So Now What?

[Dieses Madchen]

48 hours after adding crushed coral to buffer kH:
ammonia, nitrite & nitrate all still at zero
pH is 7.2, which is a bit lower than the 7.6 from before the pH crash, but much better than the 6.0 I had several days ago
water is super cloudy, which I guess is the bacteria bloom
as long as the parameters stay in check, I will just wait for the water to clear up

You can do a water change though regardless of water parameters if you choose. This may help the water clear out faster. As of now, its your choice on that as either route will no hurt your fish

 

[eaglesaquarium]

nitrate is at zero?! That can't be if ammonia and nitrite are zero. I would say that you need to check your testing procedures. Are you using the API test kit? That one is very finicky and really isn't worth much. Make sure that you completely shake the crap out of bottle 2...smash it on a hard surface a few times first and then shake it for the full 60 seconds recommended plus an extra 30. Then shake the vial completely as well. Ultimately, you can't have zero nitrates if your bacteria is processing the ammonia produced by the fish.


1 ppm ammonia produced by fish is processed to 2.7 ppm nitrite and eventually 3.6 ppm nitrate. If your ammonia stays at zero, and nitrite isn't spiking either, nitrate is building up. I'm sure that it isn't even close to a dangerous level (for most tropicals, the "danger zone" for nitrate is on the order of 200+ ppm), but it is important to know that you HAVE nitrates in the tank to confirm that the nitrogen cycle is completing properly. (A nitrate reading just confirms the double zero from ammonia and nitrite.)



But, assuming the ammonia and nitrite readings are accurate (which I think they are) the water change is not necessary yet. So, what it out a bit, especially since you pH is looking much more stable! Just don't allow the pH to drop too much further before changing at least a bit of the water.

 

[quicksandsecrets]

I appreciate everyone's feedback, and it all seems to make sense - but today I am completely befuddled.
I have used two different test kits to confirm zero ammonia. I have no nitrites, and no nitrates. I have banged the living crap outta that 2nd bottle in the nitrate test, shook it for an extra couple minutes, shook the test tube extra long. Same results every time. pH staying pretty close to where it should be(7.2 today). In a text book sense I should be seeing nitrates, but I am not. Water is still cloudy. Two of the barbs were on the verge of death this AM, not moving, not even for food.
I did a water change, and am completely confused. Something is wrong, but none of the tests I have run are showing me what.

The only other factor I am wondering about - is that I had a store bought hollow fake log in the tank. hollow on the sense that on the bottom of the log there are two large holes so the log gets filled up with water (I guess so it doesn't float?). I have seen this on another website

If an ornament is hollow and has no way of aggitating the water inside of it, the water will become stagnate and bacterial, which can make your fish sick, or even cause death

Is this is true, could this be a factor in my water problems? I took the log out just in case.

All I know for sure is that twice daily API Master tests, followed precisely tells me I have no ammonia, no nitite, no nitrate, my pH has stabilized, my water is cloudy and I have lost two fish. If things don't clear up soon, I guess I am looking at starting over with a fish-less cycle, but I am confused and frustrated.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[This Old Spouse]

If you have no nitrate, your tank isn't cycled.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Are you absolutely sure that the nitrite is zero? Does it remain the nice light blue color the entire time? Or does it change to a sort of off looking gray? Does a single drop of the bottle turn purple at the bottom? Something is amiss somewhere in your tests. The ammonia being zero makes sense, especially since you have double checked with a second test kit. The only thing I can figure is that either the nitrate test is wrong (given the sluggishness of your fish, I would have to guess against that) or that you are missing reading the results from the nitrite test. Again, based on the fish behavior, I can only guess that something is happening.


If your fish don't look right, do a PWC. Refill slowly. The single best and simplest remedy for all things fish related problems.


As far as the log goes... I'm a natural guy. Nothing looks as good as natural decor (to my eye), but whenever you feel concerned that a certain item, whatever it may be, take it out. There is no reason to take a chance. I can't speak regarding the specific issue, but it makes sense to me.

 

[quicksandsecrets]

Are you absolutely sure that the nitrite is zero? Does it remain the nice light blue color the entire time? Or does it change to a sort of off looking gray? Does a single drop of the bottle turn purple at the bottom?

yup, the nitrate test is light blue, not a hint of grey, none of the drops turned purple when they hit the water in the test vial.
I took water samples to two different LFS today, and they both confirmed my results.
ammonia, nitrite & nitrates all zero.
not quite sure what to make of all this.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Same here. How are the fish acting? Do you have any live plants in the tank? How long has it been running? Exactly what has your water change routine been(frequency and volume)? Have you added any chemicals (no matter how innocuous you may believe them to be) to the tank besides dechlorinator?

What are the dimensions of your tank, and how many fish do you have (sizes)?

 

[quicksandsecrets]

Same here. How are the fish acting? Do you have any live plants in the tank? How long has it been running? Exactly what has your water change routine been(frequency and volume)? Have you added any chemicals (no matter how innocuous you may believe them to be) to the tank besides dechlorinator?

What are the dimensions of your tank, and how many fish do you have (sizes)?

29G tank, started with 3 small tiger barbs (1.5" each) a little over 5 weeks ago. I have several fake plants, no live ones. I did have a hollow fake log, but removed that this weekend,out of concern that the air bubbles being trapped inside the log were part of the problem.

I made a bunch of beginner mistakes early on and have only been keeping a true "log" for the past 10 days, so most of this is from memory.....

I started with a bottle of a fake "cycle" product that the LFS talked me into, but other than that have only added dechorinator (AmQuel+)with each water change.

I was only checking for pH and ammonia the first 3 weeks, doing 25% water change any time I saw a hint of ammonia (maybe every 3rd day or so??). The ammonia hit 0.25 a few times, hit 0.5ppm once, but mostly stayed at zero.

After doing a little research, I realized I need to be for testing nitites & nitrates and should probably be doing more frequent water changes. I started testing for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH twice a day, recording my results. Ammonia, nitrite & nitrates all been zero for the past 10 days.

The pH started crashing, dropping to 6.0, 6.2, etc. I was doing 50% water changes to correct that. I confirmed that my tap water pH was 7.6, both straight from the tap and after sitting out for 24 hrs. It was suggested that crushed coral would help with buffering the kH, and stabilize the pH, so I added a small amount in a mesh bag in my filter. The pH has stabilized, but ammonia, nitrite and nitrates still at zero.

Water was getting cloudy before the pH drop, and has remained even after adding the coral. I slowed down on water changes after adding the coral, since all the parameters were zero, and the pH seemed to stay constant. But really, slowing down the water change only meant skipping a few days, rather than doing one nearly every day.

After letting water sit without a change for three days, two fish died. But no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate present, even confirmed that with two LFS tests. The two dead fish seemed "stressed", but no obvious signs of disease. Last remaining fish has been hiding out behind plants.

I am obviously new at this (fell for the instant cycle gimmick, and didn't know about fish-less cycling), but I am relatively intelligent and can follow directions. I feel like a cat chasing his own tail at the moment.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Your levels all being at "0" tells me your tank isn't cycled yet. You should have a decent reading of NirtAtes by now. That would mean that the ammonia is being turned into nitrite, which in turn should be turning into nitrate, but that's not happening. You should still be doing water changes every day, as evidenced by the two dead fish.

If you're down to just one fish now, can you rehome it or take it back to the LFS, then start a fishless cycle?

 

[quicksandsecrets]

Your levels all being at "0" tells me your tank isn't cycled yet. You should have a decent reading of NirtAtes by now. That would mean that the ammonia is being turned into nitrite, which in turn should be turning into nitrate, but that's not happening. You should still be doing water changes every day, as evidenced by the two dead fish.

If you're down to just one fish now, can you rehome it or take it back to the LFS, then start a fishless cycle?

I agree tank can't be cycled based on my #'s, just can't figure out why.
LFS won't take fish back after this long, may be able to re-home.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Since it is only one fish left at this point, I would suggest you rehome it and go from there with a fishless cycle. Sorry that things aren't working out right now. As far as rehoming the fish, you must find a suitable home. Tiger barbs are aggressive little buggers. They need to be in shoals with other tigers. Do any of your friends have a tank with tigers? Do you know of a fish club around you? Or can you hang out at the local fish store and find someone buying tigers? Or just ask the LFS to take it off your hands. They won't give you a refund certainly, but they may just take it off your hands, and maybe they will do it for store credit. If you have a friend with a tank though you should just ask for a bit of their filter media... any little bit you can get will help and you wouldn't need to rehome the fish. The piece of media from an established tank would instantly cycle your tank for such a small bioload.


If not, then I would suggest you continue with the daily water changes, even if you are getting zero readings for the time being. After the two fish died, there should have been some ammonia reading. The dead fish themselves would be a source of ammonia. Something screwy is definitely going on.


Did you ever get a non-zero reading for nitrite?

 

[quicksandsecrets]

Did you ever get a non-zero reading for nitrite?

never got a nitrite reading above zero, but I was only testing for ammonia for first 3 weeks - didn't know any better early on. I guess there is a possibility that nitrites rose and then fell all in that first few weeks, but I doubt it since I don't have any nitrates yet......

appreciate the input, just not sure what to think at this point

 

[quicksandsecrets]

Since it is only one fish left at this point, I would suggest you rehome it and go from there with a fishless cycle.

If I find a new home for the last barb and go the fish-less route, should I completely empty the tank of the water I have now and start fresh or just add ammonia as is?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Well, the cycling process comes in three phases:

There is phase one, where the ammonia builds up - phase one. Then there is the inevitable nitrite SPIKE, where the ammonia is finally starting to be processed, but the nitrite isn't and the nitrite levels go off the chart (in a fishless cycle) - phase two. Then the nitrites start to come down and the ammonia continues to be processed but the nitrites are still noticeable - phase three.

To be honest, if you NEVER saw any non-zero nitrite values, you are still squarely in phase one of the cycling process. Nitrite will not spike up and then jump back down to zero before the ammonia has settled in. You are still in the early stages. Ultimately, a fish-in cycle is generally much slower than a fishless cycle. The only benefit of doing it with fish is that you don't stare at an empty tank. The benefits of a fishless cycle (contrary to HayzH's experience) is that the cycle goes faster than fish-in, it involves far less stress (on both human and fish) and it enables you to learn about the process without losing fish.


You are still in phase one - which is where you wait for the A-bacs to grow to sizeable enough colony to actually be able to deal with the ammonia. In some fishless cycles, you have to wait 3 weeks before there is any appreciable drop in ammonia at all. It sounds like your ammonia is just now starting to be dealt with in the tank, because your fish are just starting to produce ammoina at a level that is able to be measured. Three small fish in a tank that size will take a while before it actually builds up.

Personally, I've never used AmQuel+. I prefer Prime, Stress Coat or "Tap Water Conditioner" from API. I'm not saying that they are better, but they are what I have had experience with.

Since it is only one fish left at this point, I would suggest you rehome it and go from there with a fishless cycle.

If I find a new home for the last barb and go the fish-less route, should I completely empty the tank of the water I have now and start fresh or just add ammonia as is?

Just add ammonia (make sure it does NOT have any surfactants in it - use the shake test for ammonia - shake the bottle and look for froth. Frothing means surfactants are present.) Boots in the UK and Ace Hardware in the US have a good source of the proper stuff.

 

[quicksandsecrets]

Quick update on the past 10 days. I am still a bit confused, but I am encouraged by something that happened last night.

I was getting discouraged by losing barbs one by one, with signs of distress, but NO ammonia, nitrite or nitrate readings. I even checked my water with three other test kits. Even though my pH stabilized after adding a bit of crushed coral in my filter, nothing else seemed to improve or change. In fact I lost two of the barbs several days after adding the coral. It may not have been related, but I gradually reduced to coral and removed it all together. The pH dropped back down from 7.4 to about 6.4 and stayed in the low 6's.

In a fit of recklessness, I added 5 zebra danios, thinking that one way or another I had to get an ammonia reading before I gave up on cycling the tank with fish. A few days later, the last barb crossed over to the big fish tank in the sky. I continued with daily 25% water changes, I bumped up the feeding to once per day rather than every other day - in hopes that I would start to see some ammonia (6 weeks and counting). Things pretty much stayed the same for about 5 days. Zero ammonia, zero nitrite, zero nitrates, pH in the low 6's. Daily 25% water changes. Water on the cloudy side for about 4 weeks now.

A couple of the danios seemed to be acting a bit odd over the past couple days. But again, NO ammonia. I was beginning to wonder if the tank was contaminated. It was a 2nd hand aquarium. I had only rinsed it out with hot water, but I now wondered if the previous owner had used any chemicals to clean the tank. Not sure if that would explain what's going on, but I had to consider the option. I was getting ready to post a question on how to sterilize the tank as a precaution before starting over.

Yesterday everything was exactly the same, and then within a two hour period, the water turned crystal clear. I had been reading that the cloudy water was a bacterial bloom associated with the cycle process and it would clear up eventually - so this seemed encouraging. The interesting thing is the pH raised back up to 7.4 on it's own at the same time. I am thinking these are good signs. But I can't wrap my head around the test results I have been getting for the past month.

Still confused, but it seems like something is happening.

Is there any reasonable cause that I would get zero readings this far along? Again, I personally have used two different API test kits, and I took water to two different LFS for testing with strip method
Is there anything toxic besides ammonia, nitrite, nitrates that could be present but not part of the API Master test kit that I should consider?
I don't see anything that suggests disease (no white spots / no red gills), so I assume the barbs suffered from cycle toxicity but is there something else I should consider?