Cleaning the sand wont hurt, using some cycled water is good, bring it up to temperature, use a pump from an old tank in use currently (without cleaning) this can kick start the process but still monitor your levels. Starter fish should be cheap. Good Luck, sorry for the loss.. Ill track this thread, keep us informed..
Emergancy!! Fish Kill?
- Thread starter 26pets
- Start date
26pets;2442476; said:
No, don't start over, you're in the middle of cycling right now. Don't let those fish have died in vain. There's no fish in there now, corect? (Did you read up on fishless cycling yet??) If there's no fish in the tank dump some food or straight ammonia in there to keep up an ammonia source (since there's no fish for an ammonia source) and wait til your nitrites go to '0' and you start getting a reading for nitrAtes. THEN you're cycled.
Read up on fishless cycling and it explains it all.
Edit: Just to make sure-you're salinity was checked and you're using marine salt, right? Not aquarium salt? Sorry for the should-be-obvious question but I had to ask.
This is wrong. Water from a cycled tank holds NO beneficial bacteria. The BB is in substrate, decorations, sides of the (cycled) tank, etc. Not in the water column. I wouldn't use live fish. That's just cruel and fishless cycling would be faster anyway.Fishfood?;2442512; said:
Ya im using Marine Salt. All my tanks run around 78 to 82 depends on the months of the year. Besides cold water species tanks. I might just keep it cycling then when it finishes. Ill put (1) damsel in there and if he last a week. Ill keep the tank as so. But if he passes Im cleaning out the tank.
If you haven't dismantled the tank yet, go get that liquid-tube ammonia kit and test the water. If your judgement says it's the ammonia, then let the tank finish cycling. Regarding sand... as long as it was rinsed out properly, you should have no problem with it.
TwistedPenguin;2442530; said:
Can you gurantee this sand is 100% clean. Not 99%.. than proceed. Keep in mind this is not your tank, not your fish, after the tank cycles and there is a potentially deadly chemical. Will you Rise up to the resposibility?
Go Ahead..
26pets..
Didnt know you would get so much passionate help did ya? lol, it will work out.. were just being tiny know-it-alls on your thread. psssstt, but dont tell anyone. mum is the word. But honestly, thank goodness for MFK. Alot of experience and knowledge to tap into..
Didnt know you would get so much passionate help did ya? lol, it will work out.. were just being tiny know-it-alls on your thread. psssstt, but dont tell anyone. mum is the word. But honestly, thank goodness for MFK. Alot of experience and knowledge to tap into..
it doesnt matter if there was sand in there or not, you can repeat that with or without it and get the same results, uncycled tank plus lots of fish = death. Really, thats why they died, even with the "toxic" sand, the ammonia would still be present...and as long as its playsand without chemicals added to prevent mold, and it was rinsed as well as the owner says, then yeah i would be willing to bet on it. I'm not saying the sand is an impossibility, but I am saying it is the least likely cause.
Fishfood?;2442597; said:
? I'm not telling him to 'leave the sand in at all costs'. It won't hurt a bit to take the sand out and either rinse it or leave it out. I said I didn't think the sand was the problem, I'm not 'rising to any responsibility lol All I'm saying is it'd be a shame to dump the tank, water, everything and start over since he's already into the nitrite part of the cycle. I still think he should read about cycling & fishless cycling so he understand it before he listens to a bunch of people on a forum that can't agree
