Newish Tank

[Smells a bit fishy]

Hi there.

If I may I would like to pick someones brain.

A week ago I transfered my fish into a larger tank. I am now about to use my smaller tank again.

What I need to know is,

Shall I do a complete water change on it? Still some old poo around. Also I am going to use one of my filters from my new tank as I am running with 2 and got a Fluval U4 on the way.

The filter and pads aren't fully cycled yet. I am going to get ammonia from boots tomorrow, and would like to know if a fishless cycle is the best option. As I would like to do it this way. Alot less water changes :thumb:

So what I am really asking is do I need to clean the tank out before I start or should I do it once it's fully cycled?

Also some stocking ideas for it it's 50litres. I would like some schooling fish and if I tell you what fish I have in my larger tank, that are capable of going in my smaller tank it would be helpful if I could move some across as I think my bigger one is overstocked when they are fully grown.

I have 1 female Molly that is pregnant and 6 ruby barbs.

Many thanks for your future help

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Any ideas? Should I just put a couple of fish in there, or would it be better to do a fishless cycle?

 

[Randi]

fishless cycle goes soooo much faster and doesn't harm any fish
I don't think it matters when you clean out the tank, other than it would probably be a lot easier to do it first.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Ok. Just started my fishless cycle. My fish in cycle is still going. Not reading nitrites on that one.

The only thing is I'm away for 4 days next week and nobody to look after either tank.

I will have to do a large water tank on my fish in cycle and hope that the ammonia doesnt go too high.

I think the fishless cycle will be fine if I dose the ammonia a little higher when I go.

Just worried about my fish in cycle. I've been doing 60-70% daily wc to get the levels down. Any ideas?

 

[Tizer]

If you are not there to do it, get someone to do it, else the fish will suffer.

Dont feed them, at all leading up to the days you go away, they will be ok and it will reduce the ammonia output to a some degree.

You "could" get someone to come around after a couple of days and get them to ammo-lock the tank for you. Its an API bottled product that can help out in emegencies until you return and it shouldnt effect your fish in cycle.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Ok. I may get my father inlaw to pop round to do 2 or 3 water changes for me. He has kept fish before so I may get him a few beers for his troubles.

The fishless I'm not worried about. As in 4 days the bacteria won't have doubled enough to get rid of the ammonia.

Will the fish be ok not being fed for 4 days?

 

[Tizer]

Yeah they can last a week to 10 days without food, they do in the wild. Maybe even longer, not that i would want to starve them for more than 10 days... Its about the limit on a home aquarium.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Yeh it's like cats for example. In the wild they can't tell when their next meal is going to come from. Ie lions and tigers. Where as domestic cats know so they will burn energy more as they know they are going to be fed.

Same principle I suppose

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

A quick question. I have previously used this tank about a week ago and didn't fully cycle.

But yesterday I tested these were the readings.

Ammonia 4-5ppm
Nitrites .4ppm
Nitrates 20ppm (tap water)
Ph 8.0.

Today readings were

Ammonia 4 ppm
Nitrites off the scale.
Didn't test the others.

Any ideas why the nitrites jumped so much?

 

[waterdrop]

None of our speculations about single or double-day results like that are going to likely tell us much. For each cycle, fishless or fish-in, from-scratch or started up later as yours is, it is still better to just begin doing clear logs in the first posts of threads and make them daily and filled with data. All these cycling processes, when they're good, are slow and long and it is multi-day or week-long trends that tell you the most. All cycles are somewhat different when looked at for a day or two, whereas when looked at as a whole they all look pretty similar at times.

Should be great to get your father-in-law to do a few water changes and it will be easy for him to also add an ammonia dose midway for the fishless one. Always be super clear in your instructions to another person about all these kinds of actions, people can forget things like conditioner or can put way too much ammonia in or things like that if they haven't been doing the hobby in a few years.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

I have only just started the cycle. I thought it was very strange to see nitrites after a day. But could have already been in the tank I suppose.

Yeh I will give very precise instructions. I was going to anyway. I could just imagine coming back and it being worse than if I had just left it.

Thanks for your input waterdrop. I will not base my findings on a dag to day basis anymore

 

[OldMan47]

On the new fishless cycle, do not overdose the tank with ammonia. At 8 ppm of ammonia, the wrong bacteria will dominate the bacterial colony and you will get to start again. Instead just be aware that any progress you have made at 5 ppm may die back a bit but will come back quickly when you return and dose them back up. In the early days of any fishless cycle, you do not dose very often anyway because you simply do not have enough of the bacteria to actually require frequent dosing. You may return to find your tank still has not reached the zero ammonia level so a new dose was not needed.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

If before I go the ammonia isn't at 0 nor 5ppm should I redose to 5 again so I know the bacteria has something to eat?

 

[Tizer]

yeah no reason why you shouldnt bump it back up to 5, afterall, fish produce a constant ammount, a fishless cycle ammonia chart would go up and down like a yoyo i would imagine.

I also cant imagine that dosing it up higher, prior to a short holiday will have a massive negative impact. In theory the different form of bacteria might start to colonise, but how many hours is it going to be above 8ppm? Not many me thinks? Time enough to screw with things? Doubtful.

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Ok day 3.

Readings were:

Ammonia 1ppm
Nitrites- off the scale
Nitrates- not tested
Ph high- 8.2
Temp- 29.5

Will Check tomorrow and redose back to 5 again and see how long it takes to come down. I may be lucky in that I might have a really short stage 1. Fingers crossed.........