Too Late To Cycle?

[Bblou]

hey... I am VERY new to fish keeping and my goldfish I kept when young were always doomed as soon as I lay a beady eye on them and pleaded with mummy to buy them from me! Anyway.. I have grown up a lot now, but still have the same knowledge of fish and tanks that I had at a very young age!!

SOOOO...

I only just found this site...

We have a 20 gallon tank and in it is 1 male betta, 2 dwarf gouramis (which might be going back to fishy shop as bazil the betta doesnt like them very much (oops)), 5 fancy guppies (bazil ignores those) and 10 emperor tetras. I have live plants.

The filter and its sponges and the heater and air pump came from my partners dads plec tank (well, it IS his fathers plec tank.. the plec is HUGE now and has moved home!).

I set up the tank and left it for about a week, grudgingly! I also gave it Reiki (im a bit of a hippy and reiki is a healing process).

I bought bazil first and put him in on the third day the tank was set up. The man in the pet shop gave me live bacteria to put inside the filter and said it should be ok for Bazil, but not to put any more fish in for a week or two.

Being inpatient, and not really having been explained to why it was so important to leave the tank for so long... I reiki'd and reiki'd away at my tank and bazil and took a sample to the pet shop to be tested. Apparently the water was fine with the exception of a trace of nitrate. On his advice, (he said it should be ok) I added the rest of the fish today.

I dont even know what nitrate is or nitrite and ammonia and all that... I am still sending healing to my tank and my fish (laugh if you must) and tomorrow (if sunday gives me an open pet shop) I will buy a home test kit.

But yeh... any advice please as I am blind fish keeping at present!!!!

Bazil was a rather pricey betta and I would me extremely sad if any of the fish died because of my own stupidity so if anyone has any advice on what I should do to ensure theyre all in a nice environment.

Oh.. ps... my tanks at 22c (i cant find degrees symbol). is that ok? and how often do they need feeding?

From an entirely uneducated but excitable and loving new fish keeper!

 

[OldMan47]

You have a full load of fish in the tank and it looks to me like its probably not cycled from what you have been doing. What that means is that you will be having some rapid build up of ammonia in the tank. Until you can get a testing kit and find out what is happening in your tank, I would do at least a 30% daily water change. The new water should be about the same temperature as the water you take out and should be treated with dechlorinator before you add it to the tank. Once you get the testing kit, we can help a lot more but in the meantime, this should help some with the fish.

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Bblou and to TFF,

It sounds like you need to learn some of the basics, so here goes.

Firstly, although most LFS's (Local Fish Shops, if you are unfamiliar with the abbreviation) will recommend to leave a new tank running for a week before doing anything with it, this actually achieves nothing at all. A good rule for newbies is to take LFS advice with a pinch of salt and always check on here to confirm it. Anyway...........

What you need to do is 'cycle' the filter. 'Cycling' is the term given to establishing a colony of 'beneficial bacteria' in your filter. This is an essential part of fishkeeping and its important that you understand why we do it and how it works.

To summarise for you, fish produce ammonia in the water by doing the toilet and by respiration. Ammonia is lethal to fish, even in very small quantities, so it is essential that this ammonia is removed from the tank. That is where your filter comes in. The first bacteria colony which you need established in your filter, nitrosomonas, turn ammonia into nitrite.

Nitrite is also lethal to fish even in very small doses, so we also need another bacteria established in our filters, nitrospira, which convert nitrite into nitrate, which is relatively harmless for our fish other than in large concentrations.

To avoid large concentrations of nitrate building up in the water, we perform partial water changes to remove it.

Here is a diagram to help you understand.

You can see that the filter bacteria are an essential part of keeping the fish alive and healthy, and can easily be the difference between happy healthy fish or dead fish, but unfortunately the filters don't come laced with these bacteria, we need to breed the bacteria ourselves. That is why your LFS gave you live bacteria to put into your filter. Unfortunately, most live bacteria products are pretty useless.

Chances are then that your filter isn't cycled and will be cycling at the moment. However you have fish in the tank but not enough bacteria to neutralise these lethal toxins, meaning the fish are effectively poisoning themselves. You should invest in a test kit as soon as you can so you can monitor what is going on in the water. Buy a liquid reagent based kit, not dip-strips as these are pretty inaccurate. You should buy tests for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH to begin with. You should be able to pick up a kit which tests for all 4 as these are the 'staple' water tests.

For just now until you get your test kit, we should assume that your filter isn't cycled and your fish are being poisoned. The way to tackle it is to perform partial water changes. I'd recommend changing 50% of the water each day meantime. Make sure the replacement water is treated with dechlorinator (i assume you have some already?) and try to match the temperature as closely as possible with the temp of the tank water.

Whilst we are waiting for you to get your test kit and post your results so we can help further, you should have a read at the 'Cycling with Fish' article which you can find a link to in my signature below. If you have any questions after reading it, ask away.

In answer to your other questions, 22 is probably slightly too low for temp. 24 - 26 is ideal for tropical fish, so raise your temp to somewhere in that region.

You should feed your fish once per day, and only feed as much as the fish will consume in 2 minutes. If there is still food left after this time, you've fed too much. Overfeeding is a big killer of fish and it is very important that you keep that in mind. I always say " A hungry fish is a healthy fish" and it couldn't be more true. Obviously don't starve your fish, but feed sparingly.

Hope this helps you a bit. Start your 50% water changes NOW and post test results as soon as possible and we can help you further.

Good Luck!

BTT

 

[Bblou]

thankyou very much for your help!!! The filter I have was used in another tank before this one... with a plec in. would that make a difference? And when my LFS tested the water (he had some odd test tube contraption in front of him) he said the water had traces of nitrate. I think I allready said that though. He also said my plants will help that? is that right?

I will be trying to get a test kit today so will post what it says (if I can figure out how to read the results lol) later on! thanks

Dumb question... how do I match the water temp? just by feel I guess?

Lastly... ill go turn the heater up now

thanks again!

 

[OldMan47]

Bblou, you can get a match of temperature within 1 degree F by feel so that will work for now. I take a gallon or so and sit it next to the kitchen sink. When the bucket of new water is full I just go back and forth between the two buckets and find it easy to get so close I can't measure the difference with my digital thermometer. If your used filter was kept wet until you got your new fish and never went long without any fish you may be in better shape than most new fish keepers as far as cycling the tank.

 

[Bblou]

hey all.. i did another post about this coz I couldnt find this one, but here are the test results.

pH = 7.6 (the test wont go any higher but I do think my pH is higher than this reading.
Ammonia = 0.25
Nitrite= 1.0
Nitrate = 20

In the other post I was linked to fish in cycling so im about to read that.

I have bought some dechlorinator today along with my test kit (made me feel like a scientist hehe) and a syphen (sp) pump. I am in my partners fathers house to borrow his bucket.

I don't know if the filter was kept wet... I came home one day to a set up tank!