Woke up to dead fish......
- Thread starter Ballyhoo
- Start date
I had received the tank from a friend who had had it 5 years, it was torn down and refilled about 5 months ago when I received it.
Basically your at the point with new substrate that your going to be cycling the whole tank over again. For the health of the fish, you need to keep ammonia and nitrite levels under .25ppm. Prime will detoxify the ammonia and nitrite, but your will still need to remove them with water changes. Hopefully there is some bacteria left within your tank, which will speed up the process of getting your tank cycled properly.
If you know anyone else with a tank, ask if you can have some of their dirty filter media or just get some dirty water 'squeezings' from their media to add some much needed bacteria back to your tank.
well slappy if you live in Raleigh you are very close to me. Think you could help me out with some bacteria, or even foster/take my fish until my tank mess is settled? I don't have a second tank, all I have is a rubbermaid tote.
Water changes do not affect biological bacteria. Tearing down the tank and replacing filter media does. Get some used media from a LFS and add it to your filter to help seed it. Next time you do a substrate change do not touch the filter. Never rinse filter media in tap water... tank water only. Never replace all the media at once.
The best thing to do is stay calm and stay on top of waterchanges until ammo is under control.
The substrate change alone could cause a mini cycle combined with the filter change and that's what most likely happened.
I think most people in this hobby has done this at least once, I know I have.
The substrate change alone could cause a mini cycle combined with the filter change and that's what most likely happened.
I think most people in this hobby has done this at least once, I know I have.
Changing substrate, water and filter media is basically setting up a new tank and restarting the cycle process. Bacteria in your filter will prevent this. Or the bacteria on your gravel. Thats why you can change one or the other w/o a spike in NH3( water, filter, or substrate). There is enough bacteria left behind to compensate for the loss. By changing all 3 you eliminate 99% of your population and it will take a few days to re-establish unless you COMPLETELY scubbed it out, then almost a month.
Agreed. Making mistakes is part of the learning process so don't be so hard on yourself after all you are looking for answers and taking action to correct it.
So I would say no your not in the wrong hobby. Try not to get too discouraged you well get it right.
