nitrIte & nitrAte spike

[TF Keeper UK]

Just had a phone call from home. Homer and one of my Upside Down Catfish are dead.

She stayed up to 2am cleaning the sand to get rid of the smell (which she describes as worse than my socks

All the other fish are doing fine.

1st deaths since a bacterial infection in April.

Gonna miss Homer. He was a character and a half. Always floating upside down and playing dead, then as I go and get the net to fish him out he'd dive to the bottom of the tank.

 

[trace1]

aaawwww i'm really sorry to hear that tf . not sure if mine was a mini cycle as i check levels to regular & never had any ammonia in there. also have manage to sort it with a couple of water changes so wondering now if that was all that it was, was strange bout the rummy noses thou would have thought if it was anything to serious the baby moolies would have all died as well. so my new lesson for this week is to do regular small water changes & hopefully i won't ever have this problem again

 

[rdd1952]

Question? How lnog does a mini cycle take?

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It really depends on a lot of factors. If it is due to adding more fish, then the more fish you add the longer it will take (and the more noticable it will be, ie, the ammonia and nitrite spikes will be higher). If it is because you did a good cleaning and maybe killed off a little bacteria, such as in disturbing or changing the substrate, it shouldn't last very long or be very bad/high.

 

[TF Keeper UK]

Mine was high and bad!

I changed the subtrate from gravel to sand, and the guppies went to a new home.

Del