5 gallon fish IN cyling - Nitrites finally

[blert]

Siva hit the nail on the head there. I never noticed before and I should have asked. I thought you only had a Betta in the tank. That is a lot of fish in a five gallon especially as its still cycling. Chances are that it's never really going to be able to keep up with that bio load even after it has completed cycling and you will continue to have water quality issues with it. How is the 90 gallon going? I would suggest you move the Neons into it. I'd bet if you did then this little five gallon would be fine in a few days, still a little small for a Betta but that's debatable I guess.

 

[HeatherW]

You can feed bettas frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp 2-3 days a week without worrying about protien overload. Bettas are carnivores, and should have more protien in their diet than many other fish. Just avoid freeze dried. It would be better to rotate those frozen foods with a high quality betta pellet, instead of flake. Flake will cause more digestive issues.

80 is a perfect temp to keep bettas at always..raising to around 86 if you are treating something like ich.

A 10 gal tank should be the absolute minimum for neons IMO. They are schoolers that need to be kept in groups of 6 or more and there is just no room for a school of them with a betta in a 5 gal.

You have other tanks, right? Why are you doing a fish-in cycle and exposing the fish to toxic levels of nitrites when you can move seeded filter media over from another tank?

Hi Erin! I do have other tanks but they are all new so nothing is in better shape than what I have right now. the 90 is doing a fishless cycle and the 20 is doing a fish in but I still haven't spiked the nitrites over there yet.

as for the food goes - I am feeding the frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp. I alternate days with flakes for the neons and betta pellets for the betta. he does eat some of those flakes though . so they get the bloodworms on wed, brine shrimp on fridays, fast on sunday and all the other days it is the flakes and pellets.

 

[siva]

Ok feeding sounds good.

Are you using Seachum Prime as your dechlorniator? You really need to be, so that you are neutralizing the nitrites left behind after a water change for 24 hours. In your 5 gal the fish are really being exposed to too much nitrites.

If you have a buddy that is a hobbyist as well, I would try and get some used filter media from thier tank. Putting a little of that into the filters of the tanks with fish in could really speed up this process and make it less labor intensive for you.

 

[hippy guy]

I think i was thinking bloat, and not protien, but im guessin that probobly only applies to the freez dried kind, and not frozen as much?

 

[hippy guy]

Also i agree with above, prime is the most concentrated and cost effecive dechlorinator ive used so far, and for 24 hours your good.smaller tanks can get out of hand easier than bigger tanks, but ive used filters from old tanks and had a tank going in nearly no time at all.

 

[hippy guy]

Sorry for posting this a million times, but does anyone sell good to go cycled filter matierial? Wouldnt water and air and a baggie be fine, the boxes get tossed alot, that getd its movin i guess....there could be money in that if someone had a bunch of tanks, and extra filter space or somthing

 

[siva]

No, you are right hippy guy, too much protein does cause SBD. A diet of only worms/shrimp wouldn't be a good idea.

I know there are some sponge filters atleast one company sells that are supposedly already seeded with the BB. No clue if it's true though.

 

[HeatherW]

Ok feeding sounds good.

Are you using Seachum Prime as your dechlorniator? You really need to be, so that you are neutralizing the nitrites left behind after a water change for 24 hours. In your 5 gal the fish are really being exposed to too much nitrites.
QUOTE]
yes, I switched to the Seachum Prime. I still have a little bit of a different brand left over, but I am going to save that until later. When the tank started spiking nitrites I switched over.
I am working on multiple WC today. going to try and really pull that number down. we will see if it worked tomorrow or not

 

[blert]

Sorry to say that your five gallon tank is going to be nothing but water quality issues until you move the Neons out. It's really too small for the Betta too but, as I said, some will debate that.

 

[librarygirl]

Since the 20 gal is fish-in cycling too anyway I'd add the Neons to that tank; it has more water volume to dissipate the toxins and adding some neons to that tank won't increase the bioload that much and it'll help out the 5 gal not to mention give the Neons more space.

The 5 gal alone is fine for the Betta.

You want to keep on top of water changes though; letting nitrites climb to 2 isn't very good for the fish.

@hippy guy: there is a company that sells seeded ("active") sponge filters from their Angelfish tanks. I've used them to help cycle my tank as have many other members on here.

 

[HeatherW]

Since the 20 gal is fish-in cycling too anyway I'd add the Neons to that tank; it has more water volume to dissipate the toxins and adding some neons to that tank won't increase the bioload that much and it'll help out the 5 gal not to mention give the Neons more space.

The 5 gal alone is fine for the Betta.

You want to keep on top of water changes though; letting nitrites climb to 2 isn't very good for the fish.

@hippy guy: there is a company that sells seeded ("active") sponge filters from their Angelfish tanks. I've used them to help cycle my tank as have many other members on here.

so I have some questions about the angels filters. the filter I have on my 5 gallon is small and the water doesn't really flow over it entirely. if I added anything I don't think it would really work. should I be raising my water level so it covers the filter? i will attach photos

 

[HeatherW]

Can you see the water flowing over the filter?

 

[siva]

Oh it's a mini-bow. You should get a new filter all together. Those things are terrible. That's how they work..exactly what you're seeing there.

 

[siva]

What you'll find also, down the road, is that because the filter cart is right under the light bulb, it's virtually impossible to keep it free of algae.

 

[HeatherW]

Oh it's a mini-bow. You should get a new filter all together. Those things are terrible. That's how they work..exactly what you're seeing there.

well, that was kinda what I was thinking - that maybe I should get a new filter, but then I thought that is such a waste of money. what I should really spend my money on is a new 10gallon tank and put it in the same place as my 5 gallon and just use the 5 gallon as maybe a quarantine tank or something. but... for now this will have to do because I have already spent way too much getting my 90 gallon tank going.

but needless to say - I wouldn't be able to use an angels active filter with this set up right?

 

[hippy guy]

You could use a seeded filter to set it up...
Also, filters... i use marineland penguin, the wheel taken out.

 

[HeatherW]

You could use a seeded filter to set it up...
Also, filters... i use marineland penguin, the wheel taken out.

why do you take the wheel out? isn't that where all the good bacteria is supposed to grow?

 

[HeatherW]

well I finally got my numbers down - did about 4 (or maybe it was 6) water changes yesterday.
temp - 80.2
ammonia - 0
nitirite - .25
PH - 7.4

 

[hippy guy]

The wheel got stopped up. And it squeaked always...awful. without the wheel, its still a decent marineland filterthe bacteria lives mostly in your filter pads in the filter. I put air stones under these and crank that mess up, so its a good mix of 02 and water for bacteria to colonize.
Some bacteria will form in sand, gravel and such, and if levels are dropping to normal, it means some bacteria has already colonized. Very cool stuff how it all cycles and such....fish tanks are fun

 

[hippy guy]

What were your nitrates?btw