Hi all, inadvertent guppy keeper

Hi all,

I rescued 5 fish tanks inadvertently with cory cats, Neons and Guppies when my next door nieghbour passed away.

Originally they were kept in

5 Corydoras trilineatus in 10G,
6 neons 3 Albino cats in 10g,
8 M guppies in 10g
5 F guppies in 5g
1 Betta Fighting Fish in 5G

Of course not know anything much about fish keeping I drained the tanks for the move (7 floors in a apartment) and a good washing in tap water when I got it home!

I learned a lot in a last few weeks googling and I've lost 2 male guppy and 1 female guppies only.

4 weeks in my ammonia reading is off the charts, API brand. When I test the tap water it seems fine.

I went to my LFS and got Ammo Lock and been using it while I been doing 50% water changes morning and late night and the levels will not budge!

Luckily my ph is 6.5 so from reading so I presume low ph saved all the fish with less toxic ammonium.

My question is can I even cycle a tank effectively while performing twice 50% water changes a day?

Some more informations...

I did use water conditioner from day one (it was in the box I got)

I get Nirite reading of 3 just in the marginal safe zone (told to do 25% change now) according to the kit, continually.

All the tanks except the betta one went milky white and is now crystal clear.

Any suggestions to speed up the cycling or am I doing anything wrong?

Robert

If you have some of the dirty gravel from the original setup, it should start the growth of the good bacteria needed for cycling. That is, of course, if the gravel is still wet. Otherwise there is a product called Eco Complete; it contains all the good bacteria in a gravel type substrate and will cycle a tank very quickly. The stuff is a bit pricey, but one bag should do all of your small aquariums. Products like Cycle will help the bacteria grow once they are in the aquarium. I believe a bacteria containing liquid product just came onto the market; if you have a good local aquarium shop, they may handle the stuff.

Since all of your aquariums are small, you should be very careful when adding chemicals to fix the water. Just a little too much of anything will make radical changes in water parameters. You should also avoid over feeding, and don't try to house large species of fish in small tanks. Guppies, bettas, Cory cats and even some small varities of gouramis should do OK in small aquariums; sword tails, angelfish and the like are not appropriate.

I hope some of this helps. Please keep us updated.

PS: I would hold the water changes to 20 percent to avoid putting the fish into shock.

thanks for the advice

I looked for eco complete but no luck.

Few more questions...

In regards to 20% water changes, it does not seem to budge the test.

From online reading I realise with low ph of 6.5 ammonia is ammonium so ok. But I thought a reading of 1.6 ppm of nitrite was fatal?

The thing is with 50% water changes my guppies "do seem" to go into shock for an hour or two, where as my corys just go on as if nothing happened.

So what is best...

1. 20% water changes, which will mean high nitrite and ammonia reading until cycle finnish or

2. 50% changes to lower the nitrite and Ammonia reading

Thanks in advance.

If you change 20 percent a day, the ammonia and nitrites should start to decrease. Larger water changes may bother the fish. However, since you already have a pretty serious problem, you could try one large water change followed by the smaller ones every day. The beneficial bacteria that help cycle the aquarium live in the gravel, plants and decorations, so water changes will not affect them. Small aquariums like you have will probably cycle in about three weeks.

You can buy Eco Complete and similar items on line. One of my favorite on line aquarium shops is drsfostersmith.com. Their minimum shipping charge is about ten dollars, but their prices more than make up for the shipping cost. Some other on line stores are petsolutions.com, thatfishplace.com, bigalsonline.com, and lots more. Even Petsmart and PETCO have on line stores. You can also buy aquarium water test kits from those places. Both ammonia and nitrite should read zero.

In case I forgot to say it, welcome to our fishy forum.

Welcome to the forum!

There's another form of quick start bacteria that my Local Fish Store sells, it's called Bio Spira. Just go in the store and ask for a live bacteria to cycle your tanks, that should give them the info that they need to get you the right thing.

Another thing that helps with controlling the tank is some live plants. They can be somewhat pricey, but they'll help to stabilize the tank.

Like John said... Please be careful when adding chemicals to "fix" the readings. It's very difficult when doing that in small tanks.

I do anywhere from 40%-75% every week. But my aquariums are really stocked till next week when I'm shipping a ton of fish out. 20% should be good, or split the difference and do 25%. It should get regulated before too long.

Be sure to get the poo sucked up off the bottom, on the gravel, to avoid the ammonia from going up so high. Test strips are expensive, so I'd just do the water changes daily and check once a week.

Good Luck and welcome to the forum!

Thank you all.

Some good news. I found a colleague who breeds Discus for a hobby and he came to the rescue with 3 well used sponge filters, bio noodles and wool.

WoW is all I could say in regards to his set up. Garage full of 2 foot tanks in three rows, a 6 footer in his living room and the biggest filter thingy I have ever seen, it a the size of a 2 foot tank!!!!

He keeps sponge filters for his nursery tanks. So I gave him some cash to replace the filters.

So hopefully I can fast track the cycle.

BTW I tried to Bio Spira as I read about it but it does not seem to be sold in Australia.

Still tons to read up. I decided to get a 80G 4 foot tank, with this one I will do a fishless cycle and put all the guppies and corys in it and use the 10G for fighters.

All up that will equal 27 fishes would that be over stocked?

Didn't keeping fish was such a expensive hoppy lol.



thanks all.

Sorry. I didn't know you are from Australia. From correspondence with others in that part of the world, I know that some aquarium supplies are not as readily available as they are here in the States. It sounds like your friend is an experienced aquarist. He or she would be most welcome on this forum.

Now about the filters. Lots of us like to keep at least one sponge filter going all the time just in case we need to set up another aquarium quickly.

I'm happy to see that you're getting a large aquarium. It will probably take a few weeks for the large tank to cycle even with the "experienced" sponge filters, so be sure it's done with the ammonia spikes before you add fish. As for the number of fish it will hold, there are several rules of thumb, but it all depends on the type of fish you're keeping. The most important rule is don't over crowd. Since you're just starting out, it would be a good idea to stick with the common, easy to keep varieties. They will teach you how to keep fish without breaking the bank. Some fish require different water parameters than others, some are fin nippers, some are aggressive, etc. To have really healthy fish, you need to do a little on-line research. Some aquarium shop employees will tell you that almost all varities are compatible, but it just ain't so.

Many people keep single species aquariums, and it's not a bad option. For some reason, it seems to me that egg laying and live bearing fish don't do well together. Another way to anticipate compatibility issues is to consider where a certain variety of fish will spawn (top, middle or bottom of the aquarium). That's where they will want to establish territories. In a large aquarium with plenty of plants and driftwood, the fish will have plenty of places to hide, and territorial disputes will be fewer.

Once again. I've attempted to say everything in one posting. Maybe some of it will be helpful. Please let us know how your aquarium adventure is going, and post pictures if you can.

for the bettas(fighters)are you going to get a divider? even females can be aggresive, once my female jumped out of her breeder(was breeding them and i was away on a day trip) and killed my last male(going to buy more really soon) and a guppy and once i had put my females in the same tank and they attacked eachother (there in diff tanks now)

Hi,

Thanks for the all the help. I don't plan on getting any new fish. Just going from 4 small tanks into 1 new 4 footer except the SFF which I will move to an one old 10G.

The others tanks well Ritchie advices me to keep one spare 5G for hospitol or quarintine tank the rest put it away until I know I don't want them anymore then ebay it

Update : The used sponge filters seems to be doing wonders.

The new test readings only show a little ammonia slight colour change to off yellow rather then a DARK green only two days ago. Nitrite a slight pink rather then almost dark pink. So hopefully I am over the worst.

I read online that 1 SFF will be ok in a community tank but Rithie tells me just don't. So I will take his word for it.

I plan to put all the cories, neons and guppy into the new 4 footer after it cycles.

A little typo on my last reply, I meant this can become an expensive hobby.

In regards to breeding I have no plans to breed any fish

Oh and yes I will tell Ritchie about this forum.

Thank you all. Hopefully by next week I will be just asking about fishless cycling for the new footer

Thanks for joining our forum. Glad we could help.