Stats Please Help

[glyndawn]

i have a jewal 180ltr tank its been set up now approx 9 months

and its never been right ive allways had trouble with ammonia being at 0.25

the past few weeks ive been losing fish left right and centre my guppies have been losing there rear fins the go transparent

i checked the states the other day
ammonia 0.5
nitrite 0
nitrate 0

so i did a 50ltr water change and added 20ml of bacterlife friendly bacteria

i checked the states again yesterday and got so did another 50ltr water change
ammonia 0.25
nitrite 0
nitrate 5.0

the guppies started to cheer up

woke this morning to find anther guppie losing its fin checked stats
amonia 0.25
nitrite 0.25
nitrate 0

can someone tell me what i doing wrong why isnt my tank cyclyd yet

please help

 

[Prime Ordeal]

Hi

How many fish do you have and what kind are they?

What is the pH of your tank and what are you using to test with?

How did you cycle the tank at the beginning?

Are you using a dechlorinator to treat your water before puttin it in the tank?

What type of filter are you using and what temperature is the tank at?

Do you add anything else to the tank apart from dechlorinator and the Bacterlife?

Lots of questions I know but this is the minimum needed to help you out.

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Hi there and happy new year..

I can't see anything in your post where you explain how and when you cycled your tank (wether it be fish-in or fishless).. also, the clear absence of NitrAtes suggests your tank isn't cycled at all, what test kit are you currently using?
After 9 months of Ammonia being at 0.25 i would have thought that your beneficial bacteria would have kicked in and started producing NitrAte.. may i suggest a quick visit to the beggineers section, read up on fish-in cycling, and let us know if there is anything (or nothing) that you have done differently..?

Terry.

 

[glyndawn]

hi i first set my tank up up and cyclyed it for 4 weeks before adding fish then added my fish out of my old tank which is

15 neons
10 guppies
3 platys
1 alge eater
2 frogs
3 rassurb

these where put in a few at a time over a corse of a week and everything was fine

my ph is about 7.8 im usin api master kit

when changing water im emptying 10 ltrs at a time till i get 50 ltrs out the fill my 10ltr bucket up and add 0.5ml of nutrafin water conditioner to each bucket full

my temp of the tank is 78

my filter is a external one made by supa fish which does 800ltrs per hour

 

[snazy]

I would add a second filter or upgrade the filter in place. 800litre/hour is no good in my opinion for a 180 litre tank. It probably just can't hanlde the load, especially if water changes are not done often, siphoning gravel, etc..
When you test the nitrates with the Api test, you need to shake bottle number two for at least a minute, otherwise it will show you 0 nitrates.

 

[glyndawn]

i do give it a good shake i normaly do 50ltr every week and syphon the gravel what kind of filter shall i get

 

[Prime Ordeal]

I don't agree with snazy that 800l/h is inadequate for a 180l tank IF it is actually 800l/h. However when you add media and then the filter starts getting clogged that could easily be a true 400l/h. And then I do agree with snazy because your stocking level is quite heavy and if your cleaning routine isn't up to scratch it just won't be adequate for that setup.

You need to do a big clean of the whole tank, including the filter and then either reduce your stock level or get a better filter, or second filter, as snazy suggets.

 

[glyndawn]

what kind how many lph

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Again, i believe your problem is that your media inside your filter does not contain enough beneficial bacteria..
leaving the tank to 'cycle for 4 weeks' isn't good enough to create a healthy, disease free tank (believe me, i've been there and got the T-Shirt)...!
Once you have decided on what filter you should be using, i strongly suggest you read up on how the nitrogen cycle in our filter works...


Terry.

 

[glyndawn]

whould 1000ltr per hour be any good ?

 

[snazy]

I normally go 10 times the amount of water an hour. So total rate at least 1800 litres an hour, whether on one or 2 filters.
My current setup is 120 litres, from which 100 litres is the water,rest is gravel and decoration. And I have a total flow of 1800 litres an hour, which makes a turn over of 18 times the amount of water an hour. Some may say is over filtered, but it is working just fine for me and water is pristine.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

For a second filter I'd use something like an Eheim or Tetratec rated for about the same as the one you've got now, so 800l/h

 

[snazy]

Again, i believe your problem is that your media inside your filter does not contain enough beneficial bacteria..
leaving the tank to 'cycle for 4 weeks' isn't good enough to create a healthy, disease free tank (believe me, i've been there and got the T-Shirt)...!

He said this was setup for 9 months and ammonia was always there. The tank just won't go through full cycle with stocking like that and filter like that. To me it is inadequate filtering, regardless. Especially considering that the advertised 800l/h is always less when filter media is in.

@glyndawn: Just a question. Do you shake bottle 2 on the nitrate test?

 

[glyndawn]

so its defo the filter causing me this problem

i have 2 of these filters shall i use both of them or put a fluval u4 in the tank because i have one of them to

 

[Prime Ordeal]

Either would be adequate although the U4 has the greater flow rate. Using the same filter is better here I think because you can just transfer half the old media to the new filter to seed it(probably, not familiar with that particular filter).