a depressing hobby!

[monaro_gto]

so for water changes i clean probably the top 1/4" of gravel. I dont dig right down every pwc. Only once I removed all decor and cleaned well. Once a week I remove filter cartridge and rinse in water I just removed from tank. I only have the Top Fin 30 that came with the starter kit. Thinking about going to an aqua clear 50 and using the 30 on a hospital tank. I have a tetra wisper 60 air pump driving two air stones.

I would not think im over stocked for a 29g but i might be wrong. I had
6 cardinals
3 mollies
3 platy's
3 corys
and a dwarf gourami.

I have lost all mollies and 5 of the six cardinals. Some how the one cardinal is going strong

 

[monaro_gto]

water changes are typically about 40%. I do need to test my tap water but how would it be that different. I put seachems prime in it and I temp match.

 

[thursyanna]

Sounds like you're doing everything right. Sorry, I must have miscounted your fish. I was counting that you started out with about 19. I wish I could offer some advise to help but I don't know what to tell you. Good luck! I hope you keep up with the hobby, it'll pay off eventually!!

 

[Dizzydea]

I will often use melafix along with paragaurd. Do the fish have any symptoms?

 

[monaro_gto]

Every now and then the fish still bounce off of the tubing or decor and the water is still blury.

 

[Dizzydea]

Your tank might not be cycled, it sounds like new tank syndrome. My best guess because of the cloudy water. You'll just beef to keep doing daily wc.

 

[Try-na]

Blurry water could be a bio bloom. Usually can be taken care of with filter gloss added to the filter. I had that with one of my tanks. Add the floss & once it look dirty just rinse it in old tank water & reuse that floss in the filter. Reuse the same floss until it looks rope like then throw it away & get new floss. The floss works better this way. If its bad you could try Clear Fast with the floss (some people hate this stuff but I used it & it did wonders).

I've had nothing but bad luck with cardinals & my tank is well established & heavily planted. Don't know why but they just don't last for me. It sucks but sometimes fish just die (Balloon Rams! Little balls of sadness is what I call them) & you never find out why. But to have that many die that quickly would suggest something's off.

This is a sad hobby but I believe the hours of enjoyment I get out of it is most definitely worth the occasional heartbreak. Good Luck!!

 

[Mebbid]

The temp has been at 86 for a full week. I have added salt for 6 days and been using paragaurd for 6

I had some platy's for a fish in cycle but the cory's and gourami were added after the tank were cycled.

I'm curious, how much salt have you added over the 6 days? If you keep adding salt to the tank daily then the salt level is increasing in the tank to possibly deadly levels. You only add more salt when you do a water change and even then you only add as much salt as fresh water you added in. Also, I would mix the salt in with water before adding it to the tank.

If you are still getting ammonia readings then your tank isn't fully cycled. You could be getting large ammonia spikes from time to time that are going undetected because they are converted to nitrate before you test.

Also, have you checked to see if your pH is swinging at all between your day / night cycle?

Finally, I noticed that the levels of acceptable nitrates in a tank have been debated a little on this thread. While 40 is an acceptable level of nitrate it really is better to attempt to keep them lower than that.

 

[Fishperson]

If you ever get new fish I highly recommend bloodfin tetras. The hardiest, most underrated fish in the hobby imo. They are not aggressive, fast swimmers, colorful, interesting, and mine have not gotten a disease ever. They are really awesome.

 

[Khuligirl93]

Sounds like you're doing everything right to me also! Sometimes these things just take a while to work themselves out until everything is balanced. My advice would just be water changes and patience

 

[monaro_gto]

so it sounds like I might just be still going through the cycle which im annoyed at myself for. I would never have added anything past the first fish I picked up. I thought my ammo sitting at .125ish(its between .25 and 0) and 0 nitrites and nitrates around 5 i thought that meant i was cycled. If I add the floss do I add it before the cartridge or after? When I switch the the Aqua Clear 50 I was going to floss in place of the carbon.

 

[monaro_gto]

for the salt the directions said 5 tblsp per 5 gallon. Its a 29g tank so I put 5tblsp into the shaker and it is slowly disolving into the tank. When I do water changes im doing 1/2 tblsp per 4gallons of water. I dont think im using too much but open to suggestions.

 

[Fishperson]

No, when I cycled my tank nitrate was at 120ppm. But I did a fishless cycle.

 

[Mebbid]

How quickly did you add your fish after the ammonia level read 0? The bio filter in a tank is only prepared to handle the load it currently handles. Any increase in the number of fish overwhelms the bio filter allowing ammonia to be created for a short time.

It doesn't sound like salt is the issue.

 

[gravereaper0]

Sounds like its still cycling and with the added bio load the bacteria can't keep up. Find a way to establish a bigger bb colony, cheapest way would be a sponge filter, you can even make one with a couple things you probably already have laying around the house.
Nitrate levels aren't a big issue unless you got very finicky fish like discuss. I've had nitrate levels @ 160+ and haven't lost a fish to it yet.
For water conditioner amquel plus is your friend if things aren't going well.

 

[monaro_gto]

I added fish 1 week at a time but I guess without it being cycled it was still too many too quick. I added some media to the existing filter tonight and a weeks time or so I will be upgrading the filter altogether. im just going to keep doing the water changes and see how we go. the last two days have been better.

 

[monaro_gto]

sorry guys more questions and more help needed. I have been doing water changes and running daily tests. Yesterday after reading some other threads I added fluval polishing pads to my filter.

Today I ran more tests and nitrites and ammo have shot up! Ammo was 1.0 and nitrite was just under 0.5. I did a 50% PWC straight away and ammo is under .5 and nitrites back close to zero.

So a couple of questions.
Did the extra media screw things up or is the cycle starting to do its thing? (Nitrates are still very low)

Given that my tap water is almost a full 1.0 PH difference from my tank should I wait until tomorrow to do another PWC or should I do another now to get the Ammo and nitrites back down.

All help appreciated.

 

[Mebbid]

sorry guys more questions and more help needed. I have been doing water changes and running daily tests. Yesterday after reading some other threads I added fluval polishing pads to my filter.

Today I ran more tests and nitrites and ammo have shot up! Ammo was 1.0 and nitrite was just under 0.5. I did a 50% PWC straight away and ammo is under .5 and nitrites back close to zero.

So a couple of questions.
Did the extra media screw things up or is the cycle starting to do its thing? (Nitrates are still very low)

Given that my tap water is almost a full 1.0 PH difference from my tank should I wait until tomorrow to do another PWC or should I do another now to get the Ammo and nitrites back down.

All help appreciated.

Increases in nitrite / ammonia are really normal, the polishing pad wouldn't have had any effect on the BB in your tank until they start to establish on the added media. What you are really looking for is nitrate to start rising.

I would give it no less than an hour between water changes. I usually wait 3 - 4 myself when I have to do back to back changes.

 

[monaro_gto]

thanks for your quick response. my last change was 3 hours ago. so i guess I will do one more before bed. another 50%?

 

[Mebbid]

50% sounds like a good plan to me. That's my normal water change size.