help required

[knightym06]

For once this isn't about my own tank. Anyway, I bought my girlfriend a small 45 litre tropical tank and she did a great job of setting it up and eventually after 6 months or so got it nicely stocked with no casulties.

However, recently she decided to change the gravel to a smaller size as her plants we're struggling to root well in the larger substrate. This is where the problems started as I feel in the change she has managed to kill off the bacteria in the tank and several fish died from what I diagnosed was high ammonia levels (10 ppm) confirming the death of the bacteria. I managed to lower the ammonia to 0.25ppm with a 50% water change and a new tank course of a bacterial supplement.

A week on another two fish have died with her 5 remaining tetra's looking sickly (very bright red gills visible), ammonia has remained constant with no nitrite or nitrate showing. I feel the only way to salvage the situation is to take some water from my own tank and put it in a box with her surviving healthy fish (2 mollies, 3 platys and a sail fin plec), buy a small heater/filter combo and with some filter media from my own tank keep them going in that box while I redo the tank again.

Hopefully you will be able to provide some information on whether this is the best thing to do along with the fastest way to cycle the tank again

mark

 

[fort384]

Just keep doing 50% water changes in her tank. Every day. Twice a day if required. You need to keep the ammonia level low until it drops back to zero. It shouldn't take as long as the first time cycling since some established bacteria are still in the tank.

 

[knightym06]

ok thanks very much. that way is far easier than removing the fish.

Thanks for being helpful so quickly

mark

 

[Jason7894561230]

Keep the water clean and Ammonia down

 

[jsoong]

And in additional to doing pwc's to keep ammonia & nitrites down, seed her tank with some media from yours. That should greatly speed up the cycling.

<If you add enough filter media, you can cycle instantly .... You can safely give away up to 1/2 of your filter's media, and that should cycle a tank with 1/2 the bioload of your tank. I routinely keep the QT's filter pad in my sump & I can set up a cycled tank instantly. Do check both tank's levels for a few days if you are doing an aggressive filter media transfer. Occasionally, you get a mini-cycle in one tank or the other which can be fixed with a pwc or 2.>