Ok me again....another question

[nataliedd]

Have a 340litres tank
Fish in cycle for nearly 6 weeks, doing twice weekly water changes. Adding stress coat, conditioner and bacteria balls. Water testing ok. Fish all community and adding in slowly. So I've just found my first dead guppy. Here's photo. (Sorry folks) Take its been dead a while? Thought dead fish floated? Why's it all fungus-y? Any obvious causes you think? Scared something wrong and il lose more. :-(

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[nataliedd]

Pic

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[Coyne]

Nope, dead fish typically sink.
Other fish will sometimes eat a dead fish, but if they dont and enough time passes then its not unheard of to have stuff growing on it after a bit.

Things folks will want to know in order to better help you:
Size of the tank
Filtration type
How did you cycle it (and how did you know you were finished with the cycle)
How many and what kind of fish are stocked
Basic water paramenters. GH if you know it, but pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate for sure.

 

[Noviceafter2yea]

Remove the guppy from the tank if you have t already done so because it will increase the ammonia.

 

[nataliedd]

Ok I can only answer a couple of those questions cos my hubby is out now and he deals with all that stuff. The answers I know......its 340 litres, it's been running 6 weeks, adding fish slowly the last 4 weeks. 2 mollies, 6 corys, a couple of guppies and neons. Don't know nos for water testing but husband checks and tells me they are all within the requested parameters. As for how did we know it was cycled. I'm confused, thought that you could add fish slowly during cycling? Excuse my ignorance but still learning! All fish added and stuff we've been doing has been advised from our local fish store. Do you think we've been told wrong?

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[lilme]

Look up fish in cycle

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[lilme]

You do a lot of water changes
Keep ammonia at 0

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[nataliedd]

Do I not need to do as many water changes? I thought til tank had been up and running a couple of months that it was best to change water more often? Fish is out asap

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[lilme]

I meant do a lot of water changes
And keep ammonia under0

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[trennamw]

The fish store is telling you how to do a "fish in" cycle. There is also a "fishless" cycle. As I understand, the latter is a newer idea.

So back to the other thread where I was talking about the bacteria moving into their houses in your tank and having lots of bacteria babies ...

The process of building up the bacteria colony is called cycling.

To cycle a tank you need a place for bacteria to live, starter bacteria, and ammonia.

With a fishless cycle, you use ammonia from a bottle and wait for bacteria #1 to convert it to nitrite. Then bacteria #2 converts the nitrite to nitrate. You let ammonia and nitrite and all that get pretty high because there are no fish to hurt.

Your tank is fully cycled when you have large enough populations of both bacteria to convert all the ammonia in your tank to nitrate right away. So when you test you have zero ammonia or nitrite.

Ammonia and nitrite are removed by bacteria, nitrate is removed by plants or water changes.

With a "fish in" cycle, ammonia comes from the fish. BUT you can't let the ammonia or nitrite levels get very high because it will kill the fish. So you play this delicate balance of keeping ammonia and nitrite present enough to feed the bacteria, but not enough to hurt the fish.

Like they said, look up fish in cycling.

If your tests show ANY ammonia or nitrite, you are not cycled and you need to be doing a lot of water changes. If they're showing zero on both, you are cycled and weekly water changes should be enough if your nitrate levels stay below a certain point (20 is commonly recommended, opinions vary).

For fish in cycling some people use Seachem Stability to detox ammonia and nitrite. I can't advise there except to say, look into it. I think it keeps some of both available for the bacteria without it harming the fish.


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[trennamw]

And if you are using Stress Coat you don't need another water conditioner. Back to that conversation about osmotic stress, which is basically, so much had been added to the water it messes with the fish body functions.

Looks like a regular decomposing dead fish I think.


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[nataliedd]

Thanks so much for support and advice. Think I get it. Gonna work my butt off to make sure I stay on top of it all..........I'm sure you'll be hearing from me soon no doubt. .....

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[trennamw]

It takes time to understand it all, and with so much conflicting advice, some of it is left up to gut feeling more than research. But good research guides the gut well!

You certainly have the right attitude and it will get easier. I think when I'd lost 2 bettas and 4 snails in 1 gallon filtered tanks that I thought were massive fish mansions ... My boyfriend at the time said "I think it's time for you to find another hobby." But I was determined to figure it out. I found this forum, and a lot of others, and got a 29 gallon and asked a lot of questions, and got 15 different types of conflicting advice at several fish stores, and bought so many medicines and chemicals ... Over time the good advice starts to stick together and the other stuff stands out as probably not so good.

So now I've graduated to keeping fish healthy and killing plants instead ...


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[nataliedd]

Asked hubby and he said that readings for amnonia and nitrite read at 0, so as long as he's reading it correctly that's good huh? So I am cycled? Oh when I said bacteria balls I meant good bacteria we put in with the bio balls. They are little capsules that dissolve. ( I'm from northern Ireland so maybe we only have them this side of the pond). It certainly is more work involved...
...maybe not best time to start fish keeping with a baby and toddler to contend with lol. Good to have forums like this to keep me right

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[trennamw]

Having zero nitrite and ammonia could mean it's cycled, or that it's not cycled but very clean.

The nitrAte is what's critical to seeing if it is cycled.

The bacteria balls sound interesting! I wonder if they carry bacteria better than the bottles.


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