six week old tank not yet cycled??

[andorah]

hello

we are andy and deborah from glasgow, we are pretty new to the aquarium world, so please bear with us! its very confusing on the internet to find consistant helpful advice, so we decided to pick the site that we liked the look of (nice posters, helpful etc...) and post our questions.

we have a 35 litre tank with the following equipment

fluval U1 underwater filter and airater (55l capacity)
Eheim Jager Heater 50w (60l capacity)

we have the following fish

3 silver dollars, 3 male guppies, 2 female balloon mollies, 1 male sailfin molly, 4 neon tetras and a yoyo loach.

tank has 4 live plants, varoius ornaments, gravel substrate with some crushed coral to buffer the ph.

we have had our tank up and running for 6 weeks.

we started with the above fish originaly minus the loach, but some died during the first few weeks and we replaced them last weekend back to the oringinal numbers listed above.

our ammonia levels is currently at 1ppm and we have been fluctuating between 0.5 and 1.0 ppm for the last 6 weeks. we have been keeping this down with regular water changes.

ph sitting around 7 for the full 6 weeks.

we have had NO nitrate or nitrites readings at all (we have a API master test kit).

so finally to the question! (sorry we wanted to make sure that we gave you as much info as possible)

is our tank cycling?? we thought that it was, but we have had no signs of
either N's and we now think that maybe that means our tank is not cycling.

can anyone give us some information about what, if anything, we are doing wrong?

i am very worried as we wanted to do this correctly and having just added new fish i am worried that if the tank is not cycled that they are in danger, and that potentialy we have now overloaded a filter that is not able to cope.

we have been adding filter start, and dechloirinating the water etc... have we been cleaning too much?

any advice that you can offer would be very gratefully received.

thanks very much for reading.

Deborah and Andrew

 

[stingrays4]

Hi and welcome to the forum You tank is still settling down,so firstly i wouldn't add any more fish for awhile,speaking of which the silver dollars will get to big for your set up.Also they enjoy loads of greens in there diet such as veggie flake. If i was you i would keep up with water changes and keep adding the filter start,and just keep an eye on it for now. I take it you live in a very soft water area? Since you added crush coral to your substrate?

 

[LyndaB]

Welcome to the forum.

Let's see if I can help with a few things. If you have not already visited this thread, please do so. There's valuable information to be found: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...started-check-out-these-resources-154837.html

Your tank is much too small for most of your fish if it's 35 liters (less than 10 gallons). You're going to have to rehome the majority of them. Silver dollars get HUGE. Really, the only fish you have now that's appropriate are the neons.

With your test kit, regarding the nitrate, you really have to bang that bottle against a countertop to break up the crystals that form in it. That will ensure accurate readings.

With any ammonia reading, you must do at least 50% daily water changes. Ammonia is toxic to fish.

Don't add any more of the "filter start". That bottled bacteria can sometimes crash a cycle.

 

[andorah]

hey stingrays 4

no wont add any more fish, wouldnt have added more if id realised it wansnt cycled.

i know now about the silver dollars, but didnt when i bought them (newbies ) but at the moment they are very small, we are getting a bigger tank when we buy our house so hopefully they will be ok till then.

and yes they eat 3 of our 4 plants, so voracious! but we just replace them as they seem to really like them.

we are from Scotland were the water is very soft (good for your hair though), our lfs, suggested the coral to buffer the ph, although to date we have had no problems with ph, sitting at 7 or last 6 weeks.

we do very regular water changes.

any ideas as to why we havnt started cycling? we cant work it out

thanks

D

 

[andorah]

Hey LyndaB

um, are you sure, the mollies, tetras, guppies and loach are all very small and ive read loads about how they are great fish for community tanks. ive never read of them getting much bigger than they are now, we have researched all the fish since we bought them and the only one i was worried about was the silver dollars, as we read they can get really big.

thanks for the reading pointers, ive read them earlier this evening, would have been much better to have read them before we got the fish, but cant change that now!

ill retest and really shake that bottle! see if that changes my readings.

we have been doing very regular water changes for the entire time, and our ammonia levels have never risen above 1.0ppm, which i thought was acceptable in a cycling tank? i know its not ideal normally, but i though i could get ammonia spikes up to 4ppm whilst cycling?

thanks for all your advice and sorry about the additinal questions really appreciate it.

Deborah

 

[LyndaB]

Your mollies get to be pretty chunky fish. I wouldn't put them in less than a 20 gallon. They, along with your guppies, are prolific spawners and where you may start off with 2 of either, you'll soon have 102.

Yoyo loaches require groups of at least 3 and I wouldn't keep them in anything less than a 25, but 30 gallons would be even better.

Basically, the best rule of thumb is to purchase the fish knowing their adult size and habits and that helps you properly stock your tank.

Right now, you are severely overstocked and that will be harmful to the fish.

Ask all the questions you want. There's a huge learning curve with this hobby and we've all gone through it (or are STILL going through it).