New Tank Syndrome...help!

[TetraPhil]

Hi all,

I'm a newbie. Here's what I've got in my tank that's been set up now for 6 weeks or so:

37 Gal
-5 Black Skirt Tetras
-5 Serpae Tetras
-14 Neon Tetras


I recently started the hobby. Did a lot of research and reading. Decided to do a fish in the tank cycle. Started out with 4 fish, two Serpae Tetras two Black Skirt. Used SeaChem stability to expedite the cycling process. It advertised one week to cycle the tank. At the end of a week, I went and bought the other fish listed above plus six dwarf gouramis. Classic beginner's mistake, too many, too soon. The tank obviously wasn't done cycling. I lost a few neon tetras and all 6 gouramis I had bought within the next two weeks, all the other Tetras have survived.

I started testing the water and monitoring it once I lost those fish. The tank has been set up for over a month now, and I can't seem to get the ammonia below 2 ppm. It's been steady there for about two weeks. I've tried multiple 40% water changes on successive days. Now I'm down to 25 % water changes twice a week.

Two days ago I dumped a bottle of Tetra SafeStart into the tank to see if that will help expedite the cycling process. Just did another 25 % water change and still the ammonia is 2ppm.

My questions are:

-How long will it take for the ammonia levels to start dropping?

-Should I take out some fish? Tank is currently stocked at 75% according to ##150###.

-Should I just wait it out?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Phil

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Have you tested your tap water as well? Could be higher ammonia there too.

You can do much bigger water changes, 80% or more (enough that your fish still have enough water left to swim in), daily if needed. You need to get that ammonia down for the health of you fish.

 

[SandraNewbie]

Have you tested your tap water for ammonia and nitrites? Fish in cycles can sometimes involve 75% water changes more than daily.

Your tank is pretty heavily stocked for cycling so you might want to see if you can get a media donation from someone or your LFS.

Test your tap water and if it's not got a lot of ammonia in do serious water changes (Drain tank until tetras have just enough room to swim and then fill tank slowly with dechlorinated water) keep doing this until your ammonia is <.25ppm. and then keep monitoring water conditions and try to do changes often enough to keep the ammonia between .15 and .35 ppm (low enough to minimise fish damage high enough to grow bacteria)

 

[TetraPhil]

Thanks for the quick replies Sandra and Prairie. Yes, I've checked the local tap-water. No high ammonia in there, plus I treat all the tap-water with Prime by Seachem, which is advertised as eliminating all chlorine, chloramine and ammonia. In fact, I've been putting a few drops of prime in the tank every 48 hours since it is supposed to neutralize the ammonia, but the readings from my test kits still show 2ppm.

I will keep up with the daily water changes, bump it up from 40% to more. I hope the increased volume of water changes doesn't affect my nitrosospira, nitrospira and nitrosomonas bacteria I just added with the Safe Start.

Thanks!

 

[SandraNewbie]

It's worth noting that very few people report any benefit of adding bacteria from things like "Cycle" or "Safe Start", they're a bit of a sales scame really.

 

[fluttermoth]

As long as you dechlorinate and (roughly) temperature match the new water, you won't disturb any bacterial colonies that are starting to grow.

They live almost exclusively in the filter, so you want to leave that alone as much as possible.

to neutralise ammonia with Prime, you need to add five times the standard dechlorination dose, and for the whole tank volume, which will be quite a lot, and the ammonium it turns it into will still show up as ammonia on your test kit.

But large water changes are the best thing you can do to keep your fish safe, which should always be the priority in a fish in cycle.

 

[beccalovely]

How often are you feeding? I've been advised that during the fish-in cycle while the ammonia goes up it's best to cut right back on feeding, so now I'm feeding one small amount per day instead of three/day. Good luck

 

[TetraPhil]

How often are you feeding? I've been advised that during the fish-in cycle while the ammonia goes up it's best to cut right back on feeding, so now I'm feeding one small amount per day instead of three/day. Good luck

Was feeding twice a day. Now I've cut it back to once a day until I can get the ammonia under control.

 

[beccalovely]

Hope it helps, best of luck

 

[fluttermoth]

You could even cut back to once every other day for a few weeks.

Nearly everyone (myself included, so it's easily done!) tends to overfeed and under water change, which is the exact opposite of how most of our fish evolved to live in the wild, with very infrequent meals and a constant flow of water, even if relatively slow.

 

[TetraPhil]

Thanks again for all the advice. I did another 40% water change today, ammonia is down to 1.0 ppm. I'll do another 40% water change tomorrow and continue to monitor.

 

[fluttermoth]

You need to do bigger, or more frequent water changes.

1ppm ammonia is four times as high as it should be.

You should really do another large water change (at least 80 or 90%) tonight; ammonia at level will be affecting your fish's ability to take oxygen from the water and will be causing long term health problems, or even killing them.

 

[snazy]

It's worth noting that very few people report any benefit of adding bacteria from things like "Cycle" or "Safe Start", they're a bit of a sales scame really.

Have you actually tried any of these products like Tetra Safe Start to make a statement? I've cycled two of my tanks with fish and with Tetra Safe Start. It took a week for both tanks and I still stand by its effectiveness. Then I tried it in a fishless cycle on my third tank, with ammonia, and it didn't work as fast but I was dosing higher ammounts of ammonia. It still didn't take long, just over 3 weeks. The OP TetraPhil is a month into the cycle and is no near even the nitrIte stage.
With a fully stocked tank though I have no idea if its as effective, also water changes and Tetra Safe Start is a no, no, as per the instructions on the bottle.
So in this case its too late probably as the bacteria in the bottle might just get inhibited at such high levels of ammonia.

Thanks again for all the advice. I did another 40% water change today, ammonia is down to 1.0 ppm. I'll do another 40% water change tomorrow and continue to monitor.

You really need to do 80-90% water changes for these ammonia levels to drop at once to below 0.25ppm and keep it that way with as many big water changes as it needs to. If you have 2ppm ammonia, 40% water change brings down the ammonia to about 1.2 ppm and this is deadly for the fish, so your water changes just make no difference at all to the well being of the fish.