Nitrate And Ammonia

[abbey91]

i recently bought a new tank for my tropival fish. i already have a 3ft tank but fish had babies and it was too crowded so i bought a fuval roma 90l tank.Set the tank up waited about 4 days tested the water with a liquid test kit water was fine so i added the fish now all of a sudden i have had a nitrate boom ive done water changes on the tank and added nurafin biological aquarium supplements each time have done as the instructions say on the bottle but today its got worse what do i do.
 
should i put the fish in the old tank and set the new tank up again and then put them back in wen uts ready again or keep persisting. i just dont want to loose my fish

 

[techen]

I don't understand, Why did you wait 4 days before testing? The tank would have stayed uncycled, A cycle takes around 4-6 weeks with added ammonia.
 
You'll have ammonia spikes for a very long time so I suggest doing daily water changes if not more to get rid of the ammonia.

 

[abbey91]

i tested everyday not just once n it was fine which is y i added the fish as ive been told and read that it takes at least 48 -72 hours for the tank to cycle properly and since they were ok throughout i added the fish

 

[balajake]

Tanks take over a month to cycle. You will need to do huge daily water changes to avoid fish deaths. Plenty of testing too

 

[daizeUK]

Did you move the filter from the old tank into the new tank?  If not, you might be able to move the biomedia from the old tank to help add some beneficial bacteria to cycle the new tank.
How many fish are in the new tank? 

 

[the_lock_man]

i tested everyday not just once n it was fine which is y i added the fish as ive been told and read that it takes at least 48 -72 hours for the tank to cycle properly and since they were ok throughout i added the fish

 
You read wrong. Cycling is the process of growing the two bacterial colonies in the filter to be able to process the ammonia (and consequent nitrite) produced by the fish, into nitrate. As stated by others, this takes WEEKS! The essential thing to grow these colonies is ammonia. In the 4 days before you added the fish, there was nothing producing ammonia, so (A) obviously your levels would be fine and (B) there was nothing for any bacteria to feed on and multiply from.
 

Did you move the filter from the old tank into the new tank?  If not, you might be able to move the biomedia from the old tank to help add some beneficial bacteria to cycle the new tank.
How many fish are in the new tank? 

 
This is sort-of a good idea. This is a second tank, so the original filter would have stayed with the original tank, I assume. Take about a quarter of the ceramic bits (or sponges if you don't have the ceramics) from your old filter, and put it in your new filter. Take the same quantity from the new filter, and put it in the old filter. By doing this, you will kick start the bacterial colonies in the new filter, whilst allowing the old bacterial colonies to quickly mulitply to fill replace those which you have taken out.

 

[balajake]

Exactly what lock man said above. There would be no ammonia in your tank after four days because there was nothing in your tank to produce ammonia. Good bacteria will only start to grow once ammonia has been introduced to the tank and begun to break down.

The process goes like this

Ammonia > nitrite > nitrate

Ammonia is harmful to fish and over time converts to nitrite which is even more harmful to fish at lower levels than ammonia. Nitrite will then convert to nitrate which is safer than the fist two and the final state of the proccess. We keep nitrate at safe levels by doing weekly water changes.

In a fishless cycle we add an amount of household ammonia that is correct for the size of tank and volume of water. This starts the cycle process and the pads in your filter will begin to grow essential bacteria that will live on and Make safe the waste your fish produce.

In a fish in cycle it takes much longer because you have to keep ammonia and nitrite levels as low to zero as possible to avoid harming the fish. We do this by doing very very large and daily water changes.


All this bottled bacteria, filter start,filter aid stuff really will not help you. A good help would be to take some of the gunky floss or pads from your old filter and place it in the new filter. Also if you can get a bottle of seachem prime it will help to detoxify the nitrite and ammonia in the tank. It's a dechlorinator too so just pop it in with every water change you do.