suprised the fish are still alive

[David]

from what i have been reading here, i dont think it is possible to be more wrong in setting up a new tank than how i did it.
bought the tank and the fish the same day. y'all can probably figure out the rest from there.
anyway, i've been having a persistant ammonia problem. like the levels are off the chart. greater than 8ppm. my nitrites are at 0. ph is 7.3.
its a 10 gal tank with a wisper filter. the filter doesnt come with a bio-sponge so i was using part of an old pouch to try and foster the bacterial growth but all that did was turn the water really cloudy.
i was doing 20% changes every other day and have since stepped up the changing to every day. i've also cut back on the feeding amounts too.the cloudiness is getting under control, but the amonia levels persist. i just tried ammo-lock today and will recheck the levels tomorrow before the water change.
currently the tank has 3 molly's (a gold/black one, a silve one and a black sail fin male) alnog with a bottom feeder that looks like a catfish (dont know the name, the wife bought it against my advise).
to make matters even more interesting, one of the mollys had babies. got about a dozen of the little suckers darting around in there now too.
now for the questions:

should i go for a different type of filter?
are there products available to add the necessary bacteria to counter the ammonia and if so, do they work?
should i go get something like a 2 gal tank, cycle that properly, then transfer the fish and re-start the bigger tank?
should i just take up worm farming instead?

any and all advise/help/hints greatly appreciated.

thanks
Dave

BTW, i did try the search function. not sure if its me or the board, but i'd do a search, click a thread link and when i paged back, i got an expired page message and have to re-enter the search.

 

[Jchillin]

Don't feel bad Dave. I did a similiar thing when I first got into the hobby. How long has the tank been set up? You may want to invest in another tank/filter as you have doubled your population already

You may have a decent amount of "live" bacteria right now. I'm not too familiar with the Whisper...can you determine if you can insert some bio-media in it? The manufacturer may have information on this. If not, the HOB filters are a better choice.

Also, what type of testing equipment do you use (strips/re-agent drops)?

 

[SpaceButler]

Hey, at least you're testing. For someone new to the hobby, that sounds very consciensious.

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi David and welcome to Aquarium Advice!

Sorry to hear about your tank troubles. It's going to take about 3 weeks to cycle a tank. Sometimes it takes a little longer. I don't think it would be worth it to cycle a small tank to put the fish in now, because it will still take at least 3 weeks to cycle this tank, and then you'd have to work on your main tank again.

Here are some biological additives that I have had moderate success with: Bio-Spira from Marineland, and Stability from Seachem. If you use these, you still have to do your ammonia, and then nitrite, tests daily until these values are 0, and then test for the presence of nitrate to know that you are cycled. I have also used "sponge scrunge" from an established tank. For me, that still took a week to cycle my tank. I still did water changes in the meantime almost every day.

I know using Ammo-Lock sounds like it will help, and it may help the fish from being exposed to too much ammonia, but this will not help your cycle along at all. This product will probably stall your cycle. The ammonia is bound to the Ammo-Lock, and it is not available to the bacteria that start/maintain the cycle. However, I have read that ammonia levels over 5 ppm will stall the cycle anyway -- even the ammonia-consuming bacteria can't live in that high level of ammonia.

I would think about returning the fish to the lfs and doing a fishless cycle. There are many posts here at this site, and also on the internet, about fishless cycling. Then you could cycle your tank the proper way and then get the fish back. Otherwise, you could try one of the bacterial additives I mentioned, but you'll still be dealing with lots of water changes and trying to keep the ammonia level somewhat low to keep the fish healthy. It's a balancing act between allowing enough ammonia to build up to start the biological filtration vs. keeping the ammonia levels low enough for the fish. Sometimes it's a very tough task. With fishless cycling, you could let the ammonia level remain around 4-5 ppm until the bacteria kick in on their own, and you don't have to worry about daily water changes for the fish's sake.

I don't have a Whisper HOB filter. I have a small Whisper internal filter for my 2 gallon QT tank. It's a nice filter for this small tank. But for a 10 gallon tank, my filter preferece would be an AquaClear mini or a Penguin Bio-Wheel mini. These filters have plenty of media to hold the good bacteria.

To use the search feature, right-click on the topic you want to read, and then select "Open link in a new window". Then when you close that topic, the search page is still there.

 

[An t-iasg]

should i just take up worm farming instead?

Absolutely not...fish are much prettier!

 

[Jaxom_Ruatha]

Also the cloudiness you are experiencing is an algael bloom, don't try to fight it, it is good for your tank/part of the cycling process/ and will clear up soon enough.