Another Cycle What?

[Bleeding]

Check out these chain of events....and maybe give me some advice on it?

Small 2.5 gallon hex tank for quarantine/hospital. Has gravel bottom with 2 live plants, and a built in filter with bio wheel.

Tank is cycled and set up for prob. 3 weeks. A betta goes in, does good, and then goes into my 55gal community tank. Water parameters normal.

Girlfriend buys 10 misc. fish a week later (neons, guppys, 2 candycane plecs). I know they are too much for the small tank, but they go in. I lose 3...nitrites and ammonia have spiked. All but 3 fish go into the large community tank. Check water conditions after a 50% WC and a few days, and everything is zero, nitrates are at 30-40....water change 50%.

About 3 more days, and i am checking water tonight (3 small fish in this 2.5) and ammonia is now at .5, nitrite 0, nitrate at 5.0.

So am i cycling again, or am i still placing too much bio load on this small filter?!?!?

 

[Razman]

im pretty sure plecos are bad for water parems(i think).(maybe).(kinda). (i really dont know).

 

[AnDr3w]

im pretty sure plecos are bad for water parems(i think).(maybe).(kinda). (i really dont know).

:Iagree:

 

[Brooklynella]

Tank is too small for bio load.

 

[aquanaut]

Check your tap water... you will probably see that the Nitrates are 5ppm. Change a half gallon of water everyday in the 2.5 gallon and use prime to bind the ammonia to detoxify it. It(water change) will slow the cycle but you don`t have much space for error. Or get the 30 setup fast... JM2C

 

[M|L]

I think you either added too many fish at once (10) or you're overfeeding.

 

[Bleeding]

so....will everything return to normal? Right now there are 4 small fish (i might have said wrong earlier, but 3 of the fish are mollies and one is that really small candycane platy) and whatever fry they have had and not eaten...they had fry almost immediately after getting them home.....so i am hoping that these 4 small fish are not too much for the little bio wheel.

How much water should i be changing out of this thing when i do? I have been doing almost 50% each time, cause its almost impossible to clean the gravel for like 15 seconds by the time it sucks out a gallon of water.

Thanks for the help so far.

 

[shanefish]

I had to watch my small tanks real close when they were new but after a while they seem to do ok as long as I took it easy on the number of fish I added at a time. And do not over feed.

 

[philhawk]

just because the bio filter started with the beta doesnt mean that the bacteria colony is large enough to support the much larger bio load. so it was the fact that you added them all at once that caused the problem. not to mention the fact that it is terribly hard to maintain proper water parameters in such a small volume.

good luck

 

[aquanaut]

Filter crash, new cycle or mini-cycle it doesn`t matter you got ammonia. I personally don`t like over gravel vacing fairly new tanks... thats just me. My reasoning is you can remove bacteria. I would rather just not feed them much at all...say 1x a day and then very little.

Doing a 1/2 gallon water change will nurse the cycle along... point is not to lose anymore fish. Have done this kind of thing myself and helped friends through it... but never on this scale.


Good luck and stay with/on top of it and things will work out.