Our Cichlids - their short tragic history

We entered the hobby a few weeks back, and have a small 5 gal aquarium running, apparently well, and decided to up the ante.

Well, we setup a planted aquarium round about christmas, and added a few tetras, the ammonia spike happened, then subsided. We read about bio-spira. So we rushed out, and got some, added it in, and simultaneously added 3 Bolivian Butterfly Ram cichlids (papilliochromis altispinosa).

THey turned out to be wonderful fish, and one soon established himself to be top-boss. Recently, they started rearranging the plants and rocks.

This morning, the nitrite spiked - the ammonia was still high, though about 1 ppm. We did two water changes today, and added some salt in the evening.

Unfortunately, the cichlids, and other fishes, were seen to be gasping at the edges, and one went belly-up We thought a lot about what to do, and finally transferred them to a bucket of water. As I write, two are dead, and disposed, and one is swimming round the bucket.

I would like some advice as to how this could have been avoided, and what should we do next. Are the other fishes (tetras and corys) going to survive? Will the water cycle play itself out now and when will it be safe to reintroduce fishes? Whatever happened to the biospira?

In gloom, aacool P.S. A pic of the cichlids is attached

Too many fish too soon. If I understand your message, this was your second tank? How big? I would not have added the cichlids until the ammonia and nitrite were 0 and the nitrate was around 20.

Well, I thought the biospira would take care of the water cycle - ref www.marineland.com - biospira is a live-bacteria that's 'supposed' to introduce nitrifying bacteria

But, you're right, next time, we wait for the cycle to

it may introduce nitrifying bacteria which may help cycle the tank a bit quicker however many doubt these claims. Many of us had the same problem when we got started and this usually leads to a lot of research which should be done before not after however like I say many have done the same thing. Water changes only delay the final cycling process. Start with a couple of fish or do a fishless cycle with ammonia and don't get discouraged.

I'm sorry to hear of your tragic start into cichlid keeping. Bio-spira is a great product and has saved many people starting new tanks. Where it does add the bacteria to start a colony, it doesn't perform miracles. Even in a fully cycled tank, which your tank was not yet fully cycled, adding too many fish at once can cause ammonia and nitrites to spike. Other things that may have affected your fish in addition to the deadly ammonia and nitrites may be pH levels, abrupt changes in water temp, etc. Although you don't mention the size of your new tank, it sounds like it's a smaller tank. Small tanks are very difficult to maintain water parameters in. They're easily overloaded and any changes to the water could drastically change the parameters of the entire tank. I could top off one of my larger tanks with a gallon of ice cold water from the tap and the temperature won't drop in the tank more than a degree. Do this in a ten gallon tank, and you may drop the temperature ten degrees. To make suggestions to avoid this type of disappointment in the future, we'll need to know what size the tank, what type of filtration, and heating the tank has and what the parameters of your water is out of the tap. I hope you're not too discouraged. AmateurCichlids

BioSpira will reduce the cycle time to a few _days_ rather than a few weeks. The advice to wait is good. HTH,

Welcome to the hobby... Great advice is shared here... Cycling chemicals, as pointed help a little, but they are the the greatest wonder.. I suggest, to everyone, get the largest tank you can, water parameters stay very consistant, and with that thier are no suprises, like a sudden re cycle stressing out the fish and killing them off.. I am going to suggest what also has been suggested.. Read as much material you can, as this will help with your success in keeping, raising and enjoying the hobby. Sometimes this seems over whelming at first when you start to do some reading ( almost like getting a biology/science degree ). Fortuanatly now there is a lot of information out there, and a lot of good informitive web sites.. I like the thekrib.com ... It has a lot of resources pertaining to fish keeping, tank cycling etc... Its a larger site and can be boring at times, but informitive..

Happy fish keeping...

Tim...

I, and many people I've seen posting here over the years, have yet to see products like biospira, cycle, and stress zyme, have much of an effect at all. If you don't want to wait out a fishless cycle, I would just throw a few neons into the tank and feed sparingly for 3-4 weeks.

There has been a shift from the 'American' way of fishkeeping (pink ceramic skulls, fake blue plants, and multicolored fluorescent gravel) to the 'European' way (live plants, driftwood, replication of the fish species' natural habitats) over the years, but the ways of living chemically still seems to be strong in the fish world. If you can wait for the tank to establish itself naturally, then you know it will be stable and look after itself quite well. Ammo-rid, carbon, bio supplement, flocculants, ... Do we really need all that stuff?