Another Cycle Question-- No NitrItes but NitrAtes?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
5.0 is correct. I think I dosed ammonia a little higher than normal yesterday afternoon. Will just add 1 ppm of ammonia then and hope nitrites come down soon!
 
Finally seeing blue in the nitrites!!! Went from being 5.0 to 0 in 24 hours!

Going to dose again tonight. Plan is to get fish tues or wed night after a large water change to bring the nitrates to below 20 and turning the temp to 74 to 76.
 
PaulG5372 said:
Finally seeing blue in the nitrites!!! Went from being 5.0 to 0 in 24 hours!

Going to dose again tonight. Plan is to get fish tues or wed night after a large water change to bring the nitrates to below 20 and turning the temp to 74 to 76.
Click to expand...

Awesome :). You've got everything covered. We expect pics, lol.
 
Update:

I added 4 zebra danios and 2 glofish as well as 5 ghost shrimp yesterday.

All are doing well aside from the one glofish. It has been staying near the bottom of the tank and only swimming around every once and a while. When it does swim around it seems to get around fine. It came out briefly for feeding earlier. The larger glofish was picking on it some yesterday.

Ammonia and nitrites have both stayed at 0 and I drip acclimated all the fish and shrimp.
 
COngrats! I'm jealous too!

I had 4 glofish at one time and one picked on the others for the first week, it got so bad one of them went into hiding and the bullying fish wouldn't let the others feed. It lessened some after a week, they could be establishing territories and dominance. They are schooling fish though and should be in a group of at least 6 (the danios too I think) which could also help the aggression. Have fun!
 
So I lost the one glofish and one danio. Somehow the danio ended up with his entire tail fin missing. Really not sure how that happened but he wasn't able to move around very well and got stuck to the filter intake, found him there in the morning. The glofish that was staying near the bottom ended up being stuck to the filter intake when I woke up the next morning also.

I have been monitoring the water carefully. Ammonia and Nitrites have remained at 0. Nitrates are well below 20. Water is at 77 F. I drip acclimated all the fish for 1.5-2 hours.

Any Idea on why the glofish would do this? I bought the fish at Petsmart, which I am second guessing. I think I found a good LFS but we will see. I am not planning on buying fish again from petsmart.

Kind of scared to get any new fish after the loss, but I'd like some stocking opinions! Now I have 2 glofish and 2 zebra danios. The tank is 20 gallons, lightly planted with a Penguin 150 filter. I'm thinking some tetras my be next, but what kind are a good fit for my tank and not too hard for beginners to keep? What about some other ideas for down the road to fill the tank?
 
PaulG5372 said:
So I lost the one glofish and one danio. Somehow the danio ended up with his entire tail fin missing. Really not sure how that happened but he wasn't able to move around very well and got stuck to the filter intake, found him there in the morning. The glofish that was staying near the bottom ended up being stuck to the filter intake when I woke up the next morning also.

I have been monitoring the water carefully. Ammonia and Nitrites have remained at 0. Nitrates are well below 20. Water is at 77 F. I drip acclimated all the fish for 1.5-2 hours.

Any Idea on why the glofish would do this? I bought the fish at Petsmart, which I am second guessing. I think I found a good LFS but we will see. I am not planning on buying fish again from petsmart.

Kind of scared to get any new fish after the loss, but I'd like some stocking opinions! Now I have 2 glofish and 2 zebra danios. The tank is 20 gallons, lightly planted with a Penguin 150 filter. I'm thinking some tetras my be next, but what kind are a good fit for my tank and not too hard for beginners to keep? What about some other ideas for down the road to fill the tank?
Click to expand...

Sorry about your fish :-(. At least we know your tank is healthy. I do think we have our good friends at the chain store to blame for this, and I agree it's time to start looking for a better quality LFS or mail ordering from respected sources. Fish will pick on and eat dead or dying fish, and I'd assume that's here the physical damage came from. There are a lot of fish to choose from, as for Tetras I've always liked Cardinal, Red Eye and Rummy Nose Tetras. Neons are very common, but they are also very susceptible to being weak stock and dying off easily as well (I'm dealing with it right now). A good place to start is looking at the classifieds section for Severum Mama and HN1's updated stock list. Everyone on this site can vouch for the quality and health of the fish they sell. After some issues with buying poor stock from LFS's, all of my purchases will come from reputable members from here on out.
 
You might want to up the schools of the danio a bit; not sure if the zebras and glofish will school together, if they do you could by a few more of either to fill out the school to 6-8. If they dont school together you may need to get 4 more of each (let someone who actually knows what they are talking about either verify or refute this lol). Having enough for a good size school often reduces or eliminates bullying.

Congrats on your tank cycling!
 
libraygirl said:
You might want to up the schools of the danio a bit; not sure if the zebras and glofish will school together, if they do you could by a few more of either to fill out the school to 6-8. If they dont school together you may need to get 4 more of each (let someone who actually knows what they are talking about either verify or refute this lol). Having enough for a good size school often reduces or eliminates bullying.

Congrats on your tank cycling!
Click to expand...

They do school...my Leooard Danios and Glofish can't tell each other apart. The Leopards don't know they're not fluorescent :)
 
Thanks for the responses guys. The glofish and zebras were schooling together, but after I lost the last danio one became aggressive. Just went to the LFS and got 3 new danios. They are drip acclimating now. This LFS seems much better than Petsmart so far (except the prices!)

Will report back on how they're doing soon.

Also wondering about an algae eater for the tank. Are otos ok for a 20 gallon or is there something that would fit in better?
 
Update: All the fish are doing well now, no more deaths and water conditions have remained great!
 
PaulG5372 said:
Update: All the fish are doing well now, no more deaths and water conditions have remained great!
Click to expand...

Glad to hear it! I hope you're enjoying them. I'm sure they're as happy as can be :).

Sorry I missed your last post somehow...20 gallons is what most people mention as the minimum for Otos. I think they'd be fine. Getting 3 would probably be a good number. If you've got diatoms (brown algae), they'll think they died and went to fishy heaven.
 
In tossing around some other ideas in my head I'm liking the idea of a pair of dwarf gouramis as a centerpiece fish.

As of now I still only have the 5 zebra danios and 2 glofish as well as the ghost shrimp. Would I be able to get a pair of dwarf gouramis? Also tossing around the idea of getting some platties or mollies to fill in the tank. Any opinions on this and how many platties or mollies would I be able to add if I got the pair of dwarf gouramis?
 
PaulG5372 said:
In tossing around some other ideas in my head I'm liking the idea of a pair of dwarf gouramis as a centerpiece fish.

As of now I still only have the 5 zebra danios and 2 glofish as well as the ghost shrimp. Would I be able to get a pair of dwarf gouramis? Also tossing around the idea of getting some platties or mollies to fill in the tank. Any opinions on this and how many platties or mollies would I be able to add if I got the pair of dwarf gouramis?
Click to expand...

I personally am not a fan of livebearers. It just seems like too much hassle to deal with finding homes for them, keeping them from getting sucked into the filter, watching them get eaten, etc...(the fry I'm talking about, lol).

Here's a cool site to play around with. Use it more as a rough guideline, but take it's advice with a grain of salt. It helps to give you a good idea of what will work...but it's not considered highly accurate. Once you play around with it for a while and get an idea of what you'd like, you can always start a new stocking thread to see what the other AA members suggest :)
http://aqadvisor.com/
 
Just pick all boy livebearers if you don't want fry. I don't know what the guideline is about keeping gouramis together, I kept a couple of honey gouramis together for a long time till one got too curious about the gravel vac one day.

There are several other options for the tank, though. What size was it? If it's 20g then you could go with paradisefish or some sort of dwarf cichlid also.
 
PaulG5372 said:
Yes it is a 20 gallon tank.

Any ideas on some centerpiece fish would be helpful!
Click to expand...

Dwarf Gourami's, Bolivian and German Blue Rams are always popular choices. There's plenty of other options, but that tends to be the three people really enjoy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
Strange Nitrate problem in fishless cycle
Replies
8
Views
719
Andy Sager
Andy Sager
thekeymaker57
Are my Nitrites too high or do I need to wait it out?
Replies
5
Views
1K
Andy Sager
Andy Sager
K
Ammonia and Nitrites Decrease but no Nitrates
Replies
7
Views
2K
Andy Sager
Andy Sager
Kimbo57
Need ppm help.
Replies
11
Views
757
Aiken Drum
Aiken Drum
D
Another cycling question-showing ammonia, nitrate and nitrites…
Replies
5
Views
463
Aiken Drum
Aiken Drum

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom