Cycle not starting?!?!? other issues too!!

ooja3k

ooja3k

AC Members
Jul 3, 2007
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San Luis Obispo
Long story short, I didn't do my research on the nitrogen cycle after I found a small 3gal Eclipse tank in my girl friends cuppard. Anyway, we got the "aquarium bug" and got a 10gal from petsmart. Just the generic kit with filter and light hood and whatnot. Anyway, we also got wayyyy tooo many fish for it...

2 gouramis
2 guppys
2 pladys
1 molly
1 angelfish
1 CAE

anyway... 2 days after getting the tank, i found this site and read about cycling the tank and immediately started doing 50% water changes once or twice daily... and testing the ammonia in the water..

well a week and a half later, 1 guppy, molly, and angelfish are dead. and ammonia is still through the roof, with no sign of nitrates or nitrites....

the test kit i have has always read really high, even after adding ammo-lock/amquel... so i thought something odd was going on... so i took some straight tap water, and added a small amount of novaqua. (what i use to condidtion my water) i then tested this small bath of water and found the ammonia to be reading about 2ppm... could this be a false reading??? this makes it seem like im removing 4ppm ammonia saturated water and replacing it with 2ppm... i think that terminology is correct...

what should I do??? would a nicer filter be beneficial??? something that provides a better place for the bacteria to live??? the ones i have now has the white rectangular shaped cloth bag that contains carbon...

this is the filter medium that is in the stock filter that came with the tank.
http://www.petsmart.com/global/prod...1184003231376&itemNo=5&In=Fish&N=2030059&Ne=2
 
If its been less than 14 days since you bought the fish I would advise to take them all back to the store (later than that and Petsmart normally won't accept them). That's way too many fish for such a new tank.

If you can take them back: I'd say do a 90% water change (leaving the filter media and the gravel wet) and start the whole thing over. Read up about the nitrogen cycle and if you still want to do a fishy cycle (plenty of info on how to do a fishless) start with 1 fish, maybe 2 if they are small (danios, etc). Then don't add any more fish until the tank has settled and theres no ammonia and the cycle has completed. Then slowly slowly slowly add fish.

If you can't take them back : Water change like mad! Do 34-40% water changes at least once a day, possibly twice a day until the ammonia is down to 0 and the water is no longer lethal for the fish.
In a 10G I would recommend sticking with just the platy's/mollies or a nice group of schooling fish like tetras or maybe danios. Which type of gourami's did you get? All the ones that my store sells don't get more than 4" but are still semi-aggressive and may have aggression issues as they get larger and older, so consider returning those to a lfs.
 
OKay, to start, what kind of testing kit are you using? If strips, they can be very inaccurate from strip to strip, if liquid, you need to shake Both bottles extremely well (I think it says for 1-2 minutes prior to using), and make sure you are adding the right drop amounts. I don't mean to be patronizing - I did this when I started out!! Also, check the expiration dates

After 10 days or so, and you only lost 3 fish, not bad. Those WCs are really helping IMO. I would re-test the ammonia in the tap.

As for the AmQuel and possably Novaqua, you will still pick all Ammonia up in the tests, but it "locks" the ammonia into a non-toxic form. This is really not needed if the WCs are maintained (and your tap is okay).

As for the tap water, if you are getting readings in the 2+ppm you need ot contact your water department or do you mean 0.2ppm? Or do you have a shallow and/or unlinned well?

Bring back your fish, or as many as you can. The more fish, the worse the toxins will build up the greater risk of fish deaths...The person who sold you these fish should be dumped in a vat of sewage and see how they like it
 
A side question, how long does it take for the ammonia eating bacteria to show up and do their jobs? How many days is typical with a brand new tank?
 
It depends on the individual tank and bio load, and can vary widely from tank to tank, plus if the ammonia levels get too high, the cycle will stall. The best and easiest way to cycle a tank is to do a fishless cycle, either by adding pure ammonia or by dropping a raw shrimp in there and letting it decay. I suggest you browse around this site and take a look at some of the articles on the nitrogen cycle.:)
 
yea, the lenght fishy cycling takes to start was the one thing the whole thread failed to mention.
 
Its weird, I have 3 tanks and I cycled all of them differently (fishy, fish-less and using bio-media fish-less).

10G - Bio-media (Fishless) took 5 days! :woot:
30G - Fishy too 5 weeks
75G - Fishless (pure ammonia) too 3 almost 4 weeks
 
i am using a liquid test kit.. don't remember the brand.. and yes, i am adding the right number of drops and everything...

as for the tap water, i filled a bucket with tap water, added the novaqua conditioner stuff, and then did an ammonia test on it and got a high reading...


as for the filter thing... which no one addressed, i am looking at getting a AC 20. i like the fact that it has multiple, easy to clean/replace, stages of filtration. my filter now is pumping more water into the filter than is coming out... i mean the bio-bag that it has to travel through to get back into the tank is slowing the flow down, so it backs up behind it and overflows out the front over the intake thingy back into the tank without being filtered...

would now be a bad time to upgrade filters??? or does anyone else have a different filter they like?? i want to stick with one that hangs on the back of the aquairum... what types of filters are good for biological filtering.. this seems of upmost importance as my tank is fairly overstocked...
 
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