PWC? Fishless cycle stalled
- Thread starter jlbfish
- Start date
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jlk
Aquarium Advice Addict
Yep, dose to 3.5 and if its all zeroes tomorrow, you can up it to 4ppm. Your cycle is almost complete! 
jlk
Aquarium Advice Addict
You can stock with lower bioload- your bb will adjust to whatever it may be. If you decide to increase your stock at any point in the future, just take your time & add additional fish slowly while continuing to monitor your parameters for any possible spikes. Your bb should adjust upward fairly quickly as long as you don't overwhelm them with a bunch of fish at once. If you see any spikes, some extra water changes will help until things stabilize.
So it digested the 3.5! (ph 7.4, ammonia and nitrites 0, nitrates 120'ish).
Woohoo!
I'm wondering. All I have to go in this 75 gallon at the moment. Is:
5 red eyed tetras
6 neon tetras
1 black neon tetra
4 false julli corys
They are now in a 28 gallon. That seems a smaller bioload.
I have:
10 black neons and 5 neon tetras in hospital tank with Columnaris so they can't go in.
I'm thinking since the bioload is smaller I should stock it with the fish in my 28 so I can qt some more fish and try to get the QT tank and hospital tank into the 75 before I go on vacation (end of June) as long as all are healthy. Does that sound reasonable?
Thanks!
Woohoo!
I'm wondering. All I have to go in this 75 gallon at the moment. Is:
5 red eyed tetras
6 neon tetras
1 black neon tetra
4 false julli corys
They are now in a 28 gallon. That seems a smaller bioload.
I have:
10 black neons and 5 neon tetras in hospital tank with Columnaris so they can't go in.
I'm thinking since the bioload is smaller I should stock it with the fish in my 28 so I can qt some more fish and try to get the QT tank and hospital tank into the 75 before I go on vacation (end of June) as long as all are healthy. Does that sound reasonable?
Thanks!
jlk
Aquarium Advice Addict
Thats great!! Increase it to 4ppm today. It sounds like you have a good plan- just make sure everybody is healthy. Trying to treat a big tank is a bit of a nightmare. Keep us posted!
They come from there being an abundance of ammonia.
I used dog and cat dewormer with Fenbendazole as the active ingredient.
I used 0.5g of a 1g sachet for my 50g tank.
These little worm things are always around in the substrate as part of the decomposition process but fishless cycling tanks are prone to outbreaks.
They are an extra food source for your fish too if you leave them in. The are non parasitic but an absolute eye sore, from my research they can be harmful to fry and some invertebrates.
Jon
I used dog and cat dewormer with Fenbendazole as the active ingredient.
I used 0.5g of a 1g sachet for my 50g tank.
These little worm things are always around in the substrate as part of the decomposition process but fishless cycling tanks are prone to outbreaks.
They are an extra food source for your fish too if you leave them in. The are non parasitic but an absolute eye sore, from my research they can be harmful to fry and some invertebrates.
Jon
jlk
Aquarium Advice Addict
Ahh! I am actually bit suprised they would be in there with so much ammonia but the creatures that live in our tanks can be quite resilient. Do you have any live plants? Well, when you do you wcs to drop your nitrates, suck them out the best you can. If this doesnt work, you can try treating the tank to kill them before (plus more wcs) adding fish. Hopefully, grav vac & wcs will be enough. Good luck!
Thanks Jon! They are very interesting under a microscope. LOL Ok if they aren't a harm we will test it. If it ate through the 4 ppm of ammonia I think I will clean it out to drop the Nitrates like you said and then add the fish I have ready to go in. That way I can prep my 28 (maybe) to be a QT tank. We shall see. I will test later.
librarygirl
Look It Up
The white worms are probaly planaria, harmless but can populate quickly. Personally with the tank being so new and not established yet I wouldn't resort to chemicals to treat just in case it affects the bacteria. Once the amount of ammonia goes down they should start to disappear. You can also vacuum them out during water changes.
librarygirl said:
If its a product with Fenbendazole as the ingredient I can say that I used it during my fishless cycle. I was waiting for nitrites to zero out over a 24 hour period. My bacteria as far as I could tell were not affected. I was dosing with 3ppm of ammonia in 24hours.
These were the sachets I used.
View attachment 94479
Jon
jlk
Aquarium Advice Addict
I have to agree with Librarygirl here- I would skip the meds unless theres an absolute need for them. Water changes & grav vacs should be sufficient without having to expose fish to unnecessary meds.
jlk said:
I haven't disagreed with anyone. It's just another perspective due to there being no fish to expose to meds at present.
The fishless cycle outbreak of Planaria is very unsightly and made me feel dirty every time I looked at my tank. I wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be cycling the tank and didn't want to see these all over my glass/decorations/plants/filter/powerhead etc. So I decided as I didnt have any fish at the time it seemed the perfect opportunity to try out Fenbendazole treatment.
My cycle took 22 days to complete, about a week after the treatment. I had to do 2x90% PWC's at the end of the cycle to bring the nitrates down. Tank is home to Bolivian Rams, Penguin Tetras, Zebra Danios and CAE. All seem fine and dandy with their home.
Jon
They don't look like planaria under the microscope. They are long, segmented, clearish an have bristles 2 on each side of each segment.
Either way if they aren't harmful I'm good with just waiting them out.
It looks like the nitrites are .5. They should 0 out before 28 hrs is up.
If that is the case is the tank cycled enough for a smaller bioload?
5 red eye tetras
1 black neon
5 neons
4 false Julii Corys
?
Either way if they aren't harmful I'm good with just waiting them out.
It looks like the nitrites are .5. They should 0 out before 28 hrs is up.
If that is the case is the tank cycled enough for a smaller bioload?
5 red eye tetras
1 black neon
5 neons
4 false Julii Corys
?
jlbfish said:
I love them.
View attachment 94484
View attachment 94485
They're still only juveniles though.
Jon
If they don't look like Planaria try googling flatworms.
The trouble with an over abundance of these things is that in large enough numbers they can effect the gills in fish.
Like I said earlier, normally they go unnoticed living in the substrate helping to decompose the organic waste.
If you've used any flake food to help phosphates in your cycling tank then the chances are that's why you see them. I used some flake for the same reason in mine and a few days later bam Planaria/flatworms.
Jon
The trouble with an over abundance of these things is that in large enough numbers they can effect the gills in fish.
Like I said earlier, normally they go unnoticed living in the substrate helping to decompose the organic waste.
If you've used any flake food to help phosphates in your cycling tank then the chances are that's why you see them. I used some flake for the same reason in mine and a few days later bam Planaria/flatworms.
Jon
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