New Fish Tank, Water Change Question!

[christoph_d]

Hello!

I'm new to tropical fish keeping, and have a brief question on water changes!

I have a 60 litre tank, which I set up two weeks before adding any fish. I added 4 guppies 4 days ago, tested my water today and have found that my ammonia levels are no longer at 0, as they should be-my tank is obvioulsy not cycled yet, even though I took the advice of my LFS. I wasn't aware of fishless cycling until I found this website, so am needing to reduce the ammonia levels of my tank, and effectively cycle the tank now. I understand that I should perform a 10-25% water change to reduce these levels. Even though the fish have been added so recently is this okay to do so, I am aware that I will need to de-chlorinate the water and add Stress-Zyme.

Quick responses please, I really want my fish to live!

Thanks

Chris

 

[doresy]

hi, I only know one way to cycle a filter, so for what it's worth, if it were me I would return the fish to the lfs or better still is there a friend who has a cycled tank that would foster them? Then I would do the fishless cycle.......

Others may have other suggestions

Meanwhile if your ammonia is up then water change now 25% then again tomorrow

 

[Christine1014]

if you can't, for some reason, return your fish, you're going to have to big water changes every day, and invest in a product called Ammo Lock. The water changes won't stress your fish as much as the ammonia will, so maybe alternate between 30% changes and 50% changes everyday. Test the ammonia levels frequently. If you find that you're just not getting them down even with lots of big watear changes, add the Ammo-Lock. It will convert the ammonia to ammonium. Your test kit will still read it as ammonia, but it's not toxic to the fish and it will still be used by the beneficial bacteria for cycling. But by no means is ammo lock a substitute for water changes. It's not a miracle product, but it's a nice help for these situations. Good luck!

 

[dwarfgourami]

I like Christine's regime of water changes.

IMO if you take the guppies back to the shop, they only risk being sold to somebody else who puts them in an uncycled tank, they stand a much better chance with a responsible owner like yourself. And the good news is, 4 guppies in a 30 gallon tank is a very low load, so the cycling shouldn't take too much of a toll. Just keep up with the water changes and don't add any more fish until the cycle is definitely completed.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

have a read of the topic 'whats' cycling?' in my sig, that should help you