Newbie with a story and ammonia Question

[Brian93]

Thanks for taking time to read my post. My wife and I thought it would be a good idea to get an aquarium for our 2 year old. So we went out and bought a 40 breeder tank from our local Pet Smart. We set it up with a few fake plants and 3 rock displays. I have a Marineland Penguin 170 filter system.

We set the tank up with no fish and let it run for a week per the sales guy at the store. We went back a week later to take a water sample in to be tested and planned on getting our first fish. The guy told us our water was a little hard a recommended us to use API Quick Start and it was ok to go ahead and put fish in, so we did. We bought 4 small GloFish. While the fish were acclimating to the water I added 40ml of the API Quick Start, as directed on the bottle. We waited 2 more weeks before we went back and bought more fish. We wanted to make sure we could keep the first 4 alive first! Anyways, We after 2 weeks we bought 6 small Neon Tetras and also bought API 5 in 1 Test Strips to keep an eye on conditions. After 4 weeks we did our first cleaning. We cleaned all the gravel using a gravel vacuum. We took out all the planets and rocks and washed them. Also while doing this we did a 50% water change. We filled the tank back up and added the appropriate amount Top Fin Tap Water Dechlorinater. By this time we thought we doing good, its been a mouth, no fish have died, they were eating good & acting healthy. We waited another week and went and bought 2 more GLOFish, those are my daughters favorite cause the glow under the blue light. We also bought 2 small Rubber Lip Plecostomus. So now we are up to 8 fish. We dun another tank cleaning doing the thing as we did the first time. Also by this time i have changed the water filter. Waited another week and bought 2 Pictus Catfish. Now it has been 6 weeks and things started to change. We had 2 GLOFish die. We didn't think much about it. We went and bought 4 Bala Sharks.

So its been 6 weeks, the water has been testing good and the tank looked good clean. Then things got weird. I noticed a few fish stopped eating and fish were not as active. We lost 1 catfish, then a few days later a few Neon Tetras died. It was like every few days a fish or 2 would die. One day we came home to find 3 Bala Sharks dead. We where down to 4 GLOFish 4 Neon Tetras and the 2 Rubber Lip Plecostomus. Then I seen signs of Ick on the Neon Tetras. I tried to treat that but with no success. The rest of the Neon Tetras died. about a week later 2 Rubber Lip Plecostomus died. So now we have 4 GLOFish, there still swimming today.

By this time i have been reading online forums about ammonia and got a test kit cause everything else was testing good. I bought a API Ammonia test kit. The first test was off the chart, 8.0ppm!! So I immediately started adding API Ammo Lock. After a week it wasn't coming down any. Then we started doing 50% water changes everyday for about 2 weeks. We got it down to 1.0 - 0.5ppm. I tested the tap water we filling it up with and it has .25ppm of ammonia in it. Thats were we are at today. I have read a lot about Prime so the past few days i have been using it, so far no change in levels. We have held off from buying anymore fish till we get a handle on things.

These are my current water test results:
NO3 - 0
NO2 - 0
PH - 7
KH - 80
GH - 60
Ammonia - 1.0

Questions:
1. What happened? Everything was going good then it all changed fast.
2. I have the tanks complete covered cause we have a cat. Does that have any affect on water conditions?
3. Should I buy bacteria and add to it to help the cycle?
4. When we clean the tank we clean the gravel and it sucks out a lot of stuff from within the gravel. Should we clean the gravel every time?

 

[Caliban07]

Hi Brian

Things were reading good until you added the pleco's. The nitrogen cycle is probably the most important aspect of fish keeping and is (by no fault of the newbie) the most overlooked. This is because the advisers at the stores etc either don't know about this themselves or do but would rather you keep buying more fish and useless products.

You must do your research on the nitrogen cycle in order to ensure you have a successful start to the hobby.

It looks like you may have been overstocked with some compatibility issues too.

Fish like bala sharks and pleco's grow to be very big fish and contribute massively to the harmful nitrogen load such as ammonia. Because your tank hadn't gone through the nitrogen cycle, the necessary organisms that reduce toxic forms of nitrogen In to less harmful forms are just not there in big enough numbers to stop the ammonia rising and killing the fish.

It was probably a mixture of an over stocked, incompatible and uncycled tank that has resulted in your losses but we are here to help.

Hopefully someone how knows how to will link you out cycling threads.



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[billberet]

one thing to remember about the nitrogen cycle, you will only have enough bacteria to cover the fish load you have. it's not like you'll have a ton of bacteria for one fish, you'll only have enough bacteria to cover the waste of that one fish.

as you add more fish, you have to let the bacteria multiply to cover the new load.
so make sure you have enough bio media as well, they need a nice place to live.

 

[Brian93]

THANKS for the feedback. How do you know when the nitrogen cycle is complete? So when I add more fish that starts the nitrogen cycle back up?

I'm using the Prime stuff and from what I understand it will still cause ammonia to show up in water test. Is that right?

 

[Caliban07]

THANKS for the feedback. How do you know when the nitrogen cycle is complete? So when I add more fish that starts the nitrogen cycle back up?

I'm using the Prime stuff and from what I understand it will still cause ammonia to show up in water test. Is that right?

Every time you add fish or anything that breaks down and adds to the waste products (fish food, decaying plant matter) will end up as ammonia. If the change is small e.g adding a few neons then the bacteria have time to adjust but if the change is large then the bacteria are overwhelmed and ammonia rises until they can catch up. A typical cycle takes about 5-6 weeks. A liquid test kit measuring a negative for ammonia and nitrite and a positive for nitrate is how you know the tank has cycled.

Prime does detoxify ammonia for a time and it will still show on the test kit. Changing water is the best way to reduce harmful nitrogen and gives a nice blast of oxygen to the tank.


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[billberet]

can't add any more than what was said above. for a beginner, the water change is your best friend, best and simplest way to remove nitrates.

one trick is to keep a container of fresh water, if you have water in a container you can aerate it and remove any chlorine before you do your water change.
what I used to do is get some food grade garbage cans and fill them up, throw in an air stone with a small pump and a python, you can add fresh water that is safe for your fish. better than dealing with buckets, and no mess!!!!

 

[gilpi]

Remember NOT to change your filter. As your filter cycles, good bacteria grows and attaches itself to the filter media. Removing it or changing it is as if you were to start the cycle all over again.

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[FishFlow]

Look up Nitrogen Cycle Aquarium.

Stocking, visit aqadvisor.com Overstocked tanks lead to fish that are stressed, and you will have unexplained deaths, daily/weekly.

Cleaning. Never clean 100% of your tank at the same time. You're essentially killing off your Nitrogen Cycle.

Welcome to the hobby!!

 

[Brian93]

Thanks for all the info. Using AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor, this is what I am going to do. (see attachment) I plan on adding each species to the tank about 4-5 weeks apart. That should give the system time to recover between adding fish.

 

[Canadiver]

Like others have said already the nitrogen cycle of your tank is most important. Here is a link to the cycle explained. http://www.tropical-fish-success.com/aquarium-nitrogen-cycle.html.

To keep everything going you need to form a schedule. Say every Sunday do your water change. At this time you can clean the tank glass, I wouldn't do much gravel vacuuming. In my experience this has usually caused more problems. The gravel actually has Beneficial Bacteria that is working to convert the ammonia to nitrites and then to nitrates. By vacuuming you disturb the cycle, same when cleaning the filter system. So only vacuum small areas less then 10% per week if you must vacuum. Change at least 20% water per week. Depending on filter size and fish load of your tank will depend on when the filter needs to be cleaned.

There is lots of different types of filters and media that goes inside them. Your filter should pump about 5-6 times the amount of water in the tank in 1 hr. So 100 gal tank should push 600 gph. The filter should have enough media to house the beneficial bacteria as this is where most of it lives. Do some research on filter systems.

When cleaning a filter use water you remove from the tank. Rinse everything off in the tank water. I drain tank water into 5 gal pails and clean and rinse everything put it back together and refill with tank water. This way you will do the least harm to the bacteria living inside the filter media. That's why only clean when you need to. You will notice the flow rate go down, water my not seem as clear, so the filter needs to be rinsed and cleared of debris.

Once you have the cycle going and get on a schedule ( doesn't hurt to keep a log) you should be able to enjoy keeping fish with very few problems.

The thing with the ich it likely came from the fish store on the new arrivals. You should have a quarantine tank to put them in prior to your main tank. I will probably get flack here but I have never done this as I don't have another tank set up running for me one is enough. Raising the temp to 85* f for a couple weeks usually gets rid of it. This is when you need to vacuum the gravel a little more. When picking out fish I look at how the other fish are doing in all the tanks. Don't get any from tanks that have sick looking fish in them.

At any rate I hope you continue keeping fish and I am sure you will learn an enormous amount about keeping your very own Eco system.

Cheers ???


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