Sorry to hear about your losses. What exactly is this Beneficial bacteria? Some of these chemicals said to help cycle the tank are not actually the bacteria, but ammonia... Is it possible you are just adding ammonia to the tank every week, and that is what is causing the algae blooms?
Cycling Trouble
- Thread starter Optimist
- Start date
Ok. Here are the steps I am going to take. Please feel free to put in any input. Right now, my tank is foggy due to a bacterial bloom. There are no fish in it. I'm going to do a 50% water change, scrub down the glass, and add some Stress Zyme with the new water. Question: Should I put in some feeder fish to help cycle? Also, should I clean the filter media during my water changes while the tank is cycling? After the initial water change, I will do 25% water changes every week adding Stress Zyme every other day. I will follow this procedure for about 3 weeks. Hopefully, the bloom will go away after a couple days and the water will become stable. Next, I plan to add a UV sterilizer and upgrade my AC 70 to an Aquaclear 110. Would these be Ok to add after about 4 weeks? I'm hoping the UV sterilizer will increase water quality. Then I can start thinking about gradually adding fish. What do you guys think? If I stick to this plan, do you think my tank will recover? Any additions to my plan would help a lot.
This is what I do....
Drain all the water........ refill with tap water and let it stand overnight to kill any bacteria then the next morning add your favorite dechlore and then go to the store and buy stability from seachem and add it to the tank and then add the fish right away.
With stability you need to dose it every day for a week but it's not verry expensive and it works.
BTW I have a business that sets up and services tanks.
My 2 cents
Drain all the water........ refill with tap water and let it stand overnight to kill any bacteria then the next morning add your favorite dechlore and then go to the store and buy stability from seachem and add it to the tank and then add the fish right away.
With stability you need to dose it every day for a week but it's not verry expensive and it works.
BTW I have a business that sets up and services tanks.
My 2 cents
repair;837354; said:This is what I do....
Drain all the water........ refill with tap water and let it stand overnight to kill any bacteria then the next morning add your favorite dechlore and then go to the store and buy stability from seachem and add it to the tank and then add the fish right away.
With stability you need to dose it every day for a week but it's not verry expensive and it works.
BTW I have a business that sets up and services tanks.
My 2 cents
Just a point...scrub the tank before you empty it and rinse it down once then empty it all.
Repair...do you suggest less expensive fish to start (better than feeders tho)?
Dre Joe
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I always just add the fish I plan to keep, keep in mind I don't keep any discus, angels or rays and they might need the the tank to be cycled by other fish.Dr Joe;837383; said:Just a point...scrub the tank before you empty it and rinse it down once then empty it all.
Repair...do you suggest less expensive fish to start (better than feeders tho)?
Dre Joe
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I'll try it. I'll add some less expensive fish. I'm probably not going to end up keeping them anyway since the fish I plan on stocking with are expensive. I'll just go to petsmart. What kind do you recommend and how many? Also, Should I clean out the media of my filter? I don't want whatever is messing up my tank now to come back later from my filter. Also, should I run my filter that first night when I let the water stand to kill any bacteria?
I would be running a Rena XP3. The tank is a 120 gallon. Would 3-4 Yellow Labs be good? If I'm doing all this cleaning of the filter and tank, shouldn't I expect a bacterial bloom? Also, when cleaning my filter, should I just replace all the media, or just give the stuff I have right now a good scrubbing and squeezing?
