grr frustration help

D

DarkStorm

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 2, 2009
106
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0
Calgary
first excuse my grammar and punctuation
so my girlfriend an I decided enough of the salt we want some Africans.,
we bought a 250 gal tank our tap water is perfect ph 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite.
we decided to go with the black sand since we heard they like to dig. looks good problem is after running tank for 2 weeks we added some Cichlids.
now my ammonia levels have spiked with nitrate (end of charts)
I askd her if she is over feeding them etc while Im at work an she has not.
how can I correct this ive done 3 50% changes in last 4 days. id sure hate to lose anymore. they seem hella stressed now too.:(
 
J

justonemoretank

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 30, 2009
2,162
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0
40
Virginia
Did you cycle the tank before you added fish? You don't say anything about it...
 
J

Jory

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 1, 2008
1,137
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0
las vegas, NV
did you shock your tank?
bioload shock could cause this. how many cichlids did you add when you did this and what was you method of cycling?
 
D

DarkStorm

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 2, 2009
106
0
0
Calgary
I added bout 400 feeder fish got the ammonia high it peakd 6 days later it went away. added cichlids an the feeders went away maby i rushd it or panickd an overchanged water?. Also changed filtration to dual fx5 and on initial set up i used that fully cycled in 2 days stuff (bacter boost)
 
J

justonemoretank

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 30, 2009
2,162
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Virginia
Are you also testing for nitrite? Ammonia does go away, but then it turns into nitrite, which also takes about a week to go away.
 
J

justonemoretank

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 30, 2009
2,162
0
0
40
Virginia
Ammonia and nitrite are zero on a cycled tank. It's not cycled. You'll need to do big, frequent water changes if you want your fish to survive. The process will take longer, but unless you have somewhere else to move them, this is the only choice. Please research cycling freshwater tanks... it's not as easy as SW! We don't have all of the live sand and live rock to aid the process... have to grow the bacteria ourselves.
 
D

DarkStorm

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 2, 2009
106
0
0
Calgary
thank you for your help,
bye big changes should i be doing like 50% a day?. also should i be cutting back on feeding them as lps has told me to do? once every 2 days,
 
J

justonemoretank

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 30, 2009
2,162
0
0
40
Virginia
Definitely cut back on feeding. They can go a while (though they'll try and convince you otherwise). Even less than what you're doing. And I'd say 50% is good. Think of it this way: what you're doing is diluting the nasty stuff in the water. So as much as you can do, do it. Do you have a friend, or even the LFS, that could handle this fish while you cycle? It would be much faster if there were no fish in the tank, because you could let ammonia spike (high as hell, really), and the nitrite (same) and then be done with it. The only thing you have to worry about after those are zero is nitrate, and you remove that with water changes. Ideally, it should be below 20.
 
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