As long as you have an ammonia source, the fish in this case, then the bacteria are being fed. Fish excrete ammonia through their gills as part of their respiration process. The size of the colony will grow to the amount of food. Test the ammonia and nitrites with a liquid test daily to ensure that both are 0ppm. If one or the other is not 0ppm, then your bacteria colony is not large enough to support the bio-load yet.
As long as you have an ammonia source, the fish in this case, then the bacteria are being fed. Fish excrete ammonia through their gills as part of their respiration process. The size of the colony will grow to the amount of food. Test the ammonia and nitrites with a liquid test daily to ensure that both are 0ppm. If one or the other is not 0ppm, then your bacteria colony is not large enough to support the bio-load yet.
I have hit an ammonia spike at about 2ppm. its been 8 days since the beginning of my cycle. I do not have a separate ammonium/ammonia test kit. Ammo Lock is in the tank. Last 3-4 days have been reading at 0.5 ppm. Im using a API Test Kit. All fish are thriving but that doesn't mean they will be, I get that. Should I do a 50% water change today or wait it out because of the ammo lock to see if the bacteria takes ahold. My nitrites are 0 ppm and my nitrates are 5-10ppm which makes no sense to me. My tap water is 0ppm nitrates.
temp: 80 degrees
pH: 7.4
gH: 25ppm Soft Water
kH: 120ppm
Thank You for your help.
temp: 80 degrees
pH: 7.4
gH: 25ppm Soft Water
kH: 120ppm
Thank You for your help.
Ammonia lock or not you should do water change right now. You should be doing water changes (40% to 60%) every day or every other day for the next month or so until you build a good bioload. If you let an uncycled tank with fish in it go eight days without water change that is not good!
Hello; There is a conflict when a tank with fish does not yet have an adequate population of the two types of bb. First the fish and other sources are making ammonia which is a toxin and causes damage to fish relative to the concentration. To deal with this we do frequent and large WC to remove and dilute the ammonia. This helps lessen the damage to the fish.
Second is that by doing the WC we are removing the resource the bb need to increase their population. This slows down the development of the bb colonies and prolongs the cycling process.
A choice is made. Don't do a lot of WC and speed up the bb development at some risk to the health of the fish as the ammonia levels build up. Some sacrifice the first fish put into a new setup with this choice.
Do a lot of WC prolongs the cycle perhaps into many weeks, probably even months. The fish may be a bit better off as the average ammonia level will be less. However it lasts much longer.
I do not add expensive or favored fish to a new setup right away. I take some media (solid surfaces) from an established tank. I keep the sponge parts of a sponge filters in the chamber of a filter on an established tank. I throw one or more of those into the new setup and add one small fish the first day.
I also throw in some snails and live plants. Snails add their own ammonia and should have bb on their shells. They also eat excess food bits. I feel it is better to have these food bits pass thru a digestive system than to be allowed to rot in the water.
Some plants can take up some ammonia and I speculate may have some bb on them as well.
If all is well I add more fish one or two at a time over a while.
Good luck
Second is that by doing the WC we are removing the resource the bb need to increase their population. This slows down the development of the bb colonies and prolongs the cycling process.
A choice is made. Don't do a lot of WC and speed up the bb development at some risk to the health of the fish as the ammonia levels build up. Some sacrifice the first fish put into a new setup with this choice.
Do a lot of WC prolongs the cycle perhaps into many weeks, probably even months. The fish may be a bit better off as the average ammonia level will be less. However it lasts much longer.
I do not add expensive or favored fish to a new setup right away. I take some media (solid surfaces) from an established tank. I keep the sponge parts of a sponge filters in the chamber of a filter on an established tank. I throw one or more of those into the new setup and add one small fish the first day.
I also throw in some snails and live plants. Snails add their own ammonia and should have bb on their shells. They also eat excess food bits. I feel it is better to have these food bits pass thru a digestive system than to be allowed to rot in the water.
Some plants can take up some ammonia and I speculate may have some bb on them as well.
If all is well I add more fish one or two at a time over a while.
Good luck
We all as fish keepers or pets of any kind should be helping our pets thrive to the fullest. Its not ok imo to risk the health of an animal you are responsible for just to be lazy. Cheap fish or expensive fish doesn't matter, Don't be lazy. DO WATER CHANGES. I have tanks that have been running for over 6 years and I still make sure a water change is done on them every four to seven days. You can always see the change in a fishes mood when it gets fresh water.
Hello; You seem to have missed the point of my post and jumped to a negative conclusion. In a tank not fully cycled with both fish and ammonia present. I was presenting a possible description of the issue.
Too many or too much WC does not allow the bb to establish giving series of low dose ammonia and or nitrite episodes over a long time.
Fewer or smaller WC allows a higher concentration of ammonia and or nitrite but the bb are better fed so should establish sooner.
Either a choice between longer term lower level exposure or shorter term higher level exposure.
For what it is worth I am not the originator of this concept. I read it in another thread on this forum some time back. It was a new notion to me and after thinking about it do see some merit.
If memory serves about this thread, I think the OP has an established tank from which bb loaded material can be had. I may be thinking of a different thread??
Hello, Sorry if I offended you I understood the point of your post perfectly. I was simply stating to choose option A wich is low exposure long term. High exposures are not only deadly but they are cruel. Low exposures are fine as long as they don't hit critical limit. I also just wanted to stress how important water changes are new or old Aquarium, expensive or cheap fish.
Hello; Interesting. May I ask what the critical limit for ammonia and/or nitrite is?
Hello; While I agree that in some sense the cost of a fish should not make a difference when it comes to care, I do see a difference between a favorite fish or a more unique fish. For example back when I had a breeding pair of angels I set up a larger tank for them to go into. After the new setup was running I did not add the angels first, but added some common zebra diano for a while. The tank was set up properly so the zebras were fine. However had something been wrong I would prefer to lose them over a breeding pair of angels.
Some in the hobby use the fry of spawning fish as food for their other fish. My guess is this is because some species are prolific breeders and there is no market for their fry. No outlet for moving the fry and too many to keep around. Even if you try to keep all the fry, then as they mature more spawning will occur.
Water changes (WC) done have different effects in an older established tank compared to a new "uncycled " tank. In the old tank the bb are established and the cycle is complete. The bb are converting the ammonia and nitrites to the less toxic nitrates. There are also other compounds in the water that get diluted. There in no negative to WC in an old tank if done on a regular schedule.
The possible negative in a new setup I have already written about.
The last thing I will say to any following this thread is the choices in setting up a new tank fall are generally three. First and perhaps best is to have an established tank around from which some bb loaded solid surfaces can be robbed to "seed" the new tank setup. I have done this a very large number of times. It can be tricky to get the balance in having enough bb to match the amount of fish (bioload can be substituted for fish).
Add too many fish for the bb then an ammonia spike can happen. The bb should catch up before long. I try to add plenty of bb loaded material and then add fish to the new setup one or two at a time over many weeks.
Second is to do a fishless cycle. This is for those without any accss to "seeding" material. The advantage is no fish are put at risk.
Third is the fish in cycle. Some know the first fish will suffer and do it anyway. Others wind up in this situation for other reasons. Way too many times threads show up where the tank is new, fish are already in and the ammonia spikes. The more common suggestion is to do large and often WC to help protect the fish. If in fact low level long term ammonia exposure is safe then this is the way to go.
.020 ppm would be critical. The lower the better anything under this should be fine unless you are dealing with very sensitive types. Imagine if you trapped yourself in a room and filled it with exhaust from your car, you would die. Now imagine walking down a street every day with heavy vehicle traffic, you could do this every day for your whole life and be just fine. The small amount of exhaust will probably have no effect on you unless you are sensitive to it.
I agree I have bread convicts with Texas to feed the fry to my flowerhorn. I bread those fish for that reason as feeders. I took very good care of breeders and the fry even tho they were food. I am not a vegetararian and I expect that the cow or chicken I eat was very well taken care of also.
The point I'm making is water changes are the most humane thing to do. We gotta eat and fish gotta eat don't mean we need to suffer.
