My Tank- What The?!...very Frustrated

[ammoniator]

PS why havent i gotten any nitrite readings yet?- overcrowding doesnt seem to be an answer to that bit....any ideas?

maybe if you answered some of the questions we asked we could tell you

like?...?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

sounds like a reasonable plan, however i'd suggest you'd be better placed returning the fish now rather than holding onto some for the time being.

Cichlids have great personalities and you can get very attached to them (kids will as well) very quickly, returning them to the shop is then heartbreaking, it's easy to put it off and put it off until it's too late and either overstocking or agression takes it's toll, because you don't have the space to keep all these fish in that tank long term.

the other issue is finding a home for an adult oscar is very difficult indeed (believe me, i've done it myself and it took months to find somewhere), they're readily available as babies and most people want to have them young and grow them up themselves. If you allow the fish to mature a bit and then take him back to the shop either the shop will refuse to take him cos they know they won't sell him, or he'll end up cramped and stuck in a tank too small for months on end in the shop and have health problems because of this. So it means you really need to look privately and find another hobbyist to take him, and there's always loads of people trying to find homes for fish which have outgrown their tanks.

It really would be best to return them asap, however it's your choice, I won't bang on about it anymore!

OK, onto the ammonia.

water comapnies mostly put chlorine in the water, this is harmful to the bacteria which is why we use a dechlorinator to remove it, however if water with chlorine in is left to stand for 24hrs the chlorine will 'gass off' and the water then doesn't need treating. obviously for water companies this is bad as they need the chlorine to stay in the water to keep it clean and safe for drinking.

So some water companies now use chloramine, this is a chemical made by binding chlorine with ammonia. It doesn't gass off when left to stand so if your company use this and you keep fish then dechlor is essential. When you add dechlor to water with chloramine in it breaks it down into it's component parts, chlorine and ammonia, then it deals with the chlorine and you're left over with water with a trace of ammonia in. Some dechlorinators will then convert the ammonia to ammonium which still registers on our test kits and is still consumed by the filter bacteria, but is significantly less toxic to the fish. If your bottle of dechlor say's something like 'removes excess ammonia' then this is what it mean's it's doing.

So yes if you have chloramine in your water you may find that after dechlorinating you have trace levels of ammonia, a mature filter will be able to handle this little blip no problem, but in cycling tanks sometimes it contributes to the problem. If this is the case for you then firstly make sure you are using a good quality dechlor that converts the ammonia as well, your test results will be the same but some of the ammonia will be less toxic.

 

[ammoniator]

miss wiggle- you rock!

...now i have to find some fish...

the next newb question is- how many?...ive had a look and gold head muzi, aulonacara, demasoni and nimbochromus float my boat...lol..

i guess ill have to see what our laws allow here..i suspect they would be similar to the UK...

Tim

 

[Miss Wiggle]

miss wiggle- you rock!

yes.... i do infact rock hard!!!

afraid i can't help you with african cichlids really though, definately not my field of expertise and i wouldn't want to give out poor advice.

if you hop over to the african cichlid's forum and start up a new thread there (probably be a good idea to put a link to this thread in it so they can get the background) then I'm sure they'll be able to help you out from there.

good luck..... and most importantly.... get us some pictures when it's all done

 

[ammoniator]

alllllll righty thennnnn!