Didn't cycle need help

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Annaforevermore

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Apr 21, 2023
Messages
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Hi I'm extremely new to this and need some advice. I'm incredibly impulse and just jumped right in without doing much research. I got a 5 gallon tank and started with just a betta and then quickly added 5 Molly's, 3 ghost shrimp, a Kuhli loach, pleco and a snail. After doing so much research I realized how stupid I was. I never cycled my tank and just kept adding to the tank not knowing better. I know I need to definitely upgrade to a bigger tank. I've added a second filter to try and help while they are all still in the 5 gallon, but I'm having trouble with the ammonia levels since I never cycled the tank. Any advice on this issue or things I should know are greatly appreciated (Since i still am a bit confused on what everything I need to know is and how to care for my new babies as the last thing I want is for themto suffer or worse die). Thank you I really do appreciate it!
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Having 2 filters won't help the tank cycle faster. The beneficial filter bacteria grows to the level needed to keep ammonia and nitrite at 0ppm. You can have as many filters as you like but there will only be a certain amount of filter bacteria in the system.

The easiest way to control ammonia or nitrite is to reduce feeding and do big water changes.
Reduce feeding to once every second day.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate any day you have an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0ppm, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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Don't change the filter media because that will get rid of the good bacteria and the tank will have to cycle again. With most filters, you simply wait until the filter has finished cycling (around 8 weeks) and then squeeze the filter media/ materials out in a bucket of tank water. The media gets re-used while the bucket of dirty water gets poured on the lawn.

If you tell us what make and model of filter you have we can see if there's anything unusual about that filter and whether it needs anything else done.

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You will need to get a second tank for the mollies. They come from hard water, whereas the Betta comes from soft water. If softwater fishes are kept in hard water they can develop problems with their kidneys. If mollies are kept in softwater they die.

You need to find out what the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply. This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website (Water Analysis Report) or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.

Angelfish, discus, most tetras, most barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm (250ppm + for mollies) and a pH above 7.0.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.
 
Its likely with all those fish in such a small tank you will never be able to cycle the tank. It might simply be a case that the fish produce more ammonia than your filtration can possibly cycle. Adding a 2nd filter will enable your tank to cycle out more ammonia than it could with 1 filter, but it will take some time to cycle, which typically takes a couple of months.

You say you are having trouble with ammonia levels. What are they at currently? Preferably taken before a water change. Nitrite will be useful to know also.

You definitely need to either return everything apart from the betta and the snail or get a bigger tank ASAP. I dont think you will ever cycle your tank with those fish, so you probably need to do 50% water changes every day to manage water quality until you deal with your overcrowding. Maybe 50% twice daily. I honestly dont think its worth the effort of trying to cycle the tank, so just change water as often as you are able until you deal with the overcrowding. We can advise more on cycling when you have a set up that has a prospect of being cycled.

Do you know what type of pleco it is? While there are types of plecos that can live in smaller tanks, there are non that can live in a 5g tank. Chain stores often push common plecos onto unsuspecting customers as they are small and are good algae eaters. But what they are selling are baby common plecos, and they get much bigger, potentially 2 feet long. If you have a common pleco, unless you plan on a 100 gallon + tank that definitely needs to go back.
 
Hi I'm extremely new to this and need some advice. I'm incredibly impulse and just jumped right in without doing much research. I got a 5 gallon tank and started with just a betta and then quickly added 5 Molly's, 3 ghost shrimp, a Kuhli loach, pleco and a snail. After doing so much research I realized how stupid I was. I never cycled my tank and just kept adding to the tank not knowing better. I know I need to definitely upgrade to a bigger tank. I've added a second filter to try and help while they are all still in the 5 gallon, but I'm having trouble with the ammonia levels since I never cycled the tank. Any advice on this issue or things I should know are greatly appreciated (Since i still am a bit confused on what everything I need to know is and how to care for my new babies as the last thing I want is for themto suffer or worse die). Thank you I really do appreciate it!
You've been given top quality advice so I will add only this: Tropical fish keeping can be as easy or as difficult as you make it but the #1 way to kill a tank is impatience. Impulsiveness will make you make mistakes. If you are to be successful
with this, you will need to harness your impulses. (y)

Hope this helps. (y)
 
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