55 gal barb killer

[laxpatrick]

0 for 6. The last of my 6 "first" fish (tiger barbs) in my 55 gal just croaked. Put them in Friday night, seemed to be doing quite well. Saturday morning 5 of them had given up the ghost.

I'd been cycling for over 1.5 months, thought I was done, nitrites hit zero, did a big water change, waited a week, did another water change. Water was greenish/cloudy before and a bit after (and now definitely is) but I'd had the lights on for 10 hours a day and a couple of plants (which weren't making it due to the low light, so now they're gone).

So - I've got a fair bit of algae growing on the decorations and plastic plants. For filtration I've got a Rena XP2 as well as my top fin 60 (big HOB).

My plan is to keep light dosing ammonia for the next week to see if I stabilize over that time. Should I keep the lights off? Just not sure what to do next... Before I attempt to put a few fish in the tank.

Thanks in advance

 

[SWerner13]

I don't know the history of your tank. But as for the algae there is no reason to have the lights on during a fishless cycle as it simply adds to the possible growth of algae.

 

[bluerose]

Ammonia + light = algae... keep the lights off.

Did you acclimate properly? If you did the 'shot glass' acclimation I might try drip next time in case the water quality is drastically different from your LFS. You could also ask them about their pH-- if theirs is significantly different from yours you may need to drip for sure.

 

[gzeiger]

In the week between those two water changes you mentioned at the end of the cycle, did you continue to add ammonia?

 

[laxpatrick]

Yes, continued with the ammonia. Only potential lapse was while my wife was in charge. She added on Tuesday and Thursday, but she may have overdone it in spite of instructions... So that may have put me into a new cycle. That was one reason why I did the big water change, then checked parameters again - all three were low.

The reason why I had the lights on was because I'd introduced a couple of plants. They're gone now, so I'll go light-less for the next two weeks before trying to kill more fish.

LAXPatrick

 

[laxpatrick]

Sounds like my wife overdosed the ammonia while I was gone...

So, back to stabilizing my cycle. Lights are off, etc. to take that out of the equation. I'd been leaving them on in hopes that in a few weeks I could add a clown pleco.

This morning - zero ammonia, zero nitrites. Added more ammonia. Hopefully this'll stabilize for me over the next couple days.

Question - when adding fish, do you keep light doses of ammonia? Until when?

 

[gzeiger]

NO!

Ammonia kills fish. That's the whole point of this exercise. Once you add fish they will provide a source of ammonia that will keep your bacteria alive. It shouldn't ever show up on your test kit because it's added constantly at a low concentration and should be consumed by the filter at the same rate. You don't want measurable ammonia in your tank, ever, once there are fish in it.

 

[laxpatrick]

All appears to be going well - 10 danios are now doing "swimmingly well"

 

[Punkymom]

Danios are very hardy fish, you shouldn't lose too many of them unless your ammonia gets off the charts or they're just sick. Great little fish!