Opinions

[LionessN3cubs]

Im turning the details over in my head and Im not sure so Im asking for opinions.


When I stocked the 10 gallon, I had 3 platys, 2 mollies, and an apple snail. I know while it was JUST these guys the cycle was running smoothly. Then I got a small nitrite reading (.25).While doing the water change due to the nitrite, I found platy fry. I sort of assumed that the fry were the reason for the nitrite level...either because they didnt all survive and were still in the tank, or whatever. they were the only difference in the tank.

The nitrite had been showing up every other day for about 2ish weeks I think..maybe a little longer. I only have 1 of the original fry left...getting bigger but still pretty small. I also lost a mollie due to entrapment on sunday. I was doing a water change when I found the mollie, and since then...no nitrite.

So Im wondering if the disturbance in my cycle was due to overstocking but in a way that doesnt make a whole lot of sense to me. My apple snail is getting BIG which I assume would mean he's putting out more waste, which would make up for the loss of the mollie wouldnt it? Aside from that I dont get why the amount of filtration I have, wouldnt be enough for the stocking. I have the penguin mini biowheel (hob) and a rather large sponge filter running inside the tank. Am I wrong in assuming that the bacterias should grow along with the snails and platy fry growth so they can keep up with the bioload?

Im just trying to figure this all out. My stepdaughters fish is the one that died and she, of course, is going to want to replace it. Before I do that, I need to work out whether it really was overstocking that caused the mini cycle.

 

[SJ2K]

I wouldnt worry yourself over small details while cycling, for one reason or another, you'll get nitrite readings along the way, just test daily and water change when needed. Yes, bacteria will multiply to cope with increased bio-loads, this will happen in less then 24hrs so it wont affect your fish's health.

 

[ox5477]

well the fry would of added very little to the bioload... abnd generally, inverts also add very little. How long had the mollie been dead in the tank do your estimate? That would be what I put the waste chemical spikes to.... so once you finally took it out, of course the higher readings went away.

If you add another, seeing as how the tank is relativily small... you will prob get a small spike. When you see this, start doing daily wc's, ~20 to 30%, until the spike dissappears and your ammonia and nitrite are back to 0.

Ox

 

[LionessN3cubs]

well the fry would of added very little to the bioload... abnd generally, inverts also add very little. How long had the mollie been dead in the tank do your estimate? That would be what I put the waste chemical spikes to.... so once you finally took it out, of course the higher readings went away.

If you add another, seeing as how the tank is relativily small... you will prob get a small spike. When you see this, start doing daily wc's, ~20 to 30%, until the spike dissappears and your ammonia and nitrite are back to 0.

Ox

I thought maybe the fry were in there decomposing and adding to the bioload that way..but I dont know for sure.

Nah the spike happened before the mollie died..weeks before. The mollie was in there only a few hours because he was present and accounted for the night before ...was trapped when I got up in the morning and was removed right away. I mentioned his death only because since i removed him and did a water change...there has been no nitrite so I was wondering if overstocking was the problem KWIM

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Your right lioness in theory the bacteria colony will just grow steadily as the fish grow and produce more waste, this will continue until the point where the maximum filtration capacity of the filter is reached, i.e. all the places to grow bacteria are in use, as there’s no extra spaces for bacteria to grow on none will grow so you’d effectively have a trace amount of ammonia or nitrite which would probably climb but slowly over time as a backlog of extra ammonia and nitrite is created.

As you know if you have a significant increase in bio load sometimes it can’t catch up quickly enough and you get a mini cycle.

Now considering you cycled the tank fishlessly so we know that at one point you did have the filtration capacity to deal with 5ppm of ammonia a day, the bacteria should have been able to recover to this level relatively quickly, yes with the extra waste from the fry you might have had a mini cycle, but it shouldn’t have been the on-going issue that you seem to have had. When you first had it that’s what I thought had happened and I thought that it would have gone within a couple of days or maybe a week. But it’s been longer than that now so I think I may have been wrong (you know how these things go, a trend of results is always more descriptive than a single result and as such the trend sometimes points to something different than the initial analysis of one result gave).

The fact that when the bio load grew you had a steady trace level of nitrite and when the bio load decreased the nitrite has gone leads me to think that the stocking you have now is right at the capacity of your filter, i.e. all the spaces for bacteria to grow are already colonised.

I’ve said before that I’m not familiar with the filters that you have so I can’t say if this is likely or not given the equipment, but that’s where the test results point me too.

 

[waterdrop]

But those biowheel filters should be pretty familiar. Its one of those big companies, Marineland (at least in the US) I think, and so I'm sure also sells in UK even if under a different name for the model line. It might be of interest to get down to the specific model, see if we can find the specifications for the filter either on the manufacturer web site or via some member who knows and then we could take a more detailed look at whether the particular filter really has the capacity for a 10 gal (hope I'm remembering 10 gallon right) -- would be sort of a shock to find out her biowheel was too little for a 10g, would have to be a really little HOB for that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

But those biowheel filters should be pretty familiar. Its one of those big companies, Marineland (at least in the US) I think, and so I'm sure also sells in UK even if under a different name for the model line. It might be of interest to get down to the specific model, see if we can find the specifications for the filter either on the manufacturer web site or via some member who knows and then we could take a more detailed look at whether the particular filter really has the capacity for a 10 gal (hope I'm remembering 10 gallon right) -- would be sort of a shock to find out her biowheel was too little for a 10g, would have to be a really little HOB for that.

~~waterdrop~~

we really never see HOB's over here tbh though mate.

I don't really know why but it's relativley rare to find someone with anything other than an internal/external cannister in the UK in my experience.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, weird, we almost never see internals, just HOBs and cannisters, although I'll bet the industry will slowly consolidate internationally now that many smaller companies have been absorbed into bigger conglomerates.

Well, first we should see how much info Lioness can give us from her owner's manual, box it came in, etc. (I want to remember it was "Penguin biowheel" but that's just from memory...)

~~waterdrop~~
(time to get outa the office for workout and lunch! )