Here is the story:
So a week ago in my brackish tank I had an ammonia spike. The tank is maybe a month or two old, but the thing that worries me is that I used mainly water from established aquariums when I set it up so how did I get such a large ammonia spike? At first I wasn't worried but now three of my indian glassfish died and the rest seem distressed. My dragon gobys are getting sluggish and my purple spotted goby is getting passive. My nitrites are very high and I did a large water change (25-33%) and added in stress coat to minimize unnecessary stress.
My filters weren't working properly for about a week. They would run for maybe 3-4 hours a day due to failures. I bought a sponge filter 3 days ago rated up to 40 gallons and placed it on the opposite side of the filter and last night I just put in a new one of the other side and the filter is done now.
If I used water from established tanks, shouldn't my tank be okay for a week with poor filtration?
Now here is the problem: I am taking care of this tank and can lower the nitrite levels, but I set up a lot of temporary five and ten gallon tanks. A while ago, when I was first breeding moscow black and blue guppies I would put the fry from the 10 gallon into the 5 gallon and just use 3 gallons from the 10 gallon and two gallons freshwater. And when I would upgrade I would use all 5 gallons and then add another 5 gallons of freshwater. I don't think I ever had any problems, but this is essentially what I did in my brackish tank.
I am pretty sure that I did something seriously wrong. I figured with established fish water I could move fish into new tanks with no problem (other than a little stress from moving). Did I miss something that messed with the cycle? I know the quickest way to cycle an aquarium that I have found online takes 4 weeks, but if I have a lot of other tanks is there any quicker way I could just add in old filter media and old fish water and have a near instant cycled fish tank?
I plan on raising a lot of fry, making breeding tanks and acclimating brackish fish sold as freshwater to brackish and this would mean a lot of temporary tanks. So I am hoping this would be faster than the 4 week ammonia dropping method.
So a week ago in my brackish tank I had an ammonia spike. The tank is maybe a month or two old, but the thing that worries me is that I used mainly water from established aquariums when I set it up so how did I get such a large ammonia spike? At first I wasn't worried but now three of my indian glassfish died and the rest seem distressed. My dragon gobys are getting sluggish and my purple spotted goby is getting passive. My nitrites are very high and I did a large water change (25-33%) and added in stress coat to minimize unnecessary stress.
My filters weren't working properly for about a week. They would run for maybe 3-4 hours a day due to failures. I bought a sponge filter 3 days ago rated up to 40 gallons and placed it on the opposite side of the filter and last night I just put in a new one of the other side and the filter is done now.
If I used water from established tanks, shouldn't my tank be okay for a week with poor filtration?
Now here is the problem: I am taking care of this tank and can lower the nitrite levels, but I set up a lot of temporary five and ten gallon tanks. A while ago, when I was first breeding moscow black and blue guppies I would put the fry from the 10 gallon into the 5 gallon and just use 3 gallons from the 10 gallon and two gallons freshwater. And when I would upgrade I would use all 5 gallons and then add another 5 gallons of freshwater. I don't think I ever had any problems, but this is essentially what I did in my brackish tank.
I am pretty sure that I did something seriously wrong. I figured with established fish water I could move fish into new tanks with no problem (other than a little stress from moving). Did I miss something that messed with the cycle? I know the quickest way to cycle an aquarium that I have found online takes 4 weeks, but if I have a lot of other tanks is there any quicker way I could just add in old filter media and old fish water and have a near instant cycled fish tank?
I plan on raising a lot of fry, making breeding tanks and acclimating brackish fish sold as freshwater to brackish and this would mean a lot of temporary tanks. So I am hoping this would be faster than the 4 week ammonia dropping method.
