my new 55 gallon tank has been cycling for about a week now and i unfortunately am temporarily housing the around 25 "feeder" fish my dad bought to help (or what he thought would)cycle it. everything has been fine up until 2 days ago, when my fish started looking really sick. some of them float idly around and ive lost 2 of them. however, some of them are growing pretty big already and are very active so im not sure what to do.

i took some water into the petstore to get tested since i have no kits and he said everything is fine except my pH is 8.6 (im not sure if he put his finger over the test tube while testing it though--i walked off to look at a goldie) and my nitrates or nitrites (i cant remember which one he said, all i remember is he held it up to the color chart and the water was pink, if that helps) were at 0.25ppm.

im going to go get a pH decreaser tomorrow, as i assume the rest of my tanks are that high too. is there anything i can do about the nitrates/nitrites? i want my tank to cycle but i dont want to kill a bunch of common goldies while doing it

why not take the goldies back to the pet store and cycle your tank with the fishless cycle? its just as effective and wont be hurting any fish. cycling a tank with a bunch of commons and comets isnt a very good way to do it. especially without test kits. to keep them all alive you would have to test your water every day and perform many water changes. if i were you, i would try to take the goldies back to the store for credit and go with the fishless cycle. if you decide to keep them in the tank without testing the water everyday, im afraid that many more, if not all of them could die.

as far as getting a ph decreaser, you wouldnt be doing it any good without test kits!

It was probably nitrites, Did you use anything to seed your tank? Like water from another tank or gravel or oranmentes?

You can add salt to reduce nitrite toxicity, 1.5 tablespoons per 5 gallons.
Make sure it is aquarium salt, or a salt that does NOT contain anti-caking agents.

Jessica

Toothless and I must have posted at the same time, he gave good advice as well.

If you end up keeping the fish, you should be doing 35-40% daily water changes.

Jessica

im going to return most of them monday night (theres 1 or 2 id like to keep) and ill look into getting some different test kits although i wondered today if it was really difficult to test the water? the guy at the petstore took out the different packets of the chemicals he used to test the water and started beating them senselessly with the bottom of a container..do all test kits need to be squashed down to fit in the test tube?

and i didnt have any other water or gravel in the tank since i didnt have any extra ornaments so i bought everything new, and my dad then decided to leave n come back with a ton of fish <_< although i do have around 12 or 13 live plants in the tank, which i thought kind of helped cycling but im not sure?

hm. maybe ill see if the petstore is open tomorrow .. i really dont want my tank water to kill any more fishys should i temporarily put the one common i want to keep in one of my 10 gals (its still very tiny)?

Well I can answer the test kit question. If you can find the Hagan Kits/Nutrafin, they are VERY easy to use.

They are little bottles of solution. You fill a test tube to the line marked on it with tank water, and then you just add "x" amount of drops depending on the test. Some tests have only 1 solution to add, some have 2 or 3. Then you shake the test tube and read the results, you just match the colour on the booklet.

Some of the tests require waiting a few minutes before reading.

Jessica

definitely get those test kits!

and i know the goldie you want to keep! hes a real cutie!!! are any of your ten gallon tanks already cycled? if so, are the fish in them compatible with goldies? if so, go ahead and put your special little guy in that tank until your big one has cycled! if none of the ten gallons are cycled, thats ok, with the aid of test kits youll be able to keep your little guy healthy until tha 55 gallon is ready.

on second thought, you might want to dedicate one of the ten gallons to the two that you want to keep because they may have some sort of parasite on them that could infect your ten gallon (if it already has fish in it).

yes both my 10 gallons are cycled, but in one i have my goldie with sbd who doesnt swim so hes sort of an easy target, and the other i have a large angelfish(hes going in the 55 gal when it cycles) and a 3 inch red cap oranda, both can be pretty aggressive, but for some reason never go after each other, although i dont want to take the chance with putting the common in with them, hm..i could probably put him in the 10 gal with my goldie with sbd since the commons only 1 1/2 inchs max so i guess he cant do too much harm? or maybe i should just leave him in the 55 gal.. im not so great with making decisions Lol

you could give your little guy a salt dip and then put him into the tank with your goldie that has sbd! the salt dip should knock off all or most of the parasites (if he indeed has any). in fact i would recommend it. if you would like to give it a go, a 1.5% solution (2 ounces aquarium salt per 1 u.s. gallon) for about 5-10 minutes (or until they stop swimming) would do the trick. salt dips are very safe to use with goldies! just be sure to use temperature matched water.

okay i bought a master test kit and tested all of my tanks and it read as the following

55 gal. tank with around 25 commons:

nitrate-40
nitrite-0.5ppm
pH-8.0
ammonia- 0.50

10 gal. tank with my angelfish & sm. redcap oranda:

nitrate-200 (yikes..i assume thats pretty bad..is there anything i can do to help that go down?)
nitrite-0
pH-8.0
ammonia- 0.25


10 gal. tank with my goldie with sbd:

nitrate-40
nitrite-0
pH-8.0
ammonia- 0

does anyone know what nitrates should be in a tank? or how to get them down? im pretty worried about my one 10 gal with very high nitrates but im not even sure what they are exactly Lol anyone have any ideas? :ph34r:

i would start out by doing 25% water changes each day for three days and see what that does to bring them down. youll probably have to do a few more after that but try not to exceed 50% each time. dont forget to temperature match the new water going into the tank! also, what is the ph of your tap water?

as far as the readable amounts of ammonia in your ten gallon w/angel and red capped oranda: the reason you are having a problem with ammonia is because you have the tank slightly overloaded. your filter may not pass enough water through it to handle the waste generated by two fish, even if they are small. you might need more filtration. do you know what the flow rate of that filter is? if not, do you know the brand name and size?

i have whisper filters on both my 10 gals. umm i think theyre class E or something like that

i was planning to put the angelfish in my 55 gal tank because hes quite large (6-7 inches from top to bottom of fins) and he .. can get along with goldies that arent impaired (like my goldie with sbd) but im still not sure because sometimes he still gets territorial. hm..maybe i should put my oranda in the 55 gal and get a 15-20 gallon for my angelfish?

and the pH of my tap water is about 8.0 (i think thats what it was last time i tested) i guess because we have well water and its treated with a bunch of diff. stuff .. but im not sure if that would affect the pH any. i almost bought a tablet at petsmart that said it would keep the pH to 6.8-7.0 but i wasnt sure if the pH wasnt already that it would do any good

i couldnt find any info on what the flow rate is on a whisper e but, i have a feeling that it only rotates the water about half of what it should for a goldfish AND an angel. water changes will help keep the nitrates and ammonia down. but youll need to keep a close eye on it as well as the big tank.

that is a very good idea to try to get a 15-20 gallon for your angel and put the oranda into the big one (after it has cycled , that is). angels could sometimes get pretty territorial and pick at other fish. then, you can keep the vacant 10 gallon going with a filter to be used as a quarentine/ hospital tank. i would suggest keeping one handy if you are planning to get any other fish.

as far as your ph goes, it should be fine. as long as the ph of your tap water closely matches what is in your tanks, you shouldnt run into any problems. although, ammonia is more toxic to goldies at higher ph levels. another good reason to keep a close eye on your water parameters!

i found one of the boxes from my filters and it says it rotates the water at 90gph , is that a decent amount? i think ill try to buy a taller 15-20 gal. tank for my angel so hopefully itll fit on the 10 gal stand, and put the goldie in the 55 gal do you think the tank will be done cycling in maybe 2 weeks? *trying to figure out when to purchase a new tank Lol*

as far as the flow rate on your whisper Es, they are pretty good. they turn your water over 9 times an hour.to keep them operating at max capacity, pay close attention to the intake screen at the end of the filter tube. keep it clear of debris. also, its a good idea to clean around the impeller housing every now and then. thats because they can get gunked up a bit and not operate at optimum capacity. you dont have to clean these parts spotlessly or anything, rather, swish them around in dechlorinated water for a bit and that should be fine. totally cleaning your whole filter at the same time will crash your cycle. if you keep an eye on these parts of the filter, you might be able to get those ammonia levels down in your angels/orandas tank.

well, there are several things that you could do to speed up the cycling:

1- you could go to your local fish store and beg and plead that they give you a peice of filter media that has been in a healthy tank for a while. then you could take it and put it into the new filter behind the new filter pad. that way the beneficial bacteria on the filter media from the store wil transfer to and colonize your new filter pad. if youve got 2 filters on your big tank, you could cut the peice that they give you into 2 peices and put each peice into each filter. in doing this, you could conceivably cycle your tank within a week. thats if everything goes right.

2- you could take the filter pads from your existing tanks and put them into your new filters on the big tank. do it just like i described in #1. then, of course, youd have to put new ones into the ten gallon filters.

3- you could call around and try to get ahold of some bio-spira. it will do the same thing as #1 and even quicker. some people report that there tanks were "instantly cycled". ive never used it so, i couldnt tell you.

good luck!