New Aquarium Set Up

[Clselby]

wont having less fish slow the progress down. It has been 7 days and our tiger barbs are still going crazy (flashing, standing on heads,etc). What could help them: Aquarium salt maybe?

 

[Hrafnkel]

I don't know if aquarium salt would help. It doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be, it seems like a lot of people just throw salt at their fish wildly no matter what the issue is... I've become wary of it.

 

[rich311k]

The number of fish will not slow the process down. Do not add fish until the cycle is done. I think that salt is not needed in a freshwater tank. It is freshwater,salt serves no purpose except to treat some diseases.

The cycle will maintain the number of fish in your tank. After it is finished you can add more fish slowly.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I agree. Adding fish may prolonge the cycle actually since the bacteria will have to play catch-up with the increased bio-load. Don't add anything else. Why subject more fish to the cycle if you don't have to.

 

[Clselby]

Man i just went to pet smart, and they told me that my water has no ammonia in it , and that i do not need to do any more water changes, they said thats why my fish are so stressed? I dont get it, i have so many people telling me different things?

 

[Skyrmir]

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/biologicalcycle/a/nitrogencycle.htm

Read that link, it explains what everyone has been trying to say. Basically if your ammonia has dropped down to 0 then it's time to be watching your nitrites until they drop to 0 as well. Same thing as the ammonia, it's poisonous, except you can probably get away with letting it get up to 1ppm between water changes instead of the .25 or less for ammonia, usually takes a day, maybe two. After the nitrites go away your cycle is done and you can just watch nitrates to tell when to do water changes. You can let them get anywhere from 10-40 depending on how well you want to keep your tank. Usually takes a week or two for it to reach those levels after a water change, depending on how many fish you have, more fish = more nastiness to wash out.

 

[severum mama]

Man i just went to pet smart, and they told me that my water has no ammonia in it , and that i do not need to do any more water changes, they said thats why my fish are so stressed? I dont get it, i have so many people telling me different things?

No way! It just means that you are past the ammonia spike and into the nitrite spike. Believe me, I was given some pretty terrible advice from Petsmart when I started keeping fish, and you are getting the right advice here. I wish I had known about AA when I started so I could have saved some of mine. Once you keep fish for a while, you will start to notice that you know way more about fish than most of the people at Petsmart.

 

[Clselby]

ok today is day 10 of our new tank setup and our tiger barbs are still pointing their heads down, and flashing a lil. I noticed that our gourami has some wite spots possibly "ich"?

 

[rich311k]

Raise the temperature to kill the ich. What are your latest test results?

 

[Skyrmir]

Could be ich, with all the stress from cycling they'd catch anything right now. I dunno if it'd be better to do something about it now or wait for the cycle to finish first. At a guess I'd say go with 1 tablespoon salt per 5 gallons of water. Don't pour the salt directly into the tank and not too much all at once. As for meds or raising the temperature, I'm not sure what it'd do to the cycle so you might not want to go that route.

 

[rich311k]

I have always wondered if heat would slow down a cycle. Thank you for the info Skyrmir. Wouldn't salt stress the fish as well?

Clselby, please dont raise your temp yet. I reaaly would like to see your current test results.

 

[Skyrmir]

Actually I'm not sure how the heat would affect the cycle. My own fish didn't seem to mind the salt at all, at least at the 1 tablespoon per 5 gallon mark. The main effect on the fish is it thickens thier slime coat, thus helping them resist more of the ich and healing up the spots they have now.

The main things I'd worry about is heating up the tank is going to bring down the o2 in the water, wich would make the fish breath a lot more, thus sucking in more of the crud in the water while it's cycling. As for meds, I've heard to many bad thing other than turning the water and the silicon in the tank blue.

 

[rich311k]

I agree about the meds. I think the reason salt thickens slime coat is because it irritates the fish thus causing them to have a thicker coat.

And you are right higher heat will lower O2 levels probably not a good idea in the middle of a cycle.

 

[Clselby]

I will post the test reslults soon

 

[Clselby]

I was just llokin in my tank and they water is pretty clear but i see particles in the water???????

 

[Clselby]

amonia is at 2.0, would this be high because they possibly have ich? If so do i need to get an amonia reducer and an ich treatment>?

 

[greenmaji]

If you have fish.. wich im gathering.. you need a big water change ASAP to get that NH3 down.. thats very close if not lethal..

 

[Clselby]

Nh3 is the amonia right? We have a 10 gal tank how many gal should we replace?

 

[greenmaji]

I think about 6-7 gallons should do it.. (assuming it actually holds that much water..) I just look at the side of the tank for the water level and divide the tank into sections.. I would drain it halfway between the halfway point and the bottom of the tank (roughly 75%) that should get your ammonia down to about .5 ppm

 

[Clselby]

will this hurt my fish doing this since they have been stressing for 10 days?