OK, I am hereby prepared for you all to yell at me.
For the third or fourth day in a row now, I tested my water to find a nitrite reading of over 3 ppm. It seems only my water changes are bringing the levels down! My fish were all motionless (in spite of the salt effects last night) and one was floating on the top of the water, alive but looking like it might not be for long....so I transferred them over to my 38.....
At first, they started to move around to get used to their new environment. I was watching the gourami closely, but he ignored them. The swordtails kept coming right up to them and scaring them. I couldn't figure this out as the swordtails haven't really shown any interest in any of the other added fish, but then I realized the shades of green on the killies' fins were almost identical to their own, and the purple and reddish bodies were very close to the stripes on the swords. They weren't nipping or chasing the killies, it just seemed they wanted to be in the same area. The killies always ran if the swords got too close.
I come home from work to find my big loach kind of chasing one of them around. That concerned me a little, but the killie wasn't running away too fast and the fins looked fine so maybe the killie was hanging out near the bottom and the loach wanted him up higher. The gourami chased them a bit at feeding time, but these killies are SO fast they are across the tank in like a second and gourami loses track of them and stops chasing. My tank gets pretty aggressive at feeding time, and that was the only reason I was concerned. I will continue to keep a close watch on them as I do not want them to die of stress (not that I know what I can do with them, the nitrite paradise still exists in the 10 gallon).
Another question: I have now removed all sources of ammonia from the 10 gallon. How can I keep it cycled? The nitrites will come down eventually, but with no ammonia, won't those bacteria be dead in a matter of days? Then I'll be loaded up with nitrite eaters and no ammonia eaters...I have put a little fish food in the tank in the hopes it will rot and put a little ammonia in there. What else can I do? I sure can't put another fish in there until the nitrites come down...
Paul
For the third or fourth day in a row now, I tested my water to find a nitrite reading of over 3 ppm. It seems only my water changes are bringing the levels down! My fish were all motionless (in spite of the salt effects last night) and one was floating on the top of the water, alive but looking like it might not be for long....so I transferred them over to my 38.....
At first, they started to move around to get used to their new environment. I was watching the gourami closely, but he ignored them. The swordtails kept coming right up to them and scaring them. I couldn't figure this out as the swordtails haven't really shown any interest in any of the other added fish, but then I realized the shades of green on the killies' fins were almost identical to their own, and the purple and reddish bodies were very close to the stripes on the swords. They weren't nipping or chasing the killies, it just seemed they wanted to be in the same area. The killies always ran if the swords got too close.
I come home from work to find my big loach kind of chasing one of them around. That concerned me a little, but the killie wasn't running away too fast and the fins looked fine so maybe the killie was hanging out near the bottom and the loach wanted him up higher. The gourami chased them a bit at feeding time, but these killies are SO fast they are across the tank in like a second and gourami loses track of them and stops chasing. My tank gets pretty aggressive at feeding time, and that was the only reason I was concerned. I will continue to keep a close watch on them as I do not want them to die of stress (not that I know what I can do with them, the nitrite paradise still exists in the 10 gallon).
Another question: I have now removed all sources of ammonia from the 10 gallon. How can I keep it cycled? The nitrites will come down eventually, but with no ammonia, won't those bacteria be dead in a matter of days? Then I'll be loaded up with nitrite eaters and no ammonia eaters...I have put a little fish food in the tank in the hopes it will rot and put a little ammonia in there. What else can I do? I sure can't put another fish in there until the nitrites come down...
Paul
