Midway Through Cycling, Need Some Help

[Nurse_Sarah]

I have had my 16 gallon freshwater tank for 3 weeks now. I have the temps at 82-84 degrees, and about 6 fish in there (tetras/platy).
I also have added the aquarium salt because of its healing properties for fish

I have been testing my water and usually have ok levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate... my tank is not fully cycled yet.

PH is at 7.0

I went to check my water today.. and I got the following results

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite : 1.6 (highest its ever been)
Nitrate:50 mg/L (again, highest its ever been)

I am not sure now what to do... the directions on my test kit state i should do a water change (20%) and add double dose of cycle to my tank...

(I now realise why my fish have ick.... they are in aweful water conditions!!!)

What should I do next???

Thanks for all the help.. I am a Registered Nurse (obviously know nothing about fish.. just people

 

[Nurse_Sarah]

Ok so i did a 20% water change, added the conditioner like usual as well as salt, and then did a double dose of the nutrafin cycle.

I was wondering why some of my fish were showing signs of ich, now i know why

 

[ctsv510]

Change a lot more of your water...you want to keep the nitrite waaaaaaaay lower than that while you have fish in there. You should do another water change of 80%.

 

[Nurse_Sarah]

Really!? 80%?

Will do thanks... I just tested my water.. didnt even touch the readings... still very very high. and my catfish isnt doing so well... everyone else is fine so far.

 

[ShinyCard255]

Nitrites are harmful to fish as well, not only ammonia. Do a water change of 75-80%. You really don't want it higher than 0.25ppm (and that's pushing it)

 

[tyler88]

With that many fish in an un cycled tank you should be doing daily water changes, unless you have been testing the water everyday and the levels were still ok.

 

[Nurse_Sarah]

I changed 80% ish.. maybe a bit more.. went down a lot... to below 0.3... nitrate went way down too...

This is so funny to me... as a kid my parents used well water for their fish tank.. never cycled.. never tested... fish were fine.

How long should I expect these spikes to last for... 80% water changes is a lot of bucket hauling for me....

I will say I was super worried about my cat fish who was actively dieing, as soon as i did that huge water change he perked right up and is fine!

Thanks for all the help everyone Now off to work for a 12 hour At least I know my fish will be alive when i get home.

2 Questions:

How long will this cycle process last? I know ammonia turns to nitrite converts to nitrate. I obviously have the ammonia handled... my temp is up to promote bacterial growth, im adding the cycle weekly as suggested, cleaning the tank as usual.

And, should i just be doing daily water tests and doing the 80% water change a day? or do I just change based on what the readings are? I realise i did a large water change due to extremely high nitrate nitrite levels. So if i do daily water changes basically I can prevent huge spikes like that?

Again, thanks for all the help

 

[HayzH]

to be honest..that cycle stuff isnt doing anything for your tank..so i'd bin it.
check water DAILY..keep Ammonia and Nitrites at 0.
A fish-IN cycle usually takes alot longer than fish-LESS(for example mine are all over 40 days now)..but as long as you keep the water conditions right...they should be fine.

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

I would test your tap water with your test kit before doing your water change.
It would be interesting to see how many nitrates are in your tap water. It could be that your tank does not yet
have the necessary bacteria in it for breaking down nitrites at all (if your tap water happens to have a lot of nitrates, some tap water does). The bacteria that break down nitrites take longer to develop in your tank
than the bacteria that break down ammonia.

In any event, I agree with previous posters. I think you are going to need to test your water daily for quite a while .. and depending on your results .. do the necessary water changes maybe every day. Obviously, the higher your ammonia and/or nitrite readings, the more water you'll need to replace. (You should probably test the tank water again each time after you change water to be sure you changed an adequate amount of water .. or else do some math! ). Be careful to dechlorinate the new water obviously ... and match water temperature to tank water when replacing large quantities of water.

 

[Nurse_Sarah]

Hey Everyone, I cannot say enough about how helpful you have been.

I came home after my 12 hour shift (lets just say EVERYONE decided to come into emerg all at the same time)....and tested the water. it was at 0.6 for nitrites, but im so tired I doubt ill do any changing tonight. The fish all seem to be fine. I can kinda judge my water quality by my cory catfish... gets really acting weird when things are out of sorts.


And thanks for the advice about cycle. It states you can add fish right away and that it "autocycles" your tank for you. Haha, right.. I wouldnt be going through this now if that was the case. It obviously takes more than a day to culture any kind of bacteria.

Ill test again in the morning and see where I am at. Ammonia was still 0 this AM... and Nitrate i got a reading for but it was nothing significant. Just the Nitrites I am really watching. At least I know I have the bacteria for the ammonia to nitrite... and a little bit from nitrite to nitrate... I hear this part can be a long haul.

Noticed my one fish has ick. I cranked up the temp slowly... its dropped off of everyone else.. except for the one. Decided this time to try the 2 tablespoon per gallon NaCl this time rather than the super ick cure that stained everything and destroyed my bacterial colony (hence why i am back to square one YAY

Again thanks everyone