_man]

large 90% water change. test after an hour then do another large 90% water change and test again after an hour,

What's the point of testing, if you're going to do a waterchange anyway? The point of testing is to tell you how much water to change. 2 guppies in 23l aren't going to cause ammonia and nitrite to build up that quickly.

TO answer the OP, every cycle is different. I would have thought you would ahve seen some nitrite by now, but it's not a definite that you would. You need to keep testing the water daily, and probably changing the water daily - but let your test results tell you how much. There is a link in my signature area which gives you much more detail on how to conduct a successful fish-in cycle.

As and when you have any more queries, please feel free to post them.

didn't see how small it was. had a problem with my 60 litre and an ammonia spike. i did very large water changes over the space of a week and now have it all under control now and luckily i caught it before any fatalities occured

That's good.

It's always recommended to do water changes, as it's more stressful to the fish to leave them in ammonia/nitrite, but that doesn't mean that a water change is stressless. In this particular instance, the OP had ammonia at 0.25ppm - 1 x 90% change would leave that at 0.025, then the second would leave it at 0.0025. I doubt that the 0.025 would show up on the average hobbyist test kit. In practical terms, that 2nd change is unnecessary. Had the OP had huge ammonia (1ppm+, for instance), then probably a second change would have been necessary - but not necessarily at 90% - see what I mean?

 

[balajake]

large 90% water change. test after an hour then do another large 90% water change and test again after an hour,

What's the point of testing, if you're going to do a waterchange anyway? The point of testing is to tell you how much water to change. 2 guppies in 23l aren't going to cause ammonia and nitrite to build up that quickly.

TO answer the OP, every cycle is different. I would have thought you would ahve seen some nitrite by now, but it's not a definite that you would. You need to keep testing the water daily, and probably changing the water daily - but let your test results tell you how much. There is a link in my signature area which gives you much more detail on how to conduct a successful fish-in cycle.

As and when you have any more queries, please feel free to post them.

didn't see how small it was. had a problem with my 60 litre and an ammonia spike. i did very large water changes over the space of a week and now have it all under control now and luckily i caught it before any fatalities occured

That's good.

It's always recommended to do water changes, as it's more stressful to the fish to leave them in ammonia/nitrite, but that doesn't mean that a water change is stressless. In this particular instance, the OP had ammonia at 0.25ppm - 1 x 90% change would leave that at 0.025, then the second would leave it at 0.0025. I doubt that the 0.025 would show up on the average hobbyist test kit. In practical terms, that 2nd change is unnecessary. Had the OP had huge ammonia (1ppm+, for instance), then probably a second change would have been necessary - but not necessarily at 90% - see what I mean?

my ammonia shot to over 2ppm i did 2 90% that day. left it 24 and did another 90% then tested at .25 later that day then did a 50% my test showed a nice yellow colour instead of green. i obviously messed up somewhere but i'm now monitioring closely. my big tank is perfect and i do 35%-40% weekly changes.

 

[FishFanatic04]

Thothtp, Please take a good deep breath and don't feel bad anymore, this happens to so many people, including me. Luckily you did what probably most of the people here did and went looking for the answers. My tank has been running 3 weeks now and I've only just started seeing nitrites. Sounds like you figured out what you need to be doing. Keep testing and doing water changes when your ammonia or nitrites are spiking. I've found that watching my fish is also a good indicator.

Good luck!! and

 

[thothtp]

Update:

So I have been using my test kit, and changing about 25% of the water once or twice a day. Ammonia is never above .25, nitrites are still 0.

Today another guppy died. Showed no symptoms, was perfectly fine, then I came home today and he was gone.

All my shrimp seem to be perfectly fine though. I have 10 red cherrys and 2 ghost shrimp, and although I can never find all 12 at once, I keep seeing different ones and haven't seen any dead so I think all 12 are still there, and they are getting bigger fast.

I don't understand what keeps happening to my fish, especially because the shrimp seem to be fine. I thought guppies were really hardy and shrimp were really sensitive, which is why I am so confused.

I am down to one guppy. What should I do now?

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum thothtp.

You are doing fine now by doing water changes as needed. The plants are helping minimize ammonia build up by using some of the ammonia as fertilizer. The tank filter will eventually cycle but meantime the fish should be fine. Some fish, such as bettas in commercial settings, are maintained with nothing but water changes. Do not add any new fish until the cycle finishes but do remove any decaying plants. Decaying biological material yields ammonia always. You may still lose any fish that were exposed to bad water before you caught on to doing water changes.

 

[thothtp]

Welcome to the forum thothtp.

You are doing fine now by doing water changes as needed. The plants are helping minimize ammonia build up by using some of the ammonia as fertilizer. The tank filter will eventually cycle but meantime the fish should be fine. Some fish, such as bettas in commercial settings, are maintained with nothing but water changes. Do not add any new fish until the cycle finishes but do remove any decaying plants. Decaying biological material yields ammonia always. You may still lose any fish that were exposed to bad water before you caught on to doing water changes.

That's the thing, I have been doing water changes all along. Not daily at first, but it has been daily since I got my last 2 fish, both of which have now died.

Is it possible there is some disease that you can't really see that spread between the fish but doesn't effect the shrimp? I am wondering if one of them came with it and spread it around. I didn't see any physical symptoms on any of them, except for the one guppy who had his tail rot off. Another fish was swimming frantically in the filter outlet, but the other 2 were perfectly normal till they were floating.

 

[snazy]

The tail rotting off is common with ammonia in the water and not necessarily any sickness, but sickness can settle in the damaged fish if the water quality is not maintained.
You said you were doing water changes every 2 days before you tested the water, so this have helped some of the fish and shrimp to not be exposed to very high levels of ammonia and somewhat survive for a while.
The regular water changes may have also brought down the nitrates to 0, because your tap water may have none. Test how much nitrates the tap water shows.
3 weeks in the cycle, so some of it must be going on. You are doing the right thing now, so keep testing and keep the levels down to prevent any other damage and deaths.

 

[thothtp]

Tested it again last night and saw .25, so I did a water change. Checked it today at lunch and it was up to .5 already. did an 80% water change, and now my guppy who was fine before the water change is hanging out at the surface gasping for air and acting very skittish.

I don't understand. Could my tap water have super low dissolved oxygen? Ammonia level is now down to almost 0, probably about .1

 

[Prime Ordeal]

Did you remember to dechlorinate the water?