ok so i have started my first tank and i'm a bit lost. i got a 10 gallon starter tank and set it up a little over a week ago.i put in conditioning salt, a bacterial supplement, and Prime. let it run for a couple of days added a neutral regulator to lower the ph and bought the ammonia rocks or pellets and put them in my filter let it run for 2 more days and then added 2 guppies and a betta. my ammonia level hit .50 where it has sorda stayed. i am on day 3of having added the fish. so today i did a 10 percent water change. waited an hour before testing and it reads .25 now. should i wait 24hrs before checking again to get an accurate reading or is that accurate, and if so what now change more water?i am only feeding them a small amout twice a day so i don't think i'm over feeding them. the fish don't seem stressed they seem very active and playful. the betta stays mostly at the back of the tank but is swimming alot i think he may just like to be away from the other 2. the temp is staying beween 78-80 degrees.here are all my current readings chlorine ppm 0, nitrite 0,hardness 110, ph still around 7.4.should i add anything to soften the water and this may be a dumb question but hey i'm new at this i don't see a place to check nitrates only the nitrites. is it the same scale just they eventually turn from nitrites to nitrates or do i need to buy a seperate testing kit for those? so ANY HELP TO MY QUESTONS OR COMMENTS ON WHAT I'VE DONE RIGHT AND WHAT I'M DOING WRONG IS APRECIATED. thnks..Xavier:help:
Need Help!
- Thread starter xavier31_tn
- Start date
Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. well, first off you're finding out why many of us put up big red flags about putting fish in too soon. Your tank is beginning to cycle. It takes about a month with fish in the tank. I think that's why you had an ammonia spike. Your water will not read correctly for a day or so after a water change. Keep changing the water. Suggest you go up to 20% a day until things stabalize. Maybe a week. Your temp is OK, chlorine good, ph is fine (fish don't care about hard water), nitrItes 0 (terrific), Yes, you'll need to test for nitrAtes. They're the good guys. NitrItes are bad bacteria, NitrAtes are good bacteria. Yes they turn in to nitrAtes but it's not a straight accross trade. Gotta watch it. I think this is all right. If not I'm sure somebody will correct me. 
I'm guessing that you haven't properly cycled your tank. Generally, without seeding, it takes a while to develop proper bacteria to break down the nitrogen compounds to nitrate. It took a month for me to cycle a 10 gal. and that's fast.
Unless your bacterial supplement was Biospira from Marineland, I think you may have wasted your money there.
The reason your ammonia hasn't skyrocketed is because of the ammonia pellets. They will adsorb the ammonia, but its not being broken down. Its probably not adsorbing all the ammonia, which is why you have the 0.50 ammonia reading. Do daily PCWs to keep the ammonia down. Unfortunately, when the ammonia gets broken down by bacteria, nitrite will build up in your tank, and that is a lot more lethal (like a brazilian times more) than ammonia. Then you'll have to up your daily PWCs to like 25-50% until nitrite levels drop to 0.
I'd recommend ditching the ammonia adsorber, I hear its for emergency maintenance anyway. Keep up with the daily PWCs, and DON'T add any pH regulating chemicals. Keep the salt handy for stress relief, but not for daily use. Prime is great for water changes. Good luck
Unless your bacterial supplement was Biospira from Marineland, I think you may have wasted your money there.
The reason your ammonia hasn't skyrocketed is because of the ammonia pellets. They will adsorb the ammonia, but its not being broken down. Its probably not adsorbing all the ammonia, which is why you have the 0.50 ammonia reading. Do daily PCWs to keep the ammonia down. Unfortunately, when the ammonia gets broken down by bacteria, nitrite will build up in your tank, and that is a lot more lethal (like a brazilian times more) than ammonia. Then you'll have to up your daily PWCs to like 25-50% until nitrite levels drop to 0.
I'd recommend ditching the ammonia adsorber, I hear its for emergency maintenance anyway. Keep up with the daily PWCs, and DON'T add any pH regulating chemicals. Keep the salt handy for stress relief, but not for daily use. Prime is great for water changes. Good luck
Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. well, first off you're finding out why many of us put up big red flags about putting fish in too soon. Your tank is beginning to cycle. It takes about a month with fish in the tank. I think that's why you had an ammonia spike. Your water will not read correctly for a day or so after a water change. Keep changing the water. Suggest you go up to 20% a day until things stabalize. Maybe a week. Your temp is OK, chlorine good, ph is fine (fish don't care about hard water), nitrItes 0 (terrific), Yes, you'll need to test for nitrAtes. They're the good guys. NitrItes are bad bacteria, NitrAtes are good bacteria. Yes they turn in to nitrAtes but it's not a straight accross trade. Gotta watch it. I think this is all right. If not I'm sure somebody will correct me.
Um, nitrates and nitrites are chemical compounds, not bacteria. As you feed your fish, those compounds build up. Nitrate is only toxic in large amounts. Ammonia is toxic in small amounts. And Nitrite is deadly in very minute amounts (burnt gills and fins at the 0.25 level).
As the others are saying just use water changes to keep your ammonia readings below .2ppm and you'll also want to keep your nitrites below .2ppm when they start showing up. Eventually in 4-6 weeks you will probably see your ammonia and nitrites testing as 0ppm at which time you'll need to keep an eye on your nitrate levels. Doing one 25-50% water change per week should be enough to keep your nitrates under 20ppm. At this point your aquarium will be cycled for the two guppies you currently have.
Conditioning salts are generally unnecessary in freshwater aquariums. If you read the labels for fish in your lfs they all seem to recommend them, but they are also the ones selling you the stuff.
Ph regulators aren't a good idea. The short version of it is that the ones sold in lfs aren't very good at doing what they claim. Most of the freshwater fish that are kept in aquariums should be fine in a ph of 6.5 to about 8.5. Now if your looking at becomming a breeder you may need to invest a lot of time and money researching ph and water hardness. Speaking of which I believe a hardness value of 110ppm isn't really all that hard in the first place.
One thing I would like to ask is what sort of test kit are you using?
Conditioning salts are generally unnecessary in freshwater aquariums. If you read the labels for fish in your lfs they all seem to recommend them, but they are also the ones selling you the stuff.
Ph regulators aren't a good idea. The short version of it is that the ones sold in lfs aren't very good at doing what they claim. Most of the freshwater fish that are kept in aquariums should be fine in a ph of 6.5 to about 8.5. Now if your looking at becomming a breeder you may need to invest a lot of time and money researching ph and water hardness. Speaking of which I believe a hardness value of 110ppm isn't really all that hard in the first place.
One thing I would like to ask is what sort of test kit are you using?
using the teststrips but am planning on getting the liquid everyone tells me it is better. did a 30 pwc tonight and dropped my ammonia to .25 had to go out of town this weekend so it got back up to .50 i am planning on getting the new test kit and doing water changes daily if necessary. it still shows no traces of nitrites but may be just cause i am using the dip strips. of course i am only on day 4 of having fish in the tank. but the litlte guys are still active and playfull and seem very happy. thanks to everyone who is helping me. i do realize NOW that a 10 gallon tank is small and will eventually upgrade but not anytime soon. i wanna get this one taken care of first, but when i get another can i take the water from this one after is done cycling and add to the new one. will that cut down on its cycling time. someone said i could do that and take my filter out of this one and ring it out in the new tank with this water. anyway just kinda curious about that. i'll cross that bridge when i come to it.
putting the water from this one into the new one seems to have no effect because the bacteria do not reside in the water column, but on things in your aquarium (esp. filter media, gravel, decorations) so it is these things that you should change over.
Here's some links given to my by one the great moderators on this site on cycling. There's also great stickies at the top of this forum :
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/start_up/start_up4.html
http://fish.orbust.net/cycling.html
Here's some links given to my by one the great moderators on this site on cycling. There's also great stickies at the top of this forum :
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/start_up/start_up4.html
http://fish.orbust.net/cycling.html