I think you will be okay without changing the water so soon,just keep a watch on the nitrite and later ammonia levels rising and in that sized tank with those fish it should take quite a while.
HELP !! my fish store fooled me
- Thread starter Jreeper
- Start date
i dont mind the time .. all i want is them staying alive
I honestly think if you do 30% water change once a week you'll be fine. But yea oscars always lay around the first couple days. If they still lay at the bottom after 3 days then you might want to worry.
Oh of course you do ,I'm just saying you sould have a good while before those fish are in the danger zone.
Aquarium cycling link
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/nitrogen_cycle.html
Hello; the link above is full of information. It is good information but will take along time to read and perhaps even longer to grasp all the meanings and relationships.
A few definitions may help.
First by definition you are doing a "fish-in cycle". This is a fairly common way it is done but often at the sacrifice of the first fish put into the tank. Sad news I know but keep this fact in mind.
Do you happen to know anyone with a tank that has been running for several months? If so then there is a way to get this "cycle" business done quickly and maybe help the fish. If the answer is no then the bottled bacteria may be the best way to go. I have never used any of it but several on this forum have reported using some of it.
One more point; take anything you are toid by a fish shop worker with a huge lump of salt. Some can be knowledgeable but this is unfortunately rare in my over 50 years of doing this.
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/nitrogen_cycle.html
Hello; the link above is full of information. It is good information but will take along time to read and perhaps even longer to grasp all the meanings and relationships.
A few definitions may help.
First by definition you are doing a "fish-in cycle". This is a fairly common way it is done but often at the sacrifice of the first fish put into the tank. Sad news I know but keep this fact in mind.
Do you happen to know anyone with a tank that has been running for several months? If so then there is a way to get this "cycle" business done quickly and maybe help the fish. If the answer is no then the bottled bacteria may be the best way to go. I have never used any of it but several on this forum have reported using some of it.
One more point; take anything you are toid by a fish shop worker with a huge lump of salt. Some can be knowledgeable but this is unfortunately rare in my over 50 years of doing this.
Hello; I went back to a recent thread about a fish in cycle. Some useful comments in this thread.
Here is the link to that thread.
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/water-parameters-cycling-i-dont-know-whats-going-on-here.708291/
Hello; here is one of my posts from that thread that I hope may help.
1. Hello; You have a bit of a catch 22 right now. To get the bb (beneficial bacteria) population established they need to have ammonia and nitrites in the water, both of which are toxic to fish at the levels needed. There are two sorts of bb. One sort takes in ammonia and turns it into nitrite and the other takes in the nitrite and turns it into the much less toxic nitrate.
The ammonia using sort will be established first because that is what the fish and rotting organic stuff put into the water from their metabolic processes. A bit later on the second sort will have enough nitrite in the water to start forming colonies and then eventually they convert the nitrites into nitrates. Once the tank cycle is established we (human fishkeepers) do WC to keep the nitrate levels down to a goal of around 20 ppm or less.
If the tank is done from scratch this cycling process can take six weeks or much longer. My take is that while the bacteria are around and will eventually find a way into a tank, it can take a while for this to happen.
We fish keepers with tanks that are fully cycled can do a short cut when we set up a new tank. We seed the new tank with some bb from the established tank. The bb make a film of colonies on tank surfaces so we just move something from the old tank into the new setup. This might be your next move if you have either a friend with a tank or can get some solid material from a fish shop. ( A word of caution here - taking stuff from someone else's tank means you can also get any diseases or parasites that tank may have.) Another catch 22.
Back to the first catch 22 which is the more you do WC right now to protect the fish from the ammonia and nitrite toxins then the slower the cycle process will be because the bb are not getting a sufficient level of those toxins. However even with WC there will be ammonia and eventually nitrite at some level because the bb are not yet in place to convert them.
Sorry for the long post on this.
#17 skjl47, Sep 18, 2018
Here is the link to that thread.
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/water-parameters-cycling-i-dont-know-whats-going-on-here.708291/
Hello; here is one of my posts from that thread that I hope may help.
1. Hello; You have a bit of a catch 22 right now. To get the bb (beneficial bacteria) population established they need to have ammonia and nitrites in the water, both of which are toxic to fish at the levels needed. There are two sorts of bb. One sort takes in ammonia and turns it into nitrite and the other takes in the nitrite and turns it into the much less toxic nitrate.
The ammonia using sort will be established first because that is what the fish and rotting organic stuff put into the water from their metabolic processes. A bit later on the second sort will have enough nitrite in the water to start forming colonies and then eventually they convert the nitrites into nitrates. Once the tank cycle is established we (human fishkeepers) do WC to keep the nitrate levels down to a goal of around 20 ppm or less.
If the tank is done from scratch this cycling process can take six weeks or much longer. My take is that while the bacteria are around and will eventually find a way into a tank, it can take a while for this to happen.
We fish keepers with tanks that are fully cycled can do a short cut when we set up a new tank. We seed the new tank with some bb from the established tank. The bb make a film of colonies on tank surfaces so we just move something from the old tank into the new setup. This might be your next move if you have either a friend with a tank or can get some solid material from a fish shop. ( A word of caution here - taking stuff from someone else's tank means you can also get any diseases or parasites that tank may have.) Another catch 22.
Back to the first catch 22 which is the more you do WC right now to protect the fish from the ammonia and nitrite toxins then the slower the cycle process will be because the bb are not getting a sufficient level of those toxins. However even with WC there will be ammonia and eventually nitrite at some level because the bb are not yet in place to convert them.
Sorry for the long post on this.
#17 skjl47, Sep 18, 2018
Oscars are extremely robust. They'll probably laugh at the nitrites and grow a few inches DURING the cycle.
