New Member - Intro - first time owner.

[robdidwhat]

Hi all,
First time fish owner here thanks to a gift for my son from my mother-in-law. I've been secretly wanting to start an aquarium for some time to the ability to lean into this with my son (6 yo) has been a great experience already. He loves helping me feed them and test the water (I give him a test strip whilst I use the API fresh master)

About the setup - We were gifted a 28L Aqua One tropical starter kit which I set up on Boxing day and started cycling the tank, ready for when we returned from a few short camping trips we had planned. About a month later we bought 2 Comets, named 'Hot Dog' and 'Fishstick' and introduced them into their new home. So far they seem happy and greet us excitedly whenever we walk near the tank.

Currently im going through the emotional rollercoaster where I believe I may have incorrectly run the initial cycle in the month leading up to buying our fishy friends. The tank went cloudy which triggered me to buy the API Master test kit and I found that my ammonia was high (i cant tell if its either 0.5 or up as high as 2!) and my Nitrites are looking around 0.25.

Im studying constantly trying to understand if this is the expected result of my inadvertent 'fish-in-cycle' with the Bacterial bloom kicking off, and Ammonia due to fall away as it gets converted in to Nitrite. Some places i read to leave the tank alone to allow the cycle to balance, and other places i read to do repeat 50% changes to lower the ammonia however this would impact my progress on cycling the tank..


Crikey, what an intro. Thanks for having me and I look forward to sharing positive updates if we make it through the next few weeks.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Your aquarium isn't cycled. A cycled aquarium will show zero ammonia + nitrite in your water testing and nitrate steadily rising between water changes, and your regular water change will then lower the nitrate, and then start rising again until your next water change.

You are unsure if you correctly cycled the aquarium in the month before getting, but don't say what you did during that month. There is a process to follow to cycle an aquarium without fish that involves adding an ammonia source that artificially replicates fish waste and feeds the microbes responsible for your cycle so they grow in numbers sufficiently to support a tankful of fish. This typically takes a couple of months. What precisely did you do during that month?

And I hate to break it to you, but you are going to need a bigger aquarium, pretty quickly.

28 litres isn't big enough for a pair of comets. It might suffice for a couple of months while they start to grow, but in 3 months your fish should be about 3" and would need 80 to 100 litres to support their further growth, and within a year will need 200 litres minimum to support them to adult size of maybe 10 to 14" at 2 to 3 years. As your 28 litre isn't cycled I would just go out and get the 200 litre aquarium now so your effort can go into cycling a home they can live in permanently. ideally though they should go outside in a pond. Comet goldfish don't really belong in aquariums. And you need to look at filtration rated for double the aquarium size as goldfish are very messy fish

There are fish that suit 28 litres if you preferred to rehome the goldfish and try something else, but even at the size they are 28 litres won't provide any quality of life, it will be causing long term health issues and they will be lucky to live 6 months. They should live 10 years in a large enough aquarium and maybe 20 years in a pond.

As for current water parameters, I'd say your ammonia is 1 to 2ppm which is way too high. And your nitrite is 0.25ppm to 0.5ppm, which isn't too bad. Change half the water once an hour until the ammonia is down to about 0.25ppm. And can you get a clearer photo of the ammonia patch you have on the aquarium?

Let us know what your long term plans are. They really need a much bigger aquarium ASAP.

 

[robdidwhat]

Thanks so much for the detailled reply. In the month leading up to adding the fish we were travelling a lot so I followed the instructions on the box our starter kit came with. It said to add Aqua One Bio Starter 20mL:100L once per day for 3 days, then once a week for ongoing maintennance. I didnt expect it to be missing a key point which was to add an ammonia source! So I hadnt added anything aside from the Bio Starter and the Water conditioner (Aqua One again). I brought a sample of the water to our pet store who checked it and said we'd be good to go and helped my son pick out the fish. Im so disappointed that we've pretty much stuffed this up right out of the gate.
Rehoming may be our only choice - as hard as that will be to break to my son, it'll be better than him waking up to dead or dying fish.

Getting a bigger tank isnt an option for us financially so I'm going to work on improving what i can in the existing tank whilst I figure out how to rehome these fish. The next stage will be to find fish compatible with a 28L tank. A quick google just now mentions Ember Tetras or Chilli Rasbora but I havent had a moment to put further time into that just yet.

I'll do water changes as soon as i can and post my updates.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Don't be too disheartened about "stuffing this up". Are you an Aussie BTW?

Everyone makes mistakes in a new hobby, and not doing a fishless cycle properly is one almost everyone makes, and it's no big deal to do a fish in cycle if done properly. Which is essentially change water frequently to keep water safe while the aquarium cycles, and add fish slowly over a number of weeks/ months.

When the store tested your water and said everything is good, that's because all they were really testing was month old tap water. All the parameters will be zero if your water supply is clean. They need to understand context. Has ammonia been added into the water, and it's still reading zero? Is there nitrate in the water? Which is what the nitrogen cycle turns ammonia into. If ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all zero, your cycle hasn't started, if you have ammonia and/ or nitrite your cycle has started but not finished. If you have zero ammonia + nitrite and some nitrate, your cycle has established to at least some degree.

As for what to get in 28 litres. The fish you mention could do with a bigger aquarium than that, but you could make it work. I would look at a betta (on his own) or 3 or 4 guppies (male only as you dont want babies) as good fish for a new hobbyist that size aquarium.

Interestingly I wrote this article about goldfish for quora just yesterday.

https://www.quora.com/What-pet-would-you-strongly-not-recommend/answer/Aiken-Drum-9?ch=10&oid=1477743842272552&share=6d3d8b07&srid=GBour&target_type=answer

 

[Big Dog is cool]

Welcome to the form.

Your aquarium setup is looking good.

Slowly but surely you should try your hand in growing live plants.

Live plants are not hard to grow. As long as you get the beginner kind of plants.

 

[robdidwhat]

Ok so I've just finished 3x 50% water changes over the past 4 or so hours and the Ammonia looks to be around 0.25 or maybe lower (im probably not alone in struggling to read the colour variances).

Yes - im australian. Im also pending mod approval for my post on the Sydney fish rehoming facebook group.

A question - What happens to status of my tanks cycle after a water change like ive done today? Im ok with ongoing maintenance whilist I find my little friends a new home but I'd love if this was contributing toward a fully cycled tank when I am in a position to pick up some Guppies down the track.

Thanks again!

P.s. Im keen to give live plants a go. What would be a a recommended resource that I could use to get knowledgeable in advance?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ok so I've just finished 3x 50% water changes over the past 4 or so hours and the Ammonia looks to be around 0.25 or maybe lower (im probably not alone in struggling to read the colour variances).

That's right where you want to be. Test every day and if either of those parameters are creeping up towards 0.5ppm change water to get back to about where you are now.

A question - What happens to status of my tanks cycle after a water change like ive done today? Im ok with ongoing maintenance whilist I find my little friends a new home but I'd love if this was contributing toward a fully cycled tank when I am in a position to pick up some Guppies down the track.

While there is ammonia in the water, your cycle is establishing. There are microbes that turn ammonia into nitrite, and different microbes turn nitrite into nitrate. These microbes live on surfaces in your aquarium, mostly on the filter media in your filter. You don't have enough of these microbes yet to consume all the ammonia and turn it into nitrate, but as long as there is ammonia in the water, they will be growing in number. Very few of these microbes live in the water, so water changes will be removing a tiny amount. The water changes are important to maintain the water quality to an acceptable level for your fishes health until your aquarium is cycled.

If you were to rehome your goldfish and not restock for a few weeks, those microbes would starve of ammonia and die off, setting you back. If you restock in a timely manner, a few days, what you are doing now is going to be useful in cycling the aquarium.

Some places i read to leave the tank alone to allow the cycle to balance, and other places i read to do repeat 50% changes to lower the ammonia however this would impact my progress on cycling the tank.

Going back to about previous point you raised.

Back in the day hobbyists didn't know much about the nitrogen cycle, cycling aquariums or ammonia toxicity etc. What used to happen was you set up and stocked your aquarium (you may have started with a small amount of fish and gradually increased the number), changed some water once a week. If fish died you replaced them, once they stopped dying you are cycled or seasoned. Goldfish in particular where used to cycle in this method, and then discarded and the aquarium was stocked with the fish that the hobbyist actually wanted to keep. Many people will still cycle aquariums in this manner because that's what they have always done, and these will be the people telling you to leave things alone. Your tank will cycle in this way, but its not good for the fish you have now. Our forum has an "ethical fishkeeping" policy so it's not something I could support, but its still done.

We've moved on a bit since then. We know more about the nitrogen cycle, we have testing kits so we can get a fairly accurate picture of what's in the water, and we understand how much ammonia and nitrite is going to be harmful and can intervene to make sure things stay safe. So we now have processes that mean we can cycle aquariums without too much risk to fish. If you had spent that month dosing ammonia (more likely 2 months would be needed), you could have cycled your aquarium with no risk to fish. This is what's called a "fishless cycle" and what you are doing now is called a "fish in cycle".

You've decided on guppies. I think that's a good choice. Make sure you get only males otherwise you will be quickly back here asking what to do with a tankful of fry. Guppies are livebearers, prolific breeders, and live young are more likely to survive than eggs. Females are possibly already pregnant when you buy them, so males only to be sure you arent dealing with babies. The only thing I'd say is that guppies need tropical water temperature, so you may need a heater. Whereas goldfish are good at room temperature. I don't know how warm you keep your home, but you want a few degrees higher than typical room temperature.

Im keen to give live plants a go. What would be a a recommended resource that I could use to get knowledgeable in advance?

Get a java fern and an anubias, tie the rhyzomes onto a bit of rock or driftwood or a plant weight, drop it on the substrate.



Once your aquarium is cycled and the water chemistry settles down, a bit of aquarium plant fertiliser (eg seachem flourish) with your weekly water change will help them. 6 to 8 hours a day aquarium light should be enough light for the plants, without so much you get a lot of algae. Although I literally keep java fern alive in an unlit aquarium.

Yes - im australian. Im also pending mod approval for my post on the Sydney fish rehoming facebook group.

I presume you mean you are waiting for mod approval from a mod on the FB group, not here? I'm not seeing anything in my mod queue, although someone else may have dealt with it and not approved it for some reason. If you posted here could you let me know and I can look into where your post might have gone.