I have taken a 75 gallon and a 29 gallon down to 2 inches of water above 2 inches of gravel to move tanks in the past. The fish are fine. As long as the filter media and gravel stays wet your good bacteria should be find. The important thing is to get within acceptable range with the nitrites before permanent damage to your fish. You have to understand that some of the information you get is conflicting because not enough questions were asked, and particulars given before giving the advice. You were picking up the general rule without seeing the when this happens scenarios. And then there are the people who do things their own way who have had success, that may not necessarily work for you. Advice is just that, as with all life there are no rules or norms that are set in stone. Fishkeeping practices have evolved though the trial and error process and it continues to improve though the care and attention of dedicated people who genuinely care about the health and well being of their fish. So take all advice with a grain of salt and try to look for a consensus before taking action.
Cycling Issues
- Thread starter nicshoe18
- Start date
Thats exactly what I did. Thanks to the two or three people that have been helping me the whole way through, I was able to to take a general majority vote for applying proper action. Often times, many make assumptions before reading the entire thread. The whole scenario has been laid out for about a week with all of the necessary info and then some to make a proper diagnosis. The largest of those posts was a combatant to those that feel the need to leave off color comments in suggesting that I'm being a hard headed newb and not taking anyone's advice when on the contrary there were suggestions that ranged too far apart to take a majority vote.
My current situation however is worse than it was before. I had a feeling that dosing my water with a bunch of chemicals on top of large wc's would be a little too much for them to handle. I have agreed though that the large wc's were not an issue and have increased to up around 50%. Even with the Nitrites as high as they were for so long, they have never looked or acted like this and now just want to get their environment to a state of stability. I'm curious however if water changes so soon after dosing Stability will throw away the bacteria that I introduced into the tank? Did they have time to attach to the filter over night or should I wait a day to do another wc give them time to get to the biofilter? My instincts are telling me right now that time is of the essence and in order to avoid permanent damage or death, wc NOW is required. What are your thoughts?
My current situation however is worse than it was before. I had a feeling that dosing my water with a bunch of chemicals on top of large wc's would be a little too much for them to handle. I have agreed though that the large wc's were not an issue and have increased to up around 50%. Even with the Nitrites as high as they were for so long, they have never looked or acted like this and now just want to get their environment to a state of stability. I'm curious however if water changes so soon after dosing Stability will throw away the bacteria that I introduced into the tank? Did they have time to attach to the filter over night or should I wait a day to do another wc give them time to get to the biofilter? My instincts are telling me right now that time is of the essence and in order to avoid permanent damage or death, wc NOW is required. What are your thoughts?
I would say losing a little bit of the bacteria you just added from what is still suspended in the water column is less of a concern than the nitrite poisoning. Do the water change again, Almost all of the bacteria will be in the filter or the gravel.
Keep up on the water changes, and follow that stability dosing schedule for the next week. Part of why they tell you to dose daily for a week is that they expect some losses in wc's. Make sure that you dose the incoming water with an amount of prime appropriate to the volume of water you are adding. The improvements in chemistry might cause short term stress, but they are way better off if the water stays as pristine as possible from here on out.
What a battle! Been dosing with Stability on the regular and when Nitrites get too far out of control I'll dose with Prime. Tank still won't cycle. I'm guessing patience is the only cure at this point.
Diseases:
I started doing 2 50% wc's, but with the chemicals it was just too much stress on the fish. Battled Ich in the whole tank pretty effectively, cured it in about 5 days. After the Ich, everyone got finrot almost immediately after. Almost gone, one fish still has some trace left. Now I wake up and the whole tank has pop-eye. I feel I'm losing control of the whole thing here. Any thoughts?
Diseases:
I started doing 2 50% wc's, but with the chemicals it was just too much stress on the fish. Battled Ich in the whole tank pretty effectively, cured it in about 5 days. After the Ich, everyone got finrot almost immediately after. Almost gone, one fish still has some trace left. Now I wake up and the whole tank has pop-eye. I feel I'm losing control of the whole thing here. Any thoughts?
My tank is going through the same thing.The nitrites would not go down even after Wc's and I had just a little bit of measurable nitrates that was from the tap. After waiting for a couple of weeks for the trates and doing WC's my fish seemed to be getting stressed. So I decided to get a bottle of Tetra SafeStart. I did a big WC,vacced the gravel big time, then added the SafeStart.I did this last Tueseday,it took 2 days to get some good measurable trates finally but my trites were still sky high. Yesterday my trites were at 1 finally and trates were at 20. It was hard but I havent done not one WC since I used the safe start as per my lfs guys suggestion. He has been helping me with this whole process and it has been an UPHILL process from the start. I have a 55 with a wet/dry and a ext70 HOB filter. I put up this tank up in the beginning of April and it isnt done cycling yet.Im hoping it is done today or tommorow so I can do a WC and clean the gravel.
Hope my experience helps:thm:
Good Luck
John
Hope my experience helps:thm:
Good Luck
John
Prime shouldn't stress your fish, use this with every water change as it dechlorinates as well as detoxifies. It is incredibly safe.
Dosing with Prime is less stress to your fish than not when your nitrites or ammonia are high! Same with large water changes.
The fish are getting sick because of all the stress from the cycle. I read the thread but didn't see how many fish you had or what size tank? I guess at this point you can't get rid of them, but it might still help to know.
There's really nothing else you can do at this point but treat the diseases that are popping up and keep doing water changes. Sorry to hear about everything, unfortunately this is what often happens to fish when a tank isn't cycled.
How is everything going now?
Finrot is almost gone. Only one fish left has popeye symptoms but that's probably from consistenly high nitrites. Tank is still stalled out after 4 weeks now. Have tried just about everything and still keeping up with water changes, but no signs of nitrite conversion yet.
In regards to Prime, it was my conclusion that dosing the whole tank with Prime to detoxify nitrites with the large water changes was what started the whole string of diseases. I always dechlorinate incoming water with Prime. What I'm referring to is dosing the whole tank with additional amounts when nitrites get too high. I just think it was too drastic of a change in water conditions for them to handle.
7 fish: 5 black skirt tetra, 2 swordtails
30 gal planted tank, since Ich showed up water has been brackish, 3-4 tsp. salt
Fighting diseases with Maracyn and Maracyn-2
Been trying to leave conditions steady to ensure bacteria growth, wc's about every three days depending on behavior of fish and algae growth
In regards to Prime, it was my conclusion that dosing the whole tank with Prime to detoxify nitrites with the large water changes was what started the whole string of diseases. I always dechlorinate incoming water with Prime. What I'm referring to is dosing the whole tank with additional amounts when nitrites get too high. I just think it was too drastic of a change in water conditions for them to handle.
7 fish: 5 black skirt tetra, 2 swordtails
30 gal planted tank, since Ich showed up water has been brackish, 3-4 tsp. salt
Fighting diseases with Maracyn and Maracyn-2
Been trying to leave conditions steady to ensure bacteria growth, wc's about every three days depending on behavior of fish and algae growth
