You Think You've Done Everything Right ..........

[scubadoo]

So

Completed a fishless cycle.
Trigon 190l tank - about 50galls US

Water stats at the end of the cycle were :
ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - off the charts.
processing 5ppm ammonia to 0 in less than 12 hours

All OK

So did a nice big water change - about 80%
(yes all of the water that went back in was treated)
cooled the temp in the tank from 30deg to 25deg

Went to the LFS to buy fish.
First LFS refused to sell me more than 8 serpae tetra despite trying to explain about the principles of a fishless cycle.
So after banging my head on the wall, decide to frequent another LFS to get remainder of stock - dont want to lose most of my beneficial bacteria with only 8 little fish in there.

Purchased some neons (asked for 10, but got 13), danios (asked for 6 got 3 leopards and 4 zebras) and 6 cory's (look like either julii or trilineatus).

Anyhow, all acclimatised and enjoying their new home.
Before bed thought, I know I'll just check the water stats to confirm that all's ok.

WTF !
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 2 ppm !

so okay, maybe filter needs to play catch up overnight ?

test this morning
ammonia 0
nitrite 4ppm

So quick water change B4 work only about 12% - all I had time for.

What am I going to find when I get home?

I guess that all I can do is daily water changes until it all stabilises.

Cant figure out what went wrong though

 

[brittlestar]

Oh no! Let me get this straight - you added 34 fish in one go? Just because your tank has cycled does not mean you are able to fully stock it all at once!!! You should only add a few fish at a time - remember your filter bacteria will still have to multiply to cope with the increased load even from a couple of extra fish. You have way way way too many and you will lose them if you leave them in there, can you take them back to the shop? I'd just leave the danios in for now as they are tougher than other tropicals, but even that might be too many for the filter to cope with in one go. Your neons will almost definitely succumb, they really cannot tolerate nitrite at all and should not be added to new tanks.
I have to say your LFS was right not to sell you more than 8 in one go, the other shop needs a good talking to!!!! That's way too many fish to add at once. Good luck!

 

[d3tained]

IMO what happened.

FISH you got in tank producing more that 5ppm ammonia and the bacteria for ammonia have already build up but the slower grwoing bacteria for nitirte have not yet.Do water changes till its ok again.

 

[scubadoo]

Oh no! Let me get this straight - you added 34 fish in one go? Just because your tank has cycled does not mean you are able to fully stock it all at once!!! You should only add a few fish at a time - remember your filter bacteria will still have to multiply to cope with the increased load even from a couple of extra fish. You have way way way too many and you will lose them if you leave them in there, can you take them back to the shop? I'd just leave the danios in for now as they are tougher than other tropicals, but even that might be too many for the filter to cope with in one go. Your neons will almost definitely succumb, they really cannot tolerate nitrite at all and should not be added to new tanks.
I have to say your LFS was right not to sell you more than 8 in one go, the other shop needs a good talking to!!!! That's way too many fish to add at once. Good luck!

Now that's not my understanding - all the text on fishless cycle says that you can fully stock once you're done.

From rdd's fishless cycling thread I quote:

"At this point, your tank will probably look terrible with brown algae everywhere and probably cloudy water. As I mentioned, the nitrate reading will also be off the chart. Nitrates can only be removed with water changes. Do a large water change, 75 to 90 percent, turn the heat down to the level the fish you have decided on will need, and you are ready to add your fish. You can safely add your full fish load as your tank will have enough bacteria built up to handle any waste they can produce."

Now that is exactly what I've done!

if it doesn't work what's the point - I should've just bunged 6 danios in weeks ago!

IMO what happened.

FISH you got in tank producing more that 5ppm ammonia and the bacteria for ammonia have already build up but the slower grwoing bacteria for nitirte have not yet.Do water changes till its ok again.

Sounds plausible I guess, but I thought that 5ppm was way more than a normal fish load would produce - particularly in just a few hours.

 

[brittlestar]

Now that's not my understanding - all the text on fishless cycle says that you can fully stock once you're done.

From rdd's fishless cycling thread I quote:

"At this point, your tank will probably look terrible with brown algae everywhere and probably cloudy water. As I mentioned, the nitrate reading will also be off the chart. Nitrates can only be removed with water changes. Do a large water change, 75 to 90 percent, turn the heat down to the level the fish you have decided on will need, and you are ready to add your fish. You can safely add your full fish load as your tank will have enough bacteria built up to handle any waste they can produce."

Now that is exactly what I've done!

if it doesn't work what's the point - I should've just bunged 6 danios in weeks ago!

I'm really sorry, and I do not want to see rude as I'm new here, but this is just not the case - how can there be enough bacteria to cope with ANY amount of fish?? That just does not make sense. The bacteria need time to populate your filter sponges - incidentally what type of filter do you have? Is it a standard internal one or do you have an external as well? Just to give you an idea - I have a Fluval Deep 800 tank with its standard Fluval 3plus internal filter, once I was certain my tank had cycled and it was confirmed by two different brands of liquid test kit, I added 6x zeb danios. The nitrites rocketed to 1.6 and I was doing massive water changes for a few days - unfortuntely I lost them, showing that filter bacteria certainly does not know what is in your tank and needs time to increase the load!!!!!!!! Since that happened I have added a Fluval 305 external and now have 3 rainbowfish and a cory in there, that's it for the next 2 weeks whilst I'm certain my filter will cope!!!

 

[scubadoo]

I'm really sorry, and I do not want to see rude as I'm new here, but this is just not the case - how can there be enough bacteria to cope with ANY amount of fish?? That just does not make sense. The bacteria need time to populate your filter sponges - incidentally what type of filter do you have? Is it a standard internal one or do you have an external as well? Just to give you an idea - I have a Fluval Deep 800 tank with its standard Fluval 3plus internal filter, once I was certain my tank had cycled and it was confirmed by two different brands of liquid test kit, I added 6x zeb danios. The nitrites rocketed to 1.6 and I was doing massive water changes for a few days - unfortuntely I lost them, showing that filter bacteria certainly does not know what is in your tank and needs time to increase the load!!!!!!!! Since that happened I have added a Fluval 305 external and now have 3 rainbowfish and a cory in there, that's it for the next 2 weeks whilst I'm certain my filter will cope!!!

I dont take your input as rude at all.
The theory behind a fishless cycle is that you add your own ammonia to develop the nitryfying bacteria.
I've been doing this and have adhered to all the advice available on this forum.

I haven't gone into this blindly - I read about the subject thoroughly before embarking on the fishless cycle.

I dont want to get off topic, but did you do a fishless cycle b4 adding your danios (as in did you add an ammonia source) or did you just leave it running empty for a while?

 

[Cheffi]

I'm really sorry, and I do not want to see rude as I'm new here, but this is just not the case - how can there be enough bacteria to cope with ANY amount of fish?? That just does not make sense. The bacteria need time to populate your filter sponges - incidentally what type of filter do you have? Is it a standard internal one or do you have an external as well? Just to give you an idea - I have a Fluval Deep 800 tank with its standard Fluval 3plus internal filter, once I was certain my tank had cycled and it was confirmed by two different brands of liquid test kit, I added 6x zeb danios. The nitrites rocketed to 1.6 and I was doing massive water changes for a few days - unfortuntely I lost them, showing that filter bacteria certainly does not know what is in your tank and needs time to increase the load!!!!!!!! Since that happened I have added a Fluval 305 external and now have 3 rainbowfish and a cory in there, that's it for the next 2 weeks whilst I'm certain my filter will cope!!!

I dont take your input as rude at all.
The theory behind a fishless cycle is that you add your own ammonia to develop the nitryfying bacteria.
I've been doing this and have adhered to all the advice available on this forum.

I haven't gone into this blindly - I read about the subject thoroughly before embarking on the fishless cycle.

I dont want to get off topic, but did you do a fishless cycle b4 adding your danios (as in did you add an ammonia source) or did you just leave it running empty for a while?

I also did the fishless cycle which ended approx 3 weeks ago on the sunday. On the tuesday I put 13 malawi straight in ranging from around 4" - 6". Tested my water daily and one week later added 4 Petricola. I've tested my water every day and the stats have been zero for both ammonia and nitrite. On saturday I took delivery of 5 Estherae fully grown. My water still zero.
The whole point of doing the fishless cycle is so that you CAN add an almost full stock of fish. I'm not familiar with the fish scubadoo has bought but in ammonia output they can't possibly add up to 18 dirty malawi. I think something else has gone amiss here.

Now that's not my understanding - all the text on fishless cycle says that you can fully stock once you're done.

From rdd's fishless cycling thread I quote:

"At this point, your tank will probably look terrible with brown algae everywhere and probably cloudy water. As I mentioned, the nitrate reading will also be off the chart. Nitrates can only be removed with water changes. Do a large water change, 75 to 90 percent, turn the heat down to the level the fish you have decided on will need, and you are ready to add your fish. You can safely add your full fish load as your tank will have enough bacteria built up to handle any waste they can produce."

Now that is exactly what I've done!

if it doesn't work what's the point - I should've just bunged 6 danios in weeks ago!

The whole point of doing the fishless cycle and adding ammonia is that you are mimicking a full tank of fish. Therefore once the tank is cycled you do a massive water change add your full stock of fish and they take over production of the ammonia.

I'm really sorry, and I do not want to see rude as I'm new here, but this is just not the case - how can there be enough bacteria to cope with ANY amount of fish?? That just does not make sense. The bacteria need time to populate your filter sponges - incidentally what type of filter do you have? Is it a standard internal one or do you have an external as well? Just to give you an idea - I have a Fluval Deep 800 tank with its standard Fluval 3plus internal filter, once I was certain my tank had cycled and it was confirmed by two different brands of liquid test kit, I added 6x zeb danios. The nitrites rocketed to 1.6 and I was doing massive water changes for a few days - unfortuntely I lost them, showing that filter bacteria certainly does not know what is in your tank and needs time to increase the load!!!!!!!! Since that happened I have added a Fluval 305 external and now have 3 rainbowfish and a cory in there, that's it for the next 2 weeks whilst I'm certain my filter will cope!!!

 

[scubadoo]

The whole point of doing the fishless cycle is so that you CAN add an almost full stock of fish. I'm not familiar with the fish scubadoo has bought but in ammonia output they can't possibly add up to 18 dirty malawi. I think something else has gone amiss here.

Thanks Cheffi - I was beginning to doubt myself there for a mo' - started reding the method threads again in case I missed something.

Now the fish I chose are all small, thin bodied and young, so whilst there may seem to be a lot of them, their bioload shouldn't be excessive if all was well with the system.

The only thing I can think of is that whilst doing the big water change I took the opportunity to plant a few plants - only took about 20-30 minutes, so I cant believe that the sponge filters would have dried out to such an extent that the bacteria started dying off, but who knows?

The problem remains though, and I'm just going to be doing loads of water changes unless things change quickly. I dont really want to take all the fish back and revert to adding ammonia again, but may have to unless I can get this under control some other way.

 

[Cheffi]

The whole point of doing the fishless cycle is so that you CAN add an almost full stock of fish. I'm not familiar with the fish scubadoo has bought but in ammonia output they can't possibly add up to 18 dirty malawi. I think something else has gone amiss here.

Thanks Cheffi - I was beginning to doubt myself there for a mo' - started reding the method threads again in case I missed something.

Now the fish I chose are all small, thin bodied and young, so whilst there may seem to be a lot of them, their bioload shouldn't be excessive if all was well with the system.

The only thing I can think of is that whilst doing the big water change I took the opportunity to plant a few plants - only took about 20-30 minutes, so I cant believe that the sponge filters would have dried out to such an extent that the bacteria started dying off, but who knows?

The problem remains though, and I'm just going to be doing loads of water changes unless things change quickly. I dont really want to take all the fish back and revert to adding ammonia again, but may have to unless I can get this under control some other way.

That is all the advice I could give, doing the water changes. Don't know whether turning your filter off could have had an adverse effect but I wish you good luck with your new fish.

 

[scubadoo]

Many thanks

It's just sooooo frustrating after thinking that you've done everything right.

To top it off I'm going away at the end of the week for a long weekend, so if it hasn't gotten better by then who knows what sort of carnage I'll find when we get back!

 

[brittlestar]

I apologise Scubadoo if others have had success doing this fishless cycle then you clearly were well informed Its just I have never found it to work, so I always stock my tanks very slowly over a course of a month or so, that's the only way I know. Weirdly though, like Cheffi, when I had my malawi tank, as messy as they are, I never got any surges of nitrite or ammonia and I stocked that rather fast!!!! I hope the water changes do the trick and they all make it, let us know

 

[scubadoo]

No apologies necessary brittlestar.

I'm currently thinking it would have been better to go down the fish cycling route myself, but will just try to keep on top of it I guess.

I dont know if there are any products out there that could help lock the nitrite in?

I know about ammo-lock, but my ammonia is ok at 0 anyway!

the problem with additives though is that they can then throw your test readings out of kilter for a while and you're never sure if your readings are actually 0 or a false 0.

I'm thinking of the short term if when I go away if the nitrite readings haven't come down and I cant do the water changes for 4 or 5 days.

Anybody got any thoughts on this?

 

[scubadoo]

So got home tonight and one of the neons had a bit of white fluff on his dorsal fin & didn't look too good so took him out.

Changed 35-40% of the water and the nitrite is still off the chart.

Will do the same in the morning and tomorrow night, but I'm expecting a stack of losses I guess .

I just want to

 

[chris1974]

eeek ive got all this to come!!!!

good luck is all i can say, as im a newb

 

[scubadoo]

Update:

Well, got up early this morning and did another 35-40% water change.

After the change the nitrite level dropped to about 2ppm, which obviously is not good, but is better than being off the charts.

I can only hope that over the next few days it gets back under control.

Lost another neon and a few more dont look so good.
The corys' dorsal fins are showing signs of feathering / fraying but other than that they look ok.

Got to get on top of the nitrite situation first.