Started my first 55 gallon, all the wrong ways

[TimC]

I have setup and established a 55 gallon tank. This kind of just fell into my lap.

My stepson moved back home with a 10 gallon tank with some frogs, tropical fish and a goldfish fish. It was a constant chore which I know now was it was overpopulated. The gold fish died and we constantly cleaned it out, a fish lost its eye it was toxic. We panicked and upgraded. Added them all in.

Its been 4 days in the 55 gallon. I Just put in a heater today. Its been 69 degrees and can finally test the water. Which is in parameters. My other kid brought home 2 live plants,an algae eater and 2 tropical fish, the tropical fish died next day. Algae eater is going strong.

I only had starter bacteria for a 25 gallon, so I used that.

I didn't plan on doing a fish tank. My biggest question is will this cycle?

Water is stable, no nitrates or nitrites. Fish look happy, one we had in the toxic 10 gallon tank lost an eye, its doing much better.

 

[TimC]

Forgot to add, the tank has a whisper ex70 filter, which I cut one of our house plants off and stuck it in the filter. Google said the plant is great for aquariums. This is my first time cycling a tank.

Are all these fish and frogs going to die?

 

[Andy Sager]

I have setup and established a 55 gallon tank. This kind of just fell into my lap.

My stepson moved back home with a 10 gallon tank with some frogs, tropical fish and a goldfish fish. It was a constant chore which I know now was it was overpopulated. The gold fish died and we constantly cleaned it out, a fish lost its eye it was toxic. We panicked and upgraded. Added them all in.

Its been 4 days in the 55 gallon. I Just put in a heater today. Its been 69 degrees and can finally test the water. Which is in parameters. My other kid brought home 2 live plants,an algae eater and 2 tropical fish, the tropical fish died next day. Algae eater is going strong.

I only had starter bacteria for a 25 gallon, so I used that.

I didn't plan on doing a fish tank. My biggest question is will this cycle?

Water is stable, no nitrates or nitrites. Fish look happy, one we had in the toxic 10 gallon tank lost an eye, its doing much better.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Just so that you know, the " cycle" is a process where nitrifying microbes grow and becomes the " biological filter" for the aquarium. It just takes 2 microbes to start the complete process. 1 microbe converts ammonia to nitrites and the 2nd one converts the nitrites into nitrates. While products give an example of how much of the product the use for a certain sized tank, there really isn't any set amount to use. The only thing that happens when you use less than the prescribed amount is that the complete cycling process will take longer to complete. You will know when you have completed the entire cycling process when you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and an increasing amount of nitrates. You can see this whole process in this graph.

 

[Andy Sager]

Forgot to add, the tank has a whisper ex70 filter, which I cut one of our house plants off and stuck it in the filter. Google said the plant is great for aquariums. This is my first time cycling a tank.

Are all these fish and frogs going to die?

I'm not sure what you googled but there are some houseplants that absorb a lot of nitrates and you just allow the roots of the plants to be in the water vs the whole plant. I'd remove the plant from the filter because right now, you need the nitrates in the water to show your cycling process is working. A nitrate level of 5ppm-10 ppm is deemed acceptable for most fish species and water changes should really be done when the nitrate level approaches 40 ppm.

As for whether the fish and frog will survive this whole process, it will depend on your upkeep and the species of fish you have. Not all fish can handle the cycling process. You will want to keep your combined values of ammonia and nitrites to under .5 ppm. If the combined numbers approach this .5ppm, you will need to do water changes to bring them down. Then it becomes a math problem as to how much water you need to change. The numbers will reduce by the amount of water that is changed. For example, if you had .5 ppm and you changed 50% of the water, you would result in having .25 ppm. If you only changed 10% of the water instead of the 50%, you 'd have .45 ppm and so on. What you are doing is called a " fish in" cycling and that means it's going to take some time ( typically but not always 2-4 months+) for the tank to fully cycle. This means during this period, you shouldn't add any new life into the tank. Just make sure you are testing the water at lease every 2 days to keep the water quality safe for the fish.
If you have any other questions, just ask.

Hope this helps

 

[TimC]

Thank you so much! It makes sense vs obsessing online and money dumping. I will follow this guideline. My water is barely producing nitrites and nitrate, but the other levels are stable.

 

[Andy Sager]

Thank you so much! It makes sense vs obsessing online and money dumping. I will follow this guideline. My water is barely producing nitrites and nitrate, but the other levels are stable.

Well the product you used, if it was any good ( there are only a few of the many ones on the market that actually test as working) supplied the 2 microbes needed to convert ammonia and nitrite so you have a head start. I wouldn't be too concerned with testing nitrates until you see your nitrites on the downward side of the curve. With some test kits, you can get a nitrate reading but it's actually coming from the nitrites so it's a false reading. As you can see on the graph, the nitrates don't really start to take off until nitrite reach their peak.
You do want to test your tap water ( or whatever water you are using for the tank) for nitrates as some places do use them in their systems. This way you will know if you have to take into consideration where the nitrates are coming from.