New 60L Tank

[assandun]

Was fishless cycled after losing all our first batch of mollies due to poor advice from lfs (tank only needs to be set up for a week)
We added 4 mollies (one of which died a few days back ) and 2 bronze corys (planning to get more after reading on here) last week.

We have two questions:

Since adding the fish, the ammonia rose an despite our best efforts (twice daily water tests and 20% changes) we can't seem to get the level lower than 0.25, any advice for us?

Also, once we have sorted the ammonia problem out, we are looking at getting some more mollies (thinking of 2/3) and more corys (possibly 4?) an we as some amano shrimp. Will we be overstocked?

Any advice is appreciated! We have already gained so much knowledge from this forum

 

[Tizer]

60 litres isnt very much space, you are limited on a few tetras really, you dont want to be adding any more corys to that tank either, bronze corys get quite large and love lots of space to go bananas. they also require a sand substrate.

test your tap water for ammonia, if you have ammonia in the tank water you have obviously not fishless cycled properly. if you had, your filter would eat it all up within a few hours. what test kit are you using? some people have a hard time telling the difference in colours.

 

[Miles_hot]

You can remove a lot more water than 20% - the minimum that you need is to allow the fish to swim upright - ie the height of your tallest fish off the substrate. Also you can effectively do even more than this by doing a big eater change, running the filter for 10-20 min to mix the new and ols water + flush the filter and then doing it again. In this eat it is easy to get the levels down, it just takes time. I would suggest that having git the le ers down you do your water test before doing a water change and then use the results to drive how big a change you do.

 

[minnnt]

First off, welcome to the forum. Ideally your tank should have been cycled before adding the fish. The reason that the ammonia is rising is because of this un-cycled filter and the fact that you have fish . Fish waste is ammonia basically, and also any uneaten food will quickly turn in to a source of ammonia too. So all these factors are adding a fair bit of ammonia to your tank probably without you realising. I would recommend doing a 60% water change every day until you get the readiings you need (0
ammonia, 0 Nitrites and ~40 Nitrates)

Also, your tank is a little small imo for Mollies and i wouldn't feel comfortable having Cory's in that size tank either, especially when you plan to stock 6 which is the recommended amount.

Keep us updated!

 

[assandun]

60 litres isnt very much space, you are limited on a few tetras really, you dont want to be adding any more corys to that tank either, bronze corys get quite large and love lots of space to go bananas. they also require a sand substrate.

test your tap water for ammonia, if you have ammonia in the tank water you have obviously not fishless cycled properly. if you had, your filter would eat it all up within a few hours. what test kit are you using? some people have a hard time telling the difference in colours.

Thanks for the reply, we are planning to switch to sand substrate asap for the cory's , at the moment there's gravel in there. Slightly worried about the Cory's wellbeing with keeping just the two in there long-term, they don't hide away at all and keep together. Do you think it'll be alright keeping just the two? I don't want to overstock the Cory's if it's going to affect their wellbeing but also don't want them affected by just having the two.

Hadn't thought of testing the tap water, will do that now. I agree, we were very confused as the readings before we put the fish in were: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 40. We are using API freshwater master test kit.

Thanks for the advice! Wish we had found the forum before going to LFS

We are also currently feeding every other day

First off, welcome to the forum. Ideally your tank should have been cycled before adding the fish. The reason that the ammonia is rising is because of this un-cycled filter and the fact that you have fish . Fish waste is ammonia basically, and also any uneaten food will quickly turn in to a source of ammonia too. So all these factors are adding a fair bit of ammonia to your tank probably without you realising. I would recommend doing a 60% water change every day until you get the readiings you need (0
ammonia, 0 Nitrites and ~40 Nitrates)

Also, your tank is a little small imo for Mollies and i wouldn't feel comfortable having Cory's in that size tank either, especially when you plan to stock 6 which is the recommended amount.

Keep us updated!

See my other post, we thought we had fishless cycled after the first lot of fish died, but clearly something is amiss!
Thanks for the advice, it seems we need to rethink our stocking!

Oh, and we have been doing bigger changes (50% ish) but not every day, it looks like this is the way forward!

 

[assandun]

Just tested the water, 0 ammonia

 

[minnnt]

Good. Keep on top of it and you will get there in the end. Water changes will save your fishes lives so if you keep them up you will be fine i'm sure.