New tank, big headache, need help

[Filter]

Getting very frustrated. New to aquariums and most likely did not do enough research / too much listening to LFS.

Have a 20g high, penguin 150, fluval 200w. Filter ran for 48hours+, tank temp 79 degrees. At that point after speaking with the LFS i went to put in 3 red wag plattys and some live plants. After the first day one died and the others had a white fuzz to there fins (just the tips). Talked to the fish store and after bringing them in along with my tank water to test they said my water was fine and that the stress from moving them could bring out things like (a cold for fish)... he told me to bring these 3 rasboras home to cycle the tank that they should be more resilient and to call if i had any problems. Same thing happened over the course of a day and after calling was told to put some melafix and pimafix in the water and it should help the fish. I picked some up at the store around the corner along with nutrafin cycle figuring it would help make the tank more stable for the fish. Needless to say 30 min after using the recomennded doses on the bottles all 3 fish died.

After researching more indepth for 2 days I realize i should have done a fishless cycle. I want to get the tank on the right path to being safe and successful and need a little guidance. After adding the nutrafin, melafix, and pimafix should i just let the tank continue and follow a fishless cycle guide from this point forward, or did i mess up badly and need to tear everything down and start fresh. Any advice would be great. Feel bad about the fish dying, and wish the LFS didnt tell me i needed to use fish to cycle the tank. They also assured me i didnt do anything wrong. Well obviously something is not right.

Thanks

 

[mfdrookie516]

Ok.. first thing. Take two excedrine. That will alleviate the headache (disclaimer: I am not a doctor, read the warnings first).

Ok, now. You're wanting to go ahead and do a fishless cycle, right? Good choice! While I don't think that the melafix and pimafix will have any effect on your cycle, I would go ahead and start from scratch. The unknown disease could still be in your tank. I would completely start over. Rinse out the substrate real good with hot water, rinse out the tank well (you can use vinegar on the glass too if you want, just rinse it out real well). Clean out your filter cartridges, etc.

Make sure you have a good dechlor. Most of the bigger named products (prime, novaqua are two) do a good job and will take care of both chlorine and chloramine. Do you have pure ammonia? If not, you'll need to get some. Most places that carry janitorial supplies have it. While it's not technically pure ammonia (it's only 10%), it needs to be just ammonia and water. No surfactants, soaps, purfumes, etc. Do you have a liquid test kit? If not, you'll need one of those too. Not just for the cycle, but its a necessity to successfully keep fish.

Dose ammonia up to 4ppm initially. It doesn't take much, so start small. Medicine droppers work well. Do 10 drops, wait 10-15 minutes, test. Don't go higher than 4ppm. You don't have to test for the first couple days. On day 3 or 4, start testing for ammonia daily. Once it starts to drop, start testing nitrite too. Dose your ammonia back up to 4ppm every time it starts to drop. You'll see your nitrites rise and ammonia start to go down more and more. Just keep dosing ammonia. Once you have 0ppm ammonia and 0ppm daily after dosing up to 4ppm ammonia the day before, you're done. Ready for fish. Do a 50% water change and start stocking your fish. You'll also have nitrtates at this point.

Just a tip... raise the heat. Get it up to 82 or so. This will speed up the cycle.

Kudos to you for doing the right thing

 

[Filter]

Thanks for responding.... About the plants... Will rinsing them and placing them back into the new cycling aquarium be ok. There are about 4 plants. .... Thanks again.

 

[akkitten]

The plants will be fine, soak them for awhile in fresh water before you put them back in. I just completed cycling a 20 high with plants and the plants did just fine. What kind of plants did you get?