Need Help Cycling

[kittens]

Ok, I did an 85% water change today and then tested the water about 1 hour later. The ammonia has finally come down to 4 ppm. Most of the fish are doing well but the one guppy that wasn't looking good this morning has died. I'm down to only 4 left. I also tested my tap water and it registers as .5 ppm ammonia. I will do another water change tomorrow. Should I be vacuuming the gravel? At this point, the only chemical I am using is the water conditioner with the water change.

I agree with you that the levels were probably higher than 8 ppm. That makes sense. That's probably why it never seemed like I was getting anywhere.

 

[Louiseness]

Ok, I did an 85% water change today and then tested the water about 1 hour later. The ammonia has finally come down to 4 ppm. Most of the fish are doing well but the one guppy that wasn't looking good this morning has died. I'm down to only 4 left. I also tested my tap water and it registers as .5 ppm ammonia. I will do another water change tomorrow. Should I be vacuuming the gravel? At this point, the only chemical I am using is the water conditioner with the water change.

I agree with you that the levels were probably higher than 8 ppm. That makes sense. That's probably why it never seemed like I was getting anywhere.

Well, the good part is that you're finally seeing reduction in ammonia. It must have been so, so ridiculously high to start with I'm amazed any of the fish are alive at all!

I know it's a complete pain but you really need to keep on doing water change after water change until ammonia is much lower - any levels greater than about 0.25 are harmful to fish so leaving them overnight in water that has about 30 times as much ammonia really isn't good for them And yes, do vacuum the gravel, you'll be amazed at the amount of junk that comes out.

 

[Miles_hot]

so you've got at least 2-3 more water changes to go and you'll get the levels to the right place. Can you do them one after another rather than leaving your fish in toxic water for another day?

Miles

 

[kittens]

Thanks for the advice. I'm trying to change the water as often as I can but I also have a cat in critical condition in a specialty hospital. She's in kidney failure and I'm travelling an hour every day back and forth to visit with her and help her homeopathically. We rescue cats so we often have our hands full with them. I also run two businesses so time is often a valuable commodity I just don't have. I'll try to do several water changes today if time permits.

By the way, I noticed many of you seem to be from the U.K. area. I'm from Canada. Is this a really popular hobby there?

 

[Clarousel]

Hi there! I've just started a tank of new fish a few days ago thinking cycling was just for a few days until I had some issues with my fish. I didn't know it took so long!

Just wondering now, I didn't actually fill the tank with water straight from the tap. My dad has been keeping koi fish in a pond for several years already so he just filled the tank with the pond water and let it cycle. Is there any difference and would that affect the period for cycling the water? Or should I use tap water instead?

 

[Tizer]

It wont matter in the slightest really, but there might be more trace elements of bacteria in the pond water than tap water which could help a filter colonise good bacteria. Either way its going to take 4+ weeks.

 

[the_lock_man]

Hi there! I've just started a tank of new fish a few days ago thinking cycling was just for a few days until I had some issues with my fish. I didn't know it took so long!

Just wondering now, I didn't actually fill the tank with water straight from the tap. My dad has been keeping koi fish in a pond for several years already so he just filled the tank with the pond water and let it cycle. Is there any difference and would that affect the period for cycling the water? Or should I use tap water instead?

If the pond is filtered, you may be able to use some of the media from the filter to help kickstart your tank. Might need to be careful with the temperature change, though.

 

[Miles_hot]

The water makes no odds (though you do need to dechlorinate tap water) as the bacteria live in the filter. In both cases you need to add ammonia to feed the bacteria.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there! I've just started a tank of new fish a few days ago thinking cycling was just for a few days until I had some issues with my fish. I didn't know it took so long!

Just wondering now, I didn't actually fill the tank with water straight from the tap. My dad has been keeping koi fish in a pond for several years already so he just filled the tank with the pond water and let it cycle. Is there any difference and would that affect the period for cycling the water? Or should I use tap water instead?

The pond water is unlikely to make a large difference in the process of fishless cycling or fish-in cycling (are you fish-in cycling?) While it is possible pond water might have a few more autotrophic bacteria riding on some of the algae, mostly you're likely to just get more algae spores and possibly various insects which you can keep an eye out for. On the whole there probably won't be much difference, although from here on out it would probaby be wise to use tap water so that your mineral characteristics will stay closer to that rather than the pond characteristics (the reasoning here, at least some of it, is that fish-in cycling will require large and frequent water changes (often almost down to the substrate with plenty of gravel vaccing) and it's good to have the mineral levels of the incoming water roughly match the levels of that going out.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. welcome to the beginner section and you'll want to start your own fish-in cycling thread as you are inside kitten's thread I think

 

[kittens]

Just wanted to update everyone....I've done several more water changes and the ammonia is down to 1 ppm. I'll be doing another one shortly. The nitrates and nitrites are also at zero. Just wondering...how low should I bring it down to?

 

[Miles_hot]

You want to get the ammonia down to at the most 0.25ppm, ideally match the color to your tap water - then you know you can do mo more. Once you've dine this it will be a lot easier to maintain the correct level with smaller daily water changes

 

[kittens]

I've now got the tank down to .5 ppm so I'll try a couple more water changes to hopefully get it down to 0. I really appreciate everyone's help. The 4 remaining fish are doing very well, acting completely normal.

I've been so pre-occupied with my first tank and the issues with the ammonia that I wasn't testing the water in my second tank that I've only had for about 1 month now. That is a 20 gallon tank that has 2 rosy barbs, 2 brilliant rasboras and I just recently added 2 small cat fish because I noticed a lot of algae growth on the substrate. I've never had any problems with the fish in this tank. They've always been clinically well.

I tested the water in the tank yesterday and found the ammonia at 8 ppm, nitrite 0, nitrate at 50. So....I decided I had better do a 85% water change...just like I did in the first tank. After the water change, the ammonia remained at 8 ppm but more importantly, the female rosy barb is now acting strange. She either stays at the bottom of the tank or near the top and appears to be shaking. The male barb chases her a lot now. Any idea what might be going on? She was fine before the water change. I almost reqret doing the water change because although it tested high for ammonia, the fish were doing fine.

Do I continue with the water changes in the second tank or do I pay more attention to the clinicial signs of the fish.

 

[Miles_hot]

You've got to do multitasking I'm afraid

The clinical signs could be causes by any number of things bit you need to get both tanks down to 0.25 through many water changes.

I'll leave more experienced members RO comment the clinical signs..