New Tank

[Emmy104]

Hello all,

I bought a new tank on June 13th. It is a 10 gallon tank and I originally stocked it with fish and way too many fish in general. Most of my fish have died, I have an albino cory, two guppys(male and female) 5 guppy babies, and three neon tetras. I originally had six tetras, but three died. I have just completed an 80% water change because my nitrates and nitrite levels were deemed unsafe on a test strip I have, and I have moved my fish over to my sister in laws tank (where they are doing amazingly) because my levels just will not go down.

I have attached pictures of my testing.







I guess what I'm trying to say is HELP!

I don't know what to do and any advice would be appreciated.

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi Emmy, to the forum

You need to do one of three things; either;

a fishless cyle where you buy some household cleaning ammonia, add that to the tank and wait for the right bacteria growing in your filter. We can tell you how to do it in detail, if you decide to do that.

a fish-in cycle where you have fish in the tank, but keep the ammonia and nitrite down with lots and lots of water changes (we don't usually recommend this method because, as you've found out, if the ammonia and nitrite get too high, it can kill your fish)

Or you can seed your tank with some of the filter media from your sister-in-law's tank. This is very easy and you're lucky to have a sister with a healthy tank! All you do is take a quarter of the media from your SIL's tank, replacing it with new, and put it in the filter of your tank. Then you can put in some fish right away but no more than a third of what your sister has; so if your SIL had, let's say, 20 guppies, you could add about three to your tank. Hope that makes sense to you!

We have a beginner's resource centre that has lots of useful articles for newcomers to the hobby; the link for that is in my sig

 

[Emmy104]

Thanks fluttermoth, I will try to do the fish less cycle. I don't want my fish to become harmed because of a mistake I might make. I do have the regular household amonnia and will start using it.