Please advise our current tank conditions

[4thgradescience]

Hello All,

First of all, we acknowledge the mistakes we have made while trying to achieve a happy, healthy tank. Thank you for any advice you wish to share.

We had to do a fish in cycle due to a leaky 1.5 gal tank(that never really got cycled because we knew nothing). My daughter came home from school with a female guppy and an African dwarf frog from school, hence my user name 4thgradescience.

We are currently about six weeks in with a 37 gallon tank. We added a few fish to get the cycle going because we did not think one guppy and one frog were going to help much. We use an API master kit to check the water parameters. Things seemed good so we added a couple more fish. Still looking good, added a couple more. We now realize that we added the fish prematurely...our tank was not fully cycled. We have not added any fish since 9/2.

I will tell you what our most current water conditions have been:

9-13-17 Ammonia 1.0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, ph 7.6 = 25% water change
9-15-17 Ammonia .50 to 1.0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, ph 7.6 = 25% water change(I also put in a new filter to our aqueon 30 but left the old one in filter as well to keep the good bacteria round)
8-17-17 Ammonia .50, Nitrite .25, nitrate 0, ph 7.6 = 25% water change
9-19-17 Ammonia .50, Nitrite.50-1.0, Nitrate 0, ph 7.6 = 25% water change
Water is treated with Prime and Stability at water changes.

Should we be doing more water changes? Increase from 25% water change? Do our numbers indicate we are heading to a cycle completion or are we a long way off? We have not lost any fish and they all seem to be acting normal.

Our current residents include:

5 x Zebra Danio
1 x Blue flame Gourami
1 x Honey Gourami
2 x Female Guppy
3 x Panda Cory
1 x African Dwarf Frog
1 x Nerite Snail

Wow, if you are still with me, thanks for "listening"!

 

[dalto]

Looks like you still have a way to go.

I would recommend larger water changes. When either nitrite or ammonia reaches 0.5 do a 50% or larger water change.

When you remove 25% of the water you are only removing 25% of the ammonia/nitrite so it doesn't make that much impact.

 

[V227]

Since you have kept all those fish healthy and happy in an uncycled tank for weeks, i would have to say no mistakes were made. As a matter of fact you did great, good job. After six weeks your tank should be cycled, but you will know for sure when your parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and a very low nitrate reading.

 

[Blue_Jay]

I agree with dalto. Your nitrites are getting to worrisome levels. Once you start reading nitrates, you will be getting closer to the end because that means the bacteria is developing to handle the nitrite load.

Another way to help boost the process... if you know someone with a healthy and cycled aquarium, you can seed yours with some of their filter media. I do this between my own aquariums. I grab the filter sponge from a cycled tank and squeeze some "goodness" into the new tank. I usually do this without fish because it makes the water temporarily murky. But I squeeze a lot out.

If this is an option for you, the only thing would be transporting the media without all that good bacteria dying. Never had to transport further than two rooms, so not sure the best method there or how hardy it really is.

Good luck!

 

[Blue_Jay]

Since you have kept all those fish healthy and happy in an uncycled tank for weeks, i would have to say no mistakes were made. As a matter of fact you did great, good job. After six weeks your tank should be cycled, but you will know for sure when your parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and a very low nitrate reading.

Well said! Although fishless cycling is the most common, IMO (please no one shoot me ) fish in cycling is not necessarily bad as long as the fish are not stressed

 

[4thgradescience]

We added the fish a few at a time, we knew enough to do that and we did weekly water changes until recently when we saw the numbers climbing. We will increase our water change % to see if that helps. We want to add a few more panda corys yet but will wait until we see those 0 readings. Thank you for your comments!