I found two of my fry dead yesterday and immediately did a water change in my 2 gallon fry aquarium. I took the water in to be tested today and the nitrites and ammonia level were extremely high, so I bought what the girl recommended, AmQuel plus, which is supposed to remove nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, chlorine, and chloramines. I put it in today and waited a few hours. Then I tested the water and the nitrites were still at the top of the test strip, but the ammonia has gone down and everything else is in the safe range. So now what? Do I wait until tomorrow and do another test to see if the levels have gone down anymore and then re-treat the water or should I retreat it now? Do I do another water change? Someone said to put some gravel from my established aquarium into the fry aquarium. Will that work? Any advice will help! THANKS!
High Nitrites after treatment
- Thread starter kikanakala
- Start date
I believe that yes, adding established gravel from your other tank would definetely be beneficial... Maybe some filter media as well?
Hi,
I say keep doing water changes and testing the levels.
How long has this tank been running?
Did you do anything to establish the nitrogen cycle before you added the fry?
If it is a new, uncycled tank, ( Or if you happen to have just cleaned everything in there) then,yes anything ( other than water ) that you add from an older tank will help.
I do know how much you know about cycling.
Again, just keep changing water to keep the nitrite (as well as ammonia) very low. barely detectable with your tester. I wouldnt use the amquell again. frequent partial water changes should do the trick. let us know how it goes please
I say keep doing water changes and testing the levels.
How long has this tank been running?
Did you do anything to establish the nitrogen cycle before you added the fry?
If it is a new, uncycled tank, ( Or if you happen to have just cleaned everything in there) then,yes anything ( other than water ) that you add from an older tank will help.
I do know how much you know about cycling.
Again, just keep changing water to keep the nitrite (as well as ammonia) very low. barely detectable with your tester. I wouldnt use the amquell again. frequent partial water changes should do the trick. let us know how it goes please
The tank is about a month old. I wasn't able to cycle it properly because the fry surprised me, and my other tank was being treated for ich, (and it said not to use the treatment with fry) so after consulting the forums, I put them in the uncycled 2 gallon that I'd just purchased for them. Then almost a month later, 2 (out of the 5 I was able to rescue) died. I did a 50% water change (I didn't know if that was too much, but I was desperate because two of the other ones looked like they were about to go too), and it seemed to stabilize the 3 who survived. Anyway, I went ahead last night and put the fry in a fry tank inside of the other aquarium while I'm treating the two gallon. I hadn't gotten your post this morning, and added more Amquel. I'll stop doing that and just keep doing water changes until the levels go down, but even after adding the Amquel again, the Nitrites are at the very highest level on the strip.
Glad the fry are taken care of. how long can they be in that tank inside the big one?
Now that the little tank is empty, I would go ahead and do a 100% water change. I say that because I dont know exactly how amquel will effect the cycling but i suspect it will be much easier without it.
Then you should be able to get the little tank cycled really quickly and put the fry back if you want.
Now what you have is an empty tank to get cycled. Have you read the sticky about freshwater cycling? It will help if you are clear on what you are trying to acomplish.
You might be 1/2 way cycled already.
Seeing as how you recently treated for ICH in your established tank, I wouldnt advise that you move anything else over from it.
I would advise that you keep feeding the bacteria that you already have in the little tank, either with store bought pure ammonia, or with a few flakes of fish food, or with the good ole cocktail shrimp. Take readings for a few days and see where in the cycle you are.
Now that the fish are out you dont need to worry about water changes unles sthe ammonia peaks high enough to stall the cycle.
do you have test strips? I would suggest that you get liquid test kits if you can possibly afford it.
I look forward to hearing how everything goes
post back the readings you get if you like.
As to the 50% water change that you did, no I dont think that was too big. I do very nearly 0% change in each of my tanks every week.
as long as the temperature is matched closely and there is no Huge difference in ph between old and new water (which i wouldnt expect in your mnth old fry tank) and as long as you take care of chlorine/chloamine. I dont believe that there IS such a thing as a too big water change. I am a big fan water changes. Especially in light of your high nitrite readin, I think quickly doing a large water change was exactly the right response.
Now that the little tank is empty, I would go ahead and do a 100% water change. I say that because I dont know exactly how amquel will effect the cycling but i suspect it will be much easier without it.
Then you should be able to get the little tank cycled really quickly and put the fry back if you want.
Now what you have is an empty tank to get cycled. Have you read the sticky about freshwater cycling? It will help if you are clear on what you are trying to acomplish.
You might be 1/2 way cycled already.
Seeing as how you recently treated for ICH in your established tank, I wouldnt advise that you move anything else over from it.
I would advise that you keep feeding the bacteria that you already have in the little tank, either with store bought pure ammonia, or with a few flakes of fish food, or with the good ole cocktail shrimp. Take readings for a few days and see where in the cycle you are.
Now that the fish are out you dont need to worry about water changes unles sthe ammonia peaks high enough to stall the cycle.
do you have test strips? I would suggest that you get liquid test kits if you can possibly afford it.
I look forward to hearing how everything goes
post back the readings you get if you like.
As to the 50% water change that you did, no I dont think that was too big. I do very nearly 0% change in each of my tanks every week.
as long as the temperature is matched closely and there is no Huge difference in ph between old and new water (which i wouldnt expect in your mnth old fry tank) and as long as you take care of chlorine/chloamine. I dont believe that there IS such a thing as a too big water change. I am a big fan water changes. Especially in light of your high nitrite readin, I think quickly doing a large water change was exactly the right response.
