I give up..

AquaDummy

AquaDummy

AC Members
Sep 26, 2004
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Kamloops, BC
Sorry for all the posts back and forth, back and forth. If you saw my post yesterday you knew that I was ready to finally get some fish. Last night I did a 50% water change and didn't touch the gravel or filters. This morning I was going to do another 30-50% just to bring the nitrates down some more.

Well, I tested this morning and I've got nitrites again...way up just like it was before when I was waiting for the cycle. This is the second time and I have no idea why. It's very frustrating and I don't think I can keep this up... I tested my tap water and they have 0 ammonia and 0 nitites. I guess my KH could be out but then I somehow need to live with that without having to make adjustments after every change.

Oh well....just had to rant and get it off my chest - this is nuts..
 
Id go with 2 clown loaches one if your tank is under 20 gal
theyll help get your tank into
a stable mode so that you can add
more fishies and there hardy
enough to live even if your water params arent
textbook perfect, plus they only need like once a week water changes
and they dont have tempermant like chineze
algae eaters can. Ive got 3 in my 65 gal go for it !!..
buy 2 and i bet you theyll make it keep me posted.
I mean its not like your not making every attemp possible
to have a clean and stable enviroment ... Id worry if you
werent making any attempt at all and just have a tank and some
water and want fish ... start with the hardy fish first
 
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check the pH of your water. A pH crash can kill off all your bacteria.

Your tank probably stablizes at a normal pH, but with the addition of large amounts of new water (%30-%50 waterchange) your bacteria are seriously harmed. Check the GH, KH and pH of your water, before and after a waterchange, my bet is that they're considerably different
 
Have you tested your tapwater? I'd do that also...also, be careful of temp changes when changing water.
 
Hang in there dummy! (Sorry, couldn't help myself ;) )

Change about 80% of the water and dose enough NH3 to bring the conc. to 5ppm. Take baseline measurements of pH, KH, NH3, NO2, and NO3 and record the time, and post these. 24hours later (thereabouts) repeat these measurements and post.

This test can be surprisingly informative. After clearing out most of the old water, you've essentially reset the system, by adding the NH3, you can see what exactly is happening in your filter.

Just remember to dechlor first! Does your town use chloramine or just Cl2?

Don't worry, we'll get through this!
 
Strange things happening (at least to me they are). 2 days after what looked like a crash, I took my tests and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were 0. Shocked, I added ammonia to see if this is real. I checked this morning and
these are the readings

ammonia is 0
nitrite .6
nitrate 20
PH 7.2
KH 60 (a little low so I added a bit of soda to keep things moving)

I will test again after work then do another 'careful' water change. I'm not real good at regulating the temperature with the Python so could the higher temp have disturbed things? I usually have my tank around 77F and after the last change it was over 80F.

No, the water does not contain chloramines. Tapwater tests are all zeroes. Ph is 7.2 and KH is about 80.
 
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I had my temperature at 84-86 throughout my entire cycle. Bacteria can usually replicate faster at higher temperatures (it varies species to species- dunno for certain about the bacteria we're talking about) due to the temperature affecting enzyme affinities. The closer to the ideal temperature, the faster the organism can metabolize and reproduce. I don't think higher temps would adversely affect your cycle.
 
Analog is right, most bacteria replicate at an ideal temp of about 86.Thats one of the benifits of doing a fishless, you can hike up the temp and not worry about 02 levels or infections. So as long as the water your pouring in isnt like 100, or 50 on the flip side, then you should be ok.

get the KH GH and pH of your tap water and post it here (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as well i guess)

do your water change and wait 24hrs

take all the same measurements and post again, happychem is absolutely right, youd be suprized how helpful that is

my guess is that your tap water pH is considerably different from your tanks established pH, and the pH crash is harming your bacteria levels (explaining the spike after a water change).

hang in there, cycles are a pain
 
chunksofpoooo said:
do your water change and wait 24hrs
Click to expand...

To be clear: do water change, dose NH3, then wait 24hours.

If you don't dose, you're just starving the bacteria. And no, I don't think that temperature is a likely culprit. I'm not really sold on the tap water killing them off either, lots of people around here have been using pythons for a long time to change water, without having to re-cycle every time.
 
Okay I checked things again and within 24 hrs of adding ammonia, readings are:

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0

I don't have a planted tank so what is bringing down the nitrates? I was under the impression that only a water change could do that. Maybe I have more algae than I thought. Anyway, it's been 3 days of adding ammonia and levels eventually dropping to 0 after 24hrs - I don't even have to do a water change since nitrates go to 0. Looks like I'm going out to buy some fish..
 
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