Little Advice

[JoshuaB]

Have a 65 gallon tank that I have had running for about 1 year. I thought I knew a little something about what i was doing but i have been plagued with diseases and dead fish. Originally this tank was for my oscar his recent death has changed it to its current stock of 2 pink kissers, 2 opaline quaramies (spelling) and my peacock eel that has been in their since the oscar. I had 4 other quaramies and a black ghost all of which died shortly after adding them to the tank. I had a fungal infection and used Pimafix to cure it following the directions on the bottle. I have read quite a few posts on here and wanted to see what you guys thought. I am running 2 penquin 350's on the back

Current conditions are as followes
PH 7.2
Ammonia .5
Nitrite .25

Did a 25% water change today put carbon filters back in.
I am using a Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kit. I am going to see if i can find a API one this weekend.

 

[arobinson1984]

Ave you added any fish or cleaned out the filters recently?

You have a Reading for both ammonia and nitrite and both should be zero in a cycled tank. The ammonia level especially is too high, you need to do larger water change than 25%

andy

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with Andy, you've clearly got something wrong that needs to be figured out or you've never had access to good information about how to create, measure and maintain biofiltration. The articles in our Beginners Resource Center on the Nitrogen Cycle, Fishless Cycling and Fish-In cycling will be good homework reading for you tonight if you haven't already read them.

API -is- Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, but regardless, the test kit you need is named the "API Freshwater Master Test Kit" and is used and liked by most of us. The important aspect is that your kit needs to be liquid-reagent based, as opposed to paper strips.

As Andy asked, do you clean out the sponges, etc. in -tank- water (as opposed to tap water?) Tap water can kill the beneficial bacteria that form the biofilter. Let us know in detail the look and material make-up of the different types of media in your Penguin filters. Likewise your fish additions and the timing of these.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JoshuaB]

Yes, agree with Andy, you've clearly got something wrong that needs to be figured out or you've never had access to good information about how to create, measure and maintain biofiltration. The articles in our Beginners Resource Center on the Nitrogen Cycle, Fishless Cycling and Fish-In cycling will be good homework reading for you tonight if you haven't already read them.

API -is- Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, but regardless, the test kit you need is named the "API Freshwater Master Test Kit" and is used and liked by most of us. The important aspect is that your kit needs to be liquid-reagent based, as opposed to paper strips.

As Andy asked, do you clean out the sponges, etc. in -tank- water (as opposed to tap water?) Tap water can kill the beneficial bacteria that form the biofilter. Let us know in detail the look and material make-up of the different types of media in your Penguin filters. Likewise your fish additions and the timing of these.

~~waterdrop~~

I am using the freshwater master test kit it is just older packaging, I realized this after i posted.

When i clean the sponges i throw them away and put new ones in, I guess i shouldn't be throwing them away. I am using the carbon filters with the blue sponge material. I have started the reading and I will do a larger water change tonight.

I use Prime as my water conditioner. This is fairly new to me.

The fish were added in this order. 2 dwarf quarami's, and black ghost. 2 weeks later i added the 2 pink kissers, 2 opaline quarami's, 2 blue quarami's. Now that i have done some reading i realize that was not the best way to add the fish. And will be sure to let the tank run for awhile before doing anything else to it. Thanks for the help I will post some pics once i get them tanken

One last thing my test kit does Nitrite. How do i test for Nitrate

 

[waterdrop]

The current kits include Nitrate(NO3) as well as Nitrite(NO2) as a test. Nitrate(NO3) is not urgent for you. If you don't have it you can pick up the individual test at some point before long when you find it.

Yes, sounds like you were dutifully throwing out the most valuable thing in your tank, your hard-won biofilter (the miracle machine of the hobby!) You may be able to increase the volume of biomedia in your filters by replacing the carbon with whichever sponge is considered the biomedia for your filter and which fits the spot if possible.

The members can chat with you about the different media types and how they fit with the 3 major functions of a filter, I'm sure we'll get to it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

For right now, with the sponge already gone, I would hang on to the carbon. It probably is harboring some of the right bacteria and any that you can get are a step in the right direction. Once the filter is fully cycled is soon enough to remove anything that has stayed in the filter from before the filter cleaning.