Need help ASAP

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Lincolnsdad01

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Oct 8, 2015
Messages
20
Hi I have a 55 gal aquarium set up 1 month ago I thought it had cycled. I have 5 platys 5 juli Cory cats 1 upside down cat. 2 veil Angels and now the biggest 1 6 inch high fin pleco. I went and added 3 cap fulls of seachem stability to try to boost my bacteria since I added the pleco last night and that's when I added the stability now I just checked my readings PH 8.0 which is normal where I am at now ammonia between .25 and .5 Nitrite jumped from 0 to between .5 and 1 and now my nitrate is around 10-20. What do I do I don't want to Loose my fish. Should I add more stability for the next 6 days should I do water change? Please help ASAP
 
Stability only helps grow bacteria I believe?
The pleco is doing that for you(and your tank).
Do you use prime?
That is what you want to install for any time your levels are above 'safe'.
Prime(by sea chem) will detoxify ammonia and nitrite.
I don't think that the stability does?
 
Yes I have prime I will dose with prime I was just using stability to try to boost the Bacteria since my wife added such a big fish to the tank
 
Stability only helps grow bacteria I believe?
The pleco is doing that for you(and your tank).
Do you use prime?
That is what you want to install for any time your levels are above 'safe'.
Prime(by sea chem) will detoxify ammonia and nitrite.
I don't think that the stability does?


+1 that pleco is not helping in any way.... It's what's causing the ammonia.

Nitrite reading means the cycle hasn't completed yet.


Caleb
 
Did you do a fishless cycle and was it able to process 2-4 ppm in 24 hours?
Perhaps too many fish were added at the same time and the BB colony has not caught up to bioload yet. IMO that amount of ammonia is not too bad. You could perform daily water changes to reduce it. I have not used Stability so I cannot comment on the use of it.

Edit: Oops, did not see the nitrite level.

Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
+1 that pleco is not helping in any way.... It's what's causing the ammonia.

Nitrite reading means the cycle hasn't completed yet.


Caleb

Thanks. But what should I do? Add prime? Do a water change? Continue for 6 more days with stability?
 
What should I do? The only reason why I used the stability was to try to boost my BB. Before today my readings were PH 8 Amonia .25 Nitrite 0 Nitrate between 0 and 5
 
Unfortunately I thought I did a fish less cycle but I didn't I set up the tank added a full bottle of fluval bacteria waited 3 days then added fish and that was just about a month ago
 
My first attempt of giving advice, so some other more experienced keepers may correct me. But in my opinion although the tank was cycled, so maybe u fishless cycled for a month or even a small number in for a fish in cycle, the bacteria built up during the cycle could handle the boiload ur tank had, so could handle the ammonia/nitrite. Then I'm assuming u have added all those fish in about the same time, that a big jump after cycling, so the bacteria may not be built up enough to handle all the ammonia from the new fish so it's not quite breaking it all down yet. I would say keep on top of water changes so the levels don't get too high, keep monitoring it, the bacteria should continue to build and sion be able to handle the boiload you have with ur new fish.

Like I say, I'm no expert, keen to learn more and have people correct my opinion. I'm also at the end of a cycle of a new tank, I'm going to pick up my old fish from mu friend who has been looking after them since I moved. But I'm going to only get 6 of them this week to see what happens, as I am expecting to have the same experience as you, especially if I got all 18 ofy fish back at once.

Hope I have been helpful!

Sent from my D5803 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
Should I do daily water changes to help? Should I continue to add stability to help boost the BB?
 
Don't panick !
Your levels are still within reason..
Prime yes!!!
Read instructions.
It can be used at 5x proper dose to detoxify ammonia or nitrite.
It will however still show on your test so don't expect to see (test) any difference.
Do water changes also.
As time passes and if you stay in the hobby 50% water changes are just good 'no thinker' on the safe side.
Otherwise if real math is needed to do water changes then the % change is the % the nutrient will be removed.
EI; 1ppm ammonia and a 50% water change should yield a .5 ammonia result.
 
Should I do daily water changes to help? Should I continue to add stability to help boost the BB?


Yes.
Maybe. It will develop on its own. But water changes with Prime will reduce the amount of ammonia and nitrite and detoxify whatever is left.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
Thank you everyone. I did a 30% water change and added prime to the new water m. I also added 1 capful of stability. Did this 5 hrs ago. Just tested my water and my amonia is now at 0.25 I know not 0 yet but it's down also Nitrite dropped not to 0 but 0.25 and Nitrate is between 10-20. Thank you everyone for your help I am new to this hobby and love it. I wish I would have done a fish less cycle but I didn't and now I am just hopping to get everything stable and normal
 
Back
Top Bottom