New, excited & problem!

[Zengirl]

My name is Jenny and I am mommy to 2 amazing little boys, (2.5 & 3.5yr).

A friend from my Army days, gave us this tank thinking how our sons would enjoy it. It is a 45 gal pentagon tank.
We started on 15 Jun by cleaning and filling with water. The 17th we started to add gravel, the 20th added castle ornament, artificial plants & dechlorinator. The 25th we added the filter and heater. By the 4th of July we felt we had things together. We did a fish less cycle and by the 13th we felt we were ready to add fish. Ammonia was down, nitrites low and nitrates well on the rise.
We did the slow intro of 4 Mickey Mouse platys. 2 days later we thought we had 2 pregnant, but one started swimming upside down, we removed and that one died. The other one slimmed down and we started reading and I jumped on this forum.
We found nitrItes to be way to high and did a 30% pwc. I am about to recheck levels. Is there anything else I need to do? Should we wait longer to add any other fish or replace the one that died?

Thank you for all you input!!

 

[Zengirl]

Forgot to add: we are using Seachum Prime & we added seasoned plants from friends tank.
Today's water test: pH about 7.6, ammonia 0, nitrIte 2-5 (ugh!), nitrAte 40-80

Now what??

 

[Closetcanibal]

Your cycle may not have been fully completed. I wouldn't add prime, as it is a chemical used to mask the real issue. I would do 30-50% changes daily until you see the nitrate going down. Is this going to be a planted with fish or a fish with a few plants?


Fish are people too!!!

 

[Mebbid]

I would do a series of 50% water changes. You should really be looking for your nitrites to drop down to 0.25ppm to be at a safe level for fish.

 

[Zengirl]

I guess this will be more fish a few plants.

 

[Closetcanibal]

Haha well at any rate best thing to do is get the params under control. It seems like you may have just hit the tail end especially if you had no ammonia. Watch those nitrates. They can spike way high pretty quickly. I have a saltwater biocube cycling right now and I test twice per day. Nitrites are already there it is definitely not safe for the fish, but unless you have a QT tank you may not have much of an option. Carbon or purigen could help too. Not sure if purigen is for freshwater but it works good for saltwater. Also plants do help absorb those things so it's good you have some.


Fish are people too!!!

 

[Zengirl]

Thank you so much for the input.
Today the nitrItes are backup to 5 and nitrAtes 20-40
We are going to do another 50% water change and go get some more plants.

What are your suggestions for plants?

 

[Closetcanibal]

Not sure on freshwater plants. It's been forever since i was in fresh. Went to salt and never turned back. Look on live aquaria. They have lots of plants there I believe. There was a website I was on the email list the was strictly freshwater plants. Can't remember the name. I will have to look it up.


Fish are people too!!!

 

[Mebbid]

The plants aren't really going to add much to help your water parameters. Really, all you can do is rock out with some water changes