Gar needs help
- Thread starter Pred
- Start date
I am not sure what I am reading here. If the tank was procured the same day as the gar that is now in it, how did you manage to "cycle" the tank that quickly? I am shocked that nobody here on MFK has asked this simple question.
Two days after purchasing and setting up the tank and doing a water test to determine if water quality is the culprit is ludicrous. A baby gar placed in the 20G as a growout is fine, however two days after filling the standard 20G with clean treated tap water testing is a total waste.
The fact that your water parameters in a 20G did not show out of acceptable range IN JUST TWO DAYS is BY DEFINITION.
Your water that you filled the tank with would need to be Freaking lethal to get "bad" reading in just two days!
Now back to the "nitrogen cycle" and you supposed water parameter readings:
You are one of two things here: Extremely confused and incorrect, or just not being 100% forthright!
Given that adequate B.B. seeded media was added to the 20G tank two days prior along with the baby Gar and a few feeders to accomplish the "quick cycle" and your water starts at 0PPM nitrates, than it is not possible for your tank to be cycled with BB and maintain a 0PPM of ammonia WITHOUT some rise to the Nitrates.
It is that simple. Beneficial Bacteria #1 eat Ammonia thereby lowering your ammonia reading to ZERO by increasing you Nitrite reading. Beneficial Bacteria #2 eats the Nitrites produced by the 1st beneficial bacteria driving your nitrites down and adversely increasing your nitrates in your water.
Nitrates are lowered by prolific plant growth roots in leaves out of water. This is not acceptable to a gar that WILL jump out of the tank given that kind of setup.
The other way is 1,000 times more common in the hobby, and is referred to as the water change.
Water parameter reading are valid only BEFORE you complete your water change.
You CANNOT have these readings short of changing the tank water immediately prior to the test. Even then I personally cannot get below 7PPM Nitrates reading straight from my well.
Do you have chlorinated water (public water supply)?
This is most likely caused by chlorine or as others said a broken back.
This is what happen, I got the baby gar, I put him in my 55gal tank and had to remove him because my oscar wanted him for lunch. So I want to my LFS and got a 20gal tank just for him. I filled it up with sink water and then put all the additives to make it safe for him. Put some sand in there and fake plants. A couple of feeder fish and took off to work. When I came back his back was bent. Guys on here told me to test the water and I did and that is what I got. Tho I messed up on the ph. My ph is more like 8.0 not 7.6. I'm kind of new with keeping fish. Started out with small fish and now I have a 150gal tank. So I'm still learning about all this stuff as far as ph, nitrogen and ammonia. So forgive me if I mess up or make a mistake. I'm sure I'm still a noob compared to most of you guys on here lol
Hi everyone I just wanted to update you guys on my little gar. He is looking wayyy better. Seems as tho he will recover just fine. Me being a noob at fish keep I guess it was my fault about his back. I'm assuming that because I didn't cycle my tank before putting him in there. No one has ever told me to cycle a tank. But now I know. Here is a photo of the little guy. Tell me what u think. 
But if I'm correct, you still didn't cycle the tank yet, or by additives did you mean media as well? That may help a good amount. Not necessarily saying it will compensate for skipping the nitrogen cycle but I have had fish survive through a nitrogen cycle with no problems just by adding a ton of media from my other tank as well as daily water changes..
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