My name is Melissa, and I got my husband a 50 gallon freshwater tank for his birthday on December 7. I had fish as a kid, but my mom was the one doing all the care and maintenance. My brother and I just had to sprinkle some food in every day.
My husband got a mature 75 gallon tank from a friend who was moving, but when my husband moved it was left with his mother, who sold it.
The reason I'm here is that even though my husband and I have experience with the "fun" part of fishkeeping (i.e., watching and feeding the fish that someone else has put all the work into), neither of us knows how to set up a new tank, and we're having some trouble with it.
I read all about the nitrogen cycle and researched to find the best equipment in my budget, and have a friend who worked at a fish store for years help us put the filter together, et c. Unfortunately, my husband did not know about cycling the tank (since he never had to do it before) and ran out and bought fish 2 days later (because the teenage part-time Petsmart employee said it would be ok to get fish after 2 days, no matter what experts online had to say about it...)
Anyway, we have a tiger oscar and a Rainbow shark and are struggling with ammonia levels, and after about 3 weeks there are still 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. After buying a test kit and testing daily (sometimes twice a day) we realized how high the ammonia was getting. We have been doing 10% water changes every day or two for the last week and a half, and after every water change we take the filter cartridge from our [unknowingly and unintentionally] cycled 3-gallon betta/danio tank and rub it on the gravel right by the filter intake in the 50 gallon. The ammonia still seems to be hovering around 4 ppm, which is no good.
The small tank cycled on its own before we even knew what cycling was and has no issues (we started testing it too just to see), though bettas and danios are both pretty indestructible anyway. I just don't want Frank the tiger oscar and Mac the rainbow shark to suffer from bad water conditions, and I'm worried that the nitrogen cycle has somehow stalled in the 50 gallon. If anyone here can help, I'd appreciate it.
My husband got a mature 75 gallon tank from a friend who was moving, but when my husband moved it was left with his mother, who sold it.
The reason I'm here is that even though my husband and I have experience with the "fun" part of fishkeeping (i.e., watching and feeding the fish that someone else has put all the work into), neither of us knows how to set up a new tank, and we're having some trouble with it.
I read all about the nitrogen cycle and researched to find the best equipment in my budget, and have a friend who worked at a fish store for years help us put the filter together, et c. Unfortunately, my husband did not know about cycling the tank (since he never had to do it before) and ran out and bought fish 2 days later (because the teenage part-time Petsmart employee said it would be ok to get fish after 2 days, no matter what experts online had to say about it...)
Anyway, we have a tiger oscar and a Rainbow shark and are struggling with ammonia levels, and after about 3 weeks there are still 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. After buying a test kit and testing daily (sometimes twice a day) we realized how high the ammonia was getting. We have been doing 10% water changes every day or two for the last week and a half, and after every water change we take the filter cartridge from our [unknowingly and unintentionally] cycled 3-gallon betta/danio tank and rub it on the gravel right by the filter intake in the 50 gallon. The ammonia still seems to be hovering around 4 ppm, which is no good.
The small tank cycled on its own before we even knew what cycling was and has no issues (we started testing it too just to see), though bettas and danios are both pretty indestructible anyway. I just don't want Frank the tiger oscar and Mac the rainbow shark to suffer from bad water conditions, and I'm worried that the nitrogen cycle has somehow stalled in the 50 gallon. If anyone here can help, I'd appreciate it.
