Which Of The Following Is Most Likely...

[philak]

I've been doing big water changes last night and today after suddenly noticing the Corys going for air every few minutes and finding my nitrite at plus 1 ppm.

This followed a 40 percent water change using part RO and part tap water but no gravel vac cos i didnt want to disturb the fry.

There are also about 60 , 2 week old,Bolivian Ram fry still in the tank even after removing about 25. They have only visibly started pecking at tiny food in the last day or so.The tank is divided (3 days ago)but the spray bar covers both ends and water circulates

I've now added some mature media from the other tank at my g/fs in case i got chlorinated water into the filter before the dechlor did its job. (Ammonia is still at 0 so if its the chlorine then it only messed with one type of bacteria).

Which is the likeliest culprit here to have caused the spike? Extra bio load, incorrect water change ienot allowing dechlor to mix well enough or the tank being divided?

 

[drobbyb]

If I were to guess, I would say the increased bioload and you already missed the ammonia spike. How long has this been going on?

 

[snowflake311]

Extra fish and extra food. Are you feeding the fry? With fry you should be doing daily WC it helps they grow faster.

 

[philak]

drobby, i measure the stats daily at the moment because of the fry. Lierally one day the figures were fine and the next they were up , but only detectably for nitrite.

The tank is well established ( 6 months plus) and never showed a waver off double 0s for Ammonia and Nitrite until a few hours after this most recent water change.

Snowflake, i'm feeding them liquifry and just started mixing in some fry powdered food. Can also see them picking at bits on the bogwood.


If it is the bioload increase then am i right in saying that if you have 2 filters running, each one (assuming equal size filters) would only be processing half the load? Therefore if one filter failed the other wouldnt be able to take over completely straight away? I assume we are working on the principle that the bacteria colonies only grow to the size of the food source.

 

[snowflake311]

The extra fry food will add more ammonia. I think that is your problem. It is really easy to over feed with this food. I'm raising Cory fry right now the are about 2 weeks old. I keep my fry in their own tank where I do daily water changes and only feed a tiny bit twice a day. I dip my finger in the first bits powder just to get a bit then swish my finger around in the water. You can barely see that I put any in.

Do you have any way of setting up a 10 gal tank with a sponge filter and a heater for them. That way you can feed them the right amount and do daily wc easy.

 

[philak]

I have a seperate 50L tank up and running with about 20 of the fry in there already and that tank is fine stats wise (but they are the only occupants so it would be i guess).

Given that it's the parents first brood i wanted to leave some with them in the main tank, especially as they appeared to be doing a good job. I wanted to encourage them and not steal away all their babies so i put a divider in to help.Maybe i left a few too many in but it was distressing enough for them that i took what i did the first time.

It's also my first time with fish babies so excuse the sentimental approach

 

[snowflake311]

It's fine to leave some fry with the parents. But daily water changes wi be best for your fry. It keeps them healthy and they really do grow faster. Something about the growth hormon they release into the water can effect them if it is not taken out by doing daily WC.

Leave the ram fry in. But take the Cory fry out and grow them in a fry tank. Once the ram fry are free swimming you might want to take them out too. The parents will be fine they will spawn again once the fry are gone.

 

[Harlequins]

I agree with snowflake,and fry food like liquidfry can seriously mess your water quality up,i also have cory fry and lost quite a few to a nitrite spike,which i think was overfeeding them in the beginning,i just give the tiniest amount now.

 

[philak]

Thanks everyone. I suspect i probably have been overfeeding a bit judging by the comments on here so i'll cut back.