AddictedtoFishNoW
Aquarium Advice Activist
Hello all! This is my first post and unfortunately It starts off bad First of all before I go any further, thank you for this wonderful site of wonderful people who are so kind to help the ones in need and everything else. If it weren't for you guys and gals, I think a lot of fish would be dead and people would not get the right answers.
Ok..I have to admit, this has got me a bit down, and I was so excited and happy to start my fish tank experience but now with these readings, I am a bit depressed because I can't stand having my fishes be stressed but I have been reading a lot of posts here about the high nitrite levels and I have purchased all the right equipment to get these under control.
so let me begin!
about 6 weeks ago, I purchased a 60 gallon with stand fish tank, and I had an expert at the LFS(Petsmart) explain to me about the nitrogen cycle and gave me all the equipment I needed to get my cycle successfully started. He did not mention I need a pure source of ammonia, or anything. I bought the filter, the heater, the items necessary to get started.
I have a aqueon 55/75 filter that is suppose to be 400GPH for up to 90 gallons. I also have 1 air stone by the filter and one air wand at the other side of the tank for extra oxygen circulation. I have lots of decor, a pair of castle that is a set, left side and right, I have driftwood and a extra large rock cave ornament in between the castles, with fake plants mixed around the backs of the decorations and also I have setup a pile of rocks that I get from my backyard, to provide extra hiding spots for the cichlids I have going in my tank. I might add that they are all baby and I plan on upgrading when they get more than 5 inches to another tank but I have to get this under control.
I also have a 200 water heater and I use Super activated carbon to help maintain clear water.(right thing to do? )
I started the fishless cycle per opinion of the LFS expert, and I did not use any pure ammonia, just left the tank run and I changed the filters customized it and cut it and used the RENA filters for all 3 parts of the 55/75 filter. So I left the tank do the process for about 6 to 10 days, and I took the water sample to petsmart and they tested it and said i'm ready to add my first set of fish, at that time I did not know much about fish just what I was attracted to was the black mollys. I purchased 3 black mollys, and I let them stay in the tank and after a few days, again I took my water to get tested and they told me the results are great and you can add more fish ( as many as you want) So..ofc being a rookie, I added 4 to 5, (1 clown loach, 1 black ghost, 2 Angel, 1 large blue gourami) Okay so I added them and everything seemed fine, after a while I was not satisfied with just tropical semi, so I gave the fish back and got store credit and moved to cichlids because I was attracted to the puppy dog personalities they have been said to have. Okay so I got 1 cichlid everyday for about 5 6 days and now I have about 10 baby cichlids. African kenyi's, yellow lab, red zebra, blue cobalt, and a bumbelbee.
I originally started using API Stress Coat, when I was cycling my tank, and eventually I switched to API Stress zyme+ with a seperate water dechlorinator to get the tap water safe when I do water change. I only did 1 water change for about 2 weeks or so, because I had cloudy water at one point, and then, I read on all the articles about cloudy water and I started to do some water changes. Now, after my first water change, I did another 50% water change, each time I was adding stress zyme and API aquarium salt, and I had bought the test strips to test , and also had those PH and Ammonia pads you can leave in the tank to monitor the levels of just PH and ammonia. I took the water to petsmart they said my nitrites or off the charts and they recommended I do 50% water change. So I did that, and now a week later, I decided to buy the API Master Kit, to do these testings and get more accurate readings.
so Last night, I did a test, and all the levels except the most important one Nitrite was it seemed to be at 5, but the problem is the purple color was very close to the other levels that were less than 5, but like you guys say its not safe if its not at 0 and less than 0.25PPm. So last night I did a 75% water change, added a few tablespoons of salt, and I used Prime and ALSO guys I used stability because I heard that stress zyme's bacteria is dead if it's not refrigerated and that stability is the best for a speeded up biofilter that will help my tank, so I added about 5 capfuls worth of Prime, and 3 capfuls of stability and refilled the water let it circulate for about 15 to 20 minutes, and I tested it again and it was around .5PPM to 1PPM. My nitrates were at 20PPM and the ammonia was at 0 and the Ph was around 7.6.
I fed them late last night before I went to bed, and I think this is where my problem exists. I might be overfeeding, but I have every type of food, frozen blood worms, frozen beefheart, omega one tropical flakes, omega one cichlid pelletes, aqueon mini cichlid pellets, the tetra new packs for brine shrimp and bloodworms, omega one veggie rounds, algae waffers, aqeuon bottom feeders.
One of my cichlids likes to eat everything and kinda bullies the others around,
so I feed a little bit more than 3 pinches in the 3 minute time and they eat it all up and they do not seem stressed at all because they are swimming like it's heaven in there, up and down and going up and down the air stone bubbles, they seem to be having a ball.
Okay I know I have typed a lot and I hope this has not been confusing.
What should I do.. My nitrites seems high this morning, and what I wanted to know is, do I add this stability to add more bacteria to help convert the nitrite to nitrate? or should I continue to do massive water changes?
I am blessed because I have a aqueon 25ft hooked up to my facet that I can change the water easily, so If I have to do a bunch of water changes today(I can because i'm off). My question is do I need prime after I add the water or before, and when I add prime, how can I expect to get true results because it's just detoxifying the nitrites and when you test it the nitrites won't show?
I hope I made sense and I did not confuse anyone.
Ok..I have to admit, this has got me a bit down, and I was so excited and happy to start my fish tank experience but now with these readings, I am a bit depressed because I can't stand having my fishes be stressed but I have been reading a lot of posts here about the high nitrite levels and I have purchased all the right equipment to get these under control.
so let me begin!
about 6 weeks ago, I purchased a 60 gallon with stand fish tank, and I had an expert at the LFS(Petsmart) explain to me about the nitrogen cycle and gave me all the equipment I needed to get my cycle successfully started. He did not mention I need a pure source of ammonia, or anything. I bought the filter, the heater, the items necessary to get started.
I have a aqueon 55/75 filter that is suppose to be 400GPH for up to 90 gallons. I also have 1 air stone by the filter and one air wand at the other side of the tank for extra oxygen circulation. I have lots of decor, a pair of castle that is a set, left side and right, I have driftwood and a extra large rock cave ornament in between the castles, with fake plants mixed around the backs of the decorations and also I have setup a pile of rocks that I get from my backyard, to provide extra hiding spots for the cichlids I have going in my tank. I might add that they are all baby and I plan on upgrading when they get more than 5 inches to another tank but I have to get this under control.
I also have a 200 water heater and I use Super activated carbon to help maintain clear water.(right thing to do? )
I started the fishless cycle per opinion of the LFS expert, and I did not use any pure ammonia, just left the tank run and I changed the filters customized it and cut it and used the RENA filters for all 3 parts of the 55/75 filter. So I left the tank do the process for about 6 to 10 days, and I took the water sample to petsmart and they tested it and said i'm ready to add my first set of fish, at that time I did not know much about fish just what I was attracted to was the black mollys. I purchased 3 black mollys, and I let them stay in the tank and after a few days, again I took my water to get tested and they told me the results are great and you can add more fish ( as many as you want) So..ofc being a rookie, I added 4 to 5, (1 clown loach, 1 black ghost, 2 Angel, 1 large blue gourami) Okay so I added them and everything seemed fine, after a while I was not satisfied with just tropical semi, so I gave the fish back and got store credit and moved to cichlids because I was attracted to the puppy dog personalities they have been said to have. Okay so I got 1 cichlid everyday for about 5 6 days and now I have about 10 baby cichlids. African kenyi's, yellow lab, red zebra, blue cobalt, and a bumbelbee.
I originally started using API Stress Coat, when I was cycling my tank, and eventually I switched to API Stress zyme+ with a seperate water dechlorinator to get the tap water safe when I do water change. I only did 1 water change for about 2 weeks or so, because I had cloudy water at one point, and then, I read on all the articles about cloudy water and I started to do some water changes. Now, after my first water change, I did another 50% water change, each time I was adding stress zyme and API aquarium salt, and I had bought the test strips to test , and also had those PH and Ammonia pads you can leave in the tank to monitor the levels of just PH and ammonia. I took the water to petsmart they said my nitrites or off the charts and they recommended I do 50% water change. So I did that, and now a week later, I decided to buy the API Master Kit, to do these testings and get more accurate readings.
so Last night, I did a test, and all the levels except the most important one Nitrite was it seemed to be at 5, but the problem is the purple color was very close to the other levels that were less than 5, but like you guys say its not safe if its not at 0 and less than 0.25PPm. So last night I did a 75% water change, added a few tablespoons of salt, and I used Prime and ALSO guys I used stability because I heard that stress zyme's bacteria is dead if it's not refrigerated and that stability is the best for a speeded up biofilter that will help my tank, so I added about 5 capfuls worth of Prime, and 3 capfuls of stability and refilled the water let it circulate for about 15 to 20 minutes, and I tested it again and it was around .5PPM to 1PPM. My nitrates were at 20PPM and the ammonia was at 0 and the Ph was around 7.6.
I fed them late last night before I went to bed, and I think this is where my problem exists. I might be overfeeding, but I have every type of food, frozen blood worms, frozen beefheart, omega one tropical flakes, omega one cichlid pelletes, aqueon mini cichlid pellets, the tetra new packs for brine shrimp and bloodworms, omega one veggie rounds, algae waffers, aqeuon bottom feeders.
One of my cichlids likes to eat everything and kinda bullies the others around,
so I feed a little bit more than 3 pinches in the 3 minute time and they eat it all up and they do not seem stressed at all because they are swimming like it's heaven in there, up and down and going up and down the air stone bubbles, they seem to be having a ball.
Okay I know I have typed a lot and I hope this has not been confusing.
What should I do.. My nitrites seems high this morning, and what I wanted to know is, do I add this stability to add more bacteria to help convert the nitrite to nitrate? or should I continue to do massive water changes?
I am blessed because I have a aqueon 25ft hooked up to my facet that I can change the water easily, so If I have to do a bunch of water changes today(I can because i'm off). My question is do I need prime after I add the water or before, and when I add prime, how can I expect to get true results because it's just detoxifying the nitrites and when you test it the nitrites won't show?
I hope I made sense and I did not confuse anyone.