Where To Go From Here......

[Basil Fawlty]

I feel awful...... I feel ignorant and misled at the momentbut I won't give up if I can get the right help....

Here goes in chronogical order.....

- we inherit a 30l biorb which has housed a fancy goldfish for 8 years that had recently died.
- spend some time thinking about whether we are happy to try this, and in the course of deciding go to the local aquatic store and ask for opinions. They tell me the 30l isn't suitable for goldfish (despite the fluke previous occupant!) and suggest instead 3-4 guppies or a pair of mollies. They advised to set the tank up with a heater, live plants, tap water,tap safe,and let it run for a week. They didn't stock the heater for the biorb though but suggested pets at home would.... So we went there too, and we're given identical advice pretty much. They suggested more fish but I felt the original stocking suggestion sounded better and we planned on 4 or 5 guppies.

We set up the tank as instructed let it run for a week, then take a sample of water in for testing. All okay, so we bring home 3 guppies.

48 hours later guppy one dies. Return to shop with water, they test and advise levels are high. They advise a 50% water change and repeat tomorrow and bring in a water sample the day after. We did this. Levels were dropping but they advised another 30% change anyway. Did this.

Next day guppy two starts looking ropey. I'm really worrying now, and start to use the brain I was born with and use the Internet. I'm appalled to read about tank cycling and why weren't we told about this?? In the meantime I deduce we are seemingly doing some sort of fish in cycle with the advice given about water changes, but I suspect its too little too late. Another 30% change. Fish two dies later that day.

Guppy three is still going strong 6 days later with daily 30% changes. I keep taking samples in to be tested, I keep being told that what I am doing is correct and that all will be well. Levels are still high but not as high and are dropping slowly. Shop are sick to death of me turning up with water samples but I don't really care, they should have advised me correctly!!! I have asked about fish less cycles and they tell me there is no need at all, that what I did is correct (***sigh***)

Today, 10 days after putting fish in, the last guppy died. Went to do the 30% change and noticed he was struggling to swim up, was circling the bottom, then 10 minutes later is dead.

I feel awful, really. I feel very responsible and at the same time furious about what I have been told. I'd lost faith anyway.... I'd spoken to our child's school about it yesterday (they have a HUGE tank with a catfish, and loads of other beautiful fish) and the lady who looks after the tank gave me a spare testing kit (nutrafin test? It's a dropper one) so I could test myself and not have to go back to the rubbish shop.

So we now have an empty 30l biorb (and am stuck with this) live plants, a 2.5 week old filter, a testing kit and no fish.

How do I restart this to make sure it works properly? I am confused as to how I get ready to start again.... Take everything out and clean the whole lot, ditch the plants? Change the water completely? Or do I leave the set up as it is and start fish less cycling somehow now?

Fed up and sad.....

 

[Staxx]

continue with a fishless cycle. now you have a test kit and the fish have already started the cycle for you. you should be alrite tbh.

 

[Staxx]

double post.

 

[BlueDragon]

You could do a Fish-less cycle now. You'll need amonia to do it. Or maybe not?

Your not the only one out there who's gone through this. So many people have been lied to. Petshops are there to make money so the quicker they can get you to buy lots of Fish the better. And the sad truth is that if your Fish die then your likely to just come back for more, so that's great news to them. Plus the info they give is so out of date it could almost be classed as antique : /

Sorry to hear about your Guppies. I have Guppies and I'm having to re-cycle my tank. A Fish-in cycle. And so far I've lost two Male Guppies, one Female and one Male Platy. I have my last male Guppy sitting on the gravel and I know he's not going to last long, and a pregnant female Guppy which I'm not sure if she's going to die along with her unborn babies... It's a horrable thing to have to go through.

The good news for you is that Fish-less cycles are not only so much easier, but you no longer have to deal with any more deaths.

 

[Basil Fawlty]

Ok, so add a pinch of fish food daily not ammonia and just test daily? Continue or ditch water changes???

Just used the testing kit.

Ammonia zero
Ph fine
Nitrates and nitrites high still - I can work out readings (numbers) if needed but on the colour scales they are still at the high end. Find it quite hard to interpret them but suppose that's practice.....

 

[Staxx]

yeah you could use fish food. thats how i started off my tank and it was fine

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Although there isn't really anything wrong with cycling your filter using flake food, it is notoriously hard to judge how much you should be putting in, and when, to get the desired amount of ammonia needed to continue your cycle. I would look into getting hold of some household ammonia (B&Q, Boots, local hardware store) then continue a full fishless cycle using that. Good luck.

Terry.

 

[Fintastic!]

You could go back to the shop and ask them if they'll sell you some of their filter media. That way you'll be instantly cycled. Worth a try. Either way don't lose heart. You'll learn loads from the folks here.

 

[slimeneo]

You could go back to the shop and ask them if they'll sell you some of their filter media. That way you'll be instantly cycled. Worth a try. Either way don't lose heart. You'll learn loads from the folks here.

Yup, this way is a lot easier. Then you won't have to keep changing the water all the time Don't worry, they lied to me too.... I'm doing a fish-in cycle right now but I got some old filter media from petco so it's nearly cycled

at my LFS they didn't even tell me what I'd need, they just gave me fish and said I'd need "weekly water changes."

Little did I know, it was more like daily water changes.

 

[Basil Fawlty]

Thanks. I've just tested the water now and ammonia still zero. Nitrites are high - hard to judge on these tests but I'd say it's about as high as the measure will go 3.3 mg/l I think.

I don't have flake food here anyway, as biorbs can't take it. I've been using hikari granular food, so I presume as its been specifically referred to as flaked food I wouldn't be able to use this to continue the cycle anyway. I'll get some ammonia I guess.

I've read fishless cycling guides and I still don't understand properly where to start from halfway though as they all refer to it as a start from scratch thing. . Basically i should be feeding the tank tiny amounts of ammonia (which will, I assume make the ammonia level rise again) and then eventually all the levels, including the ammonia and nitrites will radically drop back to zero..... Have I got the hang of that right?

Should also say that nitrate reading was mega high but the result chart says if your nitrites are high the nitrate result will be affected anyway.....

 

[Basil Fawlty]

I'm still a bit stuck understanding what to do, there seems to be loads of opinion and I just feel like I need a straightforward instruction....!

We are now a few days since the last guppy died. I had to stall things for 48 hours as we had relatives here from overseas and it was fraught, but I did keep the tank running and dropped a flake of food in every day anyway as I had no ammonia at home.

Relatives leave, I manage to source a bottle of ammonia. I'm testing the water again at home using inherited nutrafin minimaster test kit. Ammonia zero, nitrites off the scale. I take the water sample to generic-pets-shop-chain and they test it (using an api test, I note) and this time they say nigh nitrites too but also v v v high ammonia.

How comes my test was showing zero then I now don't trust my testing kit at all, which leaves me stuck with testing at home.

Advice from petshoppeople..... Syphon off all the water, add just plain tap water, no tap safe needed, wait 48 hours with pump and filters switched off and then switch on, leave for 48 hours and add fish again.

Now even my inexperienced brain thinks that adding tap water without tapsafe will stuff up my precarious filter

A very, very nice customer overheard my conversation and interjected when they had finished. He said I should ignore them, don't drain the tank, just add a flake of food every 2-3 days, get a new test kit and test again in about a week. He said by then I should see a change.

I've also noticed today that the filter is starting to get to be a grubby colour.

So who is right? The nice man, or the shop 'experts'...?

What I still don't understand is that if I leave the tank just as it is right now, ammonia up, nitrites up, won't it just balance itself if I leave it long enough (another 2 weeks?!) and according to biorb I need to change the filter when it's 6 weeks old. Won't I be back to square one again??

Still confused, obviously!!!!

Note: when I say I have sourced ammonia, i should say I've not used it yet as still unsure if that's the right route....

 

[Fintastic!]

Go ask them for a nice hunk of mature chunk of media from one of their tanks. You'll be instantly cycled. Don't even tell them your cycling problems or you'll have to endure listening to their 'advice' as they try to sell you stuff you don't need. If they say they don't sell it, then try somewhere else.
I was buying gravel for my 10 gal last week and the lfs guy kept trying to sell me bacteria in a bottle even though I said I had a mature tank with extra media from my 10 gal stuffed into the filter. He kept pushing it saying I needed it and in the end I just walked out.
Some of the members here donate media but it depends where you live.

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi Basil!

Hope you don't find this patronising, but if I talk you through how a cycle works, in very simple terms, hopefully it'll help you understand what it is you're trying to do

'Cycling' a filter means growing a colony of good bacteria that will eat the ammonia and nitrite for you. The bacteria won't be able to grow unless you add a source of ammonia, either as 'pure' household ammonia (a fishless cycle) or by adding fish to excrete it (a fish-in cycle).

Use the calculator on this site (it's up at the top) to work out how much ammonia you need to add, add slightly less than that amount and test it with you kit (I'm sure it's not faulty; this will check that anyway). You're looking to get an ammonia concentration of around 3 or 4ppm. Then you just wit for that to go down.

Once the ammonia is zero, or near zero, redose until you're back up to 3 or 4ppm again, and then start testing for both ammonia and nitrite. The bacteria will eat the ammonia and turn it into nitrite, then another family of bacteria eat the nitrite and turn it into nitrate.

Once you've had a week of dosing ammonia and getting zero results for both ammonia and nitrite testing after twelve hours, your filter will be cycled.

Don't take any notice of any instructions that tell you to change your filter media; that's just a ploy by the manufacturers to get money from you. As you rightly surmise, replacing filter media will get rid of all your good bacteria and leave you cycling again. Just gently wash it in old tank water when you do your water changes and it should last you years. The only thing that needs replacing, if your filter has it, is the thin white 'cotton wool'.

 

[Basil Fawlty]

Thank you all..

I can't beg or buy Media as the biorb system is different. It has a sponge filter thing and ceramic media rocks in the bottom of the tank (you're not meant to use gravel, although there are way round that). The ceramic media rocks colonise the bacteria too, not just the filter. Unless I could get some colonised rocks from someone I guess......

Flutter moth - thank you. I keep repeating the process!! I guess I'll go for the ammonia then. Can I do that with live plants? Should I do any sort of water change before commencing?? Lfs lady said she had never ever seen nitrites so high...... !

I presume also you leave a gap between adding the ammonia and testing?