Water Change???

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flames9

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Messages
39
Location
arlington, VA
Hello all. Bought my 10 gallon tank last Saturday. Cleaned everything, and let it sit until Wednesday. Went to LFS, purchased Bio Spira and 2 guppies. They seem to be doing well. Feed them twice a day, early morning and around 1800. Tests, show a a little bit of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates at 0 and ph slightly above 7. On the Bio Spira website, they state ammonia levels may rise abit inthe first couple of days after putting in bio spira. Just curious on when I should do my first water change, and exchange what percentage. Thanks. Scott
 
the bacteria in biospaira are not free floating, so you don't have to worry about removing them almost a week later. You should probably do one soon to help with the ammonia. Within a few days, it should be 0. Just keep an eye on the ammonia, and as for the amount....I would say maybe 25%. For regular changes 10% would work also.


Oh, and welcome to AA!
 
since it seems that you are starting your cycle (since you have an ammonia reading and no nitrate) it would be unwise to do water changes all the time since you need to let the tank cycle and doing water changes can lengthen the cyle period even though the bacteria are not free floating and all, because you are probably adding bacteria every week anyway. (however you have fish in there so if it gets to totally dangerous/deadly levels you would want to do a change).
also, once the ammonia levels start to go down or have gone down you should expect the nitrite(also very toxic to fish even in small ammounts) to spike shortly after. then after everything is all said and done, you should see a small amount of nitrate at the end which is non-toxic but can be a real problem at 50-60 ppm. and that is what water changes are really for is to keep the nitrates in check after the cycle.
some do a water change every week of a small amount (like 5-10%) but some (myself included) do about 10-15% every 2 weeks. and there are some that don't do any at all, but i do not reccomend doing that.
 
Welcome to AA, and good luck with the Bio-spira.

Since you also started with a very light bio-load, I have every bit of confidence that it will go smoothly. The bio-spira failures tend to be when a large bioload is added and the bio-spira doesn't perform as expected, then there are a whole lot of fish to get sick. With two guppies, even a weak batch of bio-spira should work wonders. wait about two weeks. If no ammonia or nitrite, then start adding stock slowly each week.

I wouldn't water change unless the ammoia got up towards 1 ppm or higher. Enjoy the new tank.
 
When it comes to Bio-Spira, you need to dose it based on the number of fish, rather than the size of the aquarium. If you put in enough of the stuff for a 10-gal tank, that is for a fully stocked 10-gal, not 2 guppies. This means there is not enough ammonia produced by the 2 fish to feed the bacteria, and there is a massive die-off of bacteria, causing an ammonia reading.

I think you might have been able to cycle the 10gal with 2 guppies and not see any kind of spike, without Bio-Spira, since they produce relatively little waste compared with the volume of water they are in.

I'd do a 30% water change and keep your ammonia below 0.5 and the tank will cycle.
 
Hi, I know have a total of 4 guppies and 2 cory's!! I added a touch more Bio spira on Sat when I added in those fish!! All reading are good, except ammonia is around .25

Scott
 
What are the readings now from your water tests? If the tank is cycled, you shouldn't have any ammonia readings at all. If you've got a Nitrate reading you should do a PWC to get the ammonia level down. It should start to level off in a week or so....
 
nitrate and nitrite were at zero, ph was 7 and ammonia was approx .25 - .3 I guestimate!!! I did a 25% water change on Sunday I believe, but Ammonia didnt go down that much, believe it stayed the same!! Fish seem to be happy so far!! Thanks
 
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