Difficult conditions in new aquarium with cycle process!

[grenadier89]

I just set up a new 10g tank and put in 6 fish (1 dwarf gourami, 2 red wag platy's, 1 bala shark, 1 algae eater, 1 dalmatian mollie) and some substrate and decor. Its been about 8 days and my water tests are starting to show signs of nitrites (2.0/ppm), and very little nitrates, but the ammonia is still at deadly levels (8.0/ppm)! To add more to the problem, a few of my fish started showing signs of ich, so i raised the temperature to 86 and treated the tank with meds from tetra. I'm on my 2nd treatment and the ich seems to be getting worse. with each new treatment i did a 25% water change so the amount of meds in the tank don't overload the fish (I was told by my local pet store that those small water changes shouldn't really set back the cycle process at all either). I'm gonna try adding aquarium salt if the ich meds dont show signs of improvement.

My question is, why is the ammonia still at deadly levels while my nitrite levels are increasing? Could it be that the ich meds killed most of my new first stage bacteria? and shouldn't the ich start to die and improve the fish's condition instead of the fish getting More of the white spots? Another thing i notices is many miniature white particles floating in my water, and the few water changes that i did didn't seem to alleviate the condition, so I'm not sure if that plays a factor into any of this though.

here are some pictures of the small particles (the long string-like ones are just bubbles that stretched out from the exposure time of my camera)

 

[Thyra]

Your tank was not cycled before you put the fish in and when you do a fish in cycle you need to add the fish slowly. Have you read the "Stickie" at the beginning of this forum? Did you research the types of fish that can go in a 10g tank. I have just read that bala sharks are too active for that size tank and will also out grow it. It also depends on the type of algae eater you have as to how big it will get. Aqadivsor.com can give you some helpful suggestions on stocking a tank. I don't think salt will help the ich situation with the water parameters the way they are. I hope OC will have some suggestions as to what you can do at this point. I don't think you can return the fish with ich - stress and water condition are contributing causes. Most members use just the heat and daily vacuuming of the spores. I am sorry I can't help you more - Good Luck!

 

[grenadier89]

thanks for the advice! I've tried to do as much research as i can over the past few weeks. i did read the stickies post (i found this forum after i did some other research and set up the tank though). I'm planning on transferring the fish that will get larger, to a larger tank once they get start to grow, along with the other ones, because they are all really small right now. and the algae eater is a golden algae eater, which will be included in the transfer (I'm slowly working my up to larger and larger tanks). My local tropical fish store told me to that putting these 6 fish in this tank was good number to start the cycle process, yet still low enough to not overload the tank from the initial ammonia levels and also said that once the nitrite levels start to increase, the ammonia should be bear 0 (or at least less than what it was before) because its being converted to nitrite. I'm trying to get as many opinions as I can to determine if this is consistent with the rest.

 

[Thyra]

IMO your local tropical fish store gave you some very bad advice. That many fish initially in a 10g tank would almost certainly overload an uncycled tank with ammonia and your nitrite would also spike. You are seeing the results of that. It is just that I don't know what you can do at this point with that many fish in the tank to rectify the situation before you start having casualties and I hope someone else has some ideas.

 

[OrangeCones]

Bala sharks should be kept in a shoal of 5 or more, and can grow a foot or longer. They have no business in a 10 gallon tank and the local fish store that gave you the advice that those 6 fish together would be a good idea gave you horrid advice in my opinion.

Your 'golden algae eater' is a color morph of the Chinese Algae Eater (Gyrinocheilos aymonieriwas). Do you have algae in your tank currently? If not, no need for a fish to eat what is not there. This fish grows quickly and with increased size comes increased aggression. Their favorite food is the slime coat of the other fish as they rest. Funny that they call them Chinese Algae Eaters as they are from India, not China, and beyond 2" or so, they no longer eat algae. They are best kept with equally aggressive cichlids.

What do you use as a dechlorinator? If it does not bind ammonia then your fish will soon die from ammonia levels that high.

You need to do daily or twice daily 50% water changes until the ammonia levels are at or near zero. Make sure the new water going in is the same temperature as the tank.

Water changes will not delay your tank cycling through the nitrogen cycle. The beneficial bacteria live on hard surfaces and in your filter's media (filter pad, cartridge, etc.). Just be sure to rinse the filter's media in used tank water as you do the water changes and not just tap water.

If the fish do die from this fish-in cycle, I would recommend you do a fishless cycle so that you can make the tank safe for future fish. Be sure to read up on those that can be kept in a small 10gallon tank.

Good luck with your fish!

OC

 

[grenadier89]

Oh really? I'm definitely not going back to that tropical fish store then. So I should probably remove the bala shark and algae eater then, and once he's free of ich, give him to someone with a larger aquarium? There currently is no algae in the tank, but I feed him algae flakes, along with the regular flakes that's I feed the other fish.
For my dechlorinator I use Top Fin's 'tap water dechlorinator'. It doesn't say anything about binding ammonia on the bottle, so what would you recommend I use instead?

Thank you for all your advice. Yeah if these fish happen to not make it, I'll try the fishless cycle and then get the Correct fish for this size tank.

 

[OrangeCones]

I have always used Seachem's Prime for a water dechlorinator. If you can find it locally, look for a product that works well with it called the Ammonia Alert disk (also made by Seachem). I've recommended them since the product came out and several elementary school teachers use them in their 'class tank' to know when to do a water change. Little fingers sometimes (most of the time) overfeed fish and this has helped the adults to know when to work on the aquarium maintainance. There are a lot of water quality disks on the market, but the only one I know of personally that works is this one. I've used to to start several aquariums as an experiment when in college and it does function as it should (plus lasts a year or more).

You can use Prime to bind the ammonia in the water and by following the directions carefully, use it to detoxify nitrite too. Be sure, as the label will say, to add extra aeration, as the product uses some of the water's dissolved oxygen to take the ammonia and nitrite out of the water to make it non-toxic to fish. This binding only lasts a few days, so regular large water changes and repeated doses will be necessary to keep the fish safe.

The reason I recommend the Ammonia Alert disk also is that while the tank is cycling, the ammonia that is bound will STILL REGISTER AS AMMONIA on your water test kit. Free ammonia is what is harmful to fish, while the bound ammonia (ammonium) is not. The Ammonia Alert disk will only turn color indicating high ammonia when its FREE AMMONIA. It will ignore the bound ammonia (ammonium).

 

[grenadier89]

i went to my other LFS and bought the Seachem Prime, I just added it to my tank so ill check the water conditions in a little bit see what the results are. I added an air stone to my tank and lowered the water level a bit for the "waterfall effect" from my filter to increase aeration. A different tropical fish store that i went to earlier didnt sell the ammonia alert disk so im gonna try another store tomorrow and if they dont have it ill just get it off amazon.
I also added salt to my aquarium too for the Ich treatment, and withing an hour, almost All the white spots disappeared, so im gonna continue this treatment for another week or so to make sure all the ich is dead. I was surprised how well the salt worked. I certainly thought the ich medicine would have been more effective.

btw i saw a 36g bow front tank that was on sale at my other LFS for dirt cheap so i bought it. I set up some substrate and decor and added the water/ammonia/handful of gravel from an established tank, and im gonna do a fishless cycle in it. Then once it has completed the nitrogen cycle im gonna transfer all my fish to it, since the 10g is way too small for the fish i have in there right now!

thanks again for yor help OC, ill let you know what my 10g tank conditions are in a bit and if everything ends up working out (hopefully with no deaths).

 

[OrangeCones]

i went to my other LFS and bought the Seachem Prime, I just added it to my tank so ill check the water conditions in a little bit see what the results are.

Keep in mind, the ammonia and nitrite levels on your test kit will still show the same levels before and after using Prime. The test kits sold for aquarium use have no way to determine FREE and BOUND nitrogen sources.

For your bala shark, look at these photos!

FS Large Bala Sharks - San Bernardino, CA - Pick-up only

THAILAND TARGET FRESHWATER SPECIES Look for Sharkminnow, Tricolor on the left pane


Giants Among Us: Part 1

 

[grenadier89]

Damn! Those are some big bala sharks, especially looking at the one next to the 10g tank!

Well I returned mine to my fish store so there won't be any more space problem.

I just found the ammonia alert disk after a couple days of looking and it has a reading of <0.02ppm so that's a good sign. I'm gonna get one for nitrite levels next because those readings are still pretty high in my water test kit and need to know how much of it is deadly to my fish.