Hi everyone and help!!

[jntmom]

I need some advice! I have a 55 gallon tank with two baby Oscars and one pleco. I admit, I was not the most educated fish owner when I purchased everything, and new NOTHING about cycling your tank before you add your fish, not to mention, the fish store where I purchased the tank told me 24 hours is enough time. After getting VERY high ammonia and nitrite readings and to numerous to count water changes, I purchased some biospira. I added it to my tank on Saturday morning. Yesterday I noticed that both of my Oscars had developed a small case of ich, so I added aquarium salt and raised the temp to 82 degrees. I checked my readings again this morning and my ammonia and nitrites are still VERY high. How long does it take this Biospira stuff to work or should I do a water change????

Thanks!!!

 

[tkos]

Welcome to the site!!

If the ammonia levels are higher than 1ppm and the nitrites higher than 0.25 ppm then do a water change to get them down. The biospira should work in 24 hours. But if the levels of ammonia etc... were already high then it will still take it awhile to get them down. teh bacteria can only consume it so fast.

Since ich is involved and oscars and plecos do not do well with poor water, water changes are a must. Raise the temp to 86 or so and continue the salt treatment. There is a great article in the articles section of this site about ich treatments. Read it f you haven't already.

Good luck.

 

[Menagerie]

[center:de1af0e7bd] Welcome to AA, jntmom!! [/center:de1af0e7bd]

There is a great article in the articles section of this site about ich treatments.

There is also an article on cycling if you need more info

With frequent water changes, the bacteria will not establish as quickly. However, it is important to keep these fish from high ammonia levels. I'm afraid you have quite a task at hand. Hopefully these fish are hardy and will do just fine. (I was nursing some ill Badis and my ammonia levels reached 0.5 and with the velvet they had been battling for weeks, I lost a couple .)
The ich treatment written about by Allivymar is very good. Stay away from meds as the majority kill good and bad bacteria and your tank will never cycle :?
The good thing is it sounds like you caught the ich early and hopefully meds will not be needed.

 

[deli_conker]

Unfortunately bio-spira doesn't do that well with ammonia spikes. It's meant to be added when you first add your fish. One reason for this is that it takes a while for all the bacteria your pour into your tank to find a surface to cling to for colonisation. When you do your water change to help curb the ammonia levels, you are removing some of the bio-spira bacteria as well.

Any chanc you can borrow some media or gravel from an already established tank? This will help speed things along...

 

[Allivymar]

*nods and agrees with deli*

BioSpira is made to deal with rising levels of ammonia/nitrites, not established ones. It probably has helped somewhat by adding more good bacteria, but its not going to fix the prob. You'll need to continues daily water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels from becoming deadly (most folks here keep them under .5ppm).

Heh, and my ich article has lots of good info. Let me know if you have any questions once you've had a chance to read it.

 

[ChileRelleno]

* nods and agrees with Deli and Allivymar *

Or if you want go ballistic on the problem
You could bucket the fish for a few hours and drain your tank and start all over 8O .
Refill with treated water, add a dose or two of Bio-Spira, get the heaters working on proper temperature, remove any ammonia scrubbers out your filters, try to find someone with some established/healthy filter media/substrate and reintroduce your fish.... A very aggressive approach but a pain in the arse also, but it does take care of the initial problem.