will new phantoms cause cycle?

[zeebo]

Hi, I am about mid-way through re-cycling my 54g. My concern is , my husband paid for 2 adult L128's. I know to add one at a time, yet they are quite large, so will the tank go through another cycle when i add such a large fish ? Any kind of prep needed ? I was thinking to add the dither fish after the L128's are settleted in :dk:

filters are same, 2 HOB's (hot magnum canister,and Aqua-clear70, plus 2 hydra-sponge filters).
2 air stones .
I would be gutted if i lost these guys by not being prepared.

any advice appreciated , want to do this right ,obviously. Thanks,
Georgie

 

[Lornek8]

How are you cycling the tank?

 

[zeebo]

hi, Lornek, fishless, was planning to use fish food, however, there must have been enough bacteria still left, didnt show in the initial tests (and the disaster happened Feb 12th) However when i was ready to begin cycling, i tested the water and was shocked to find it was cycling without fish or food or amonia. So last week the readings were : ph-4 , A-.50 , NI-5.0 , NA-30. Havent checked it since, just wanna let it ride.

note; after the disaster ,to rid the meds from the inhaler, did a 50% and a complete gravel vacuum. Then just left the filters running and kept the lights off till i was ready to look at it again.

hope this helps
Georgie

 

[zeebo]

oops,type-O, ph 7.4.

today tests :
ph 7.4
a 0.5 very little
nI 0
na 5.0

still doing nothing to it (there must have been some good junk left for this to happen, can't understand how else)

Georgie

 

[jessonthenet]

ph would be better a little higher to cycle it. Acidic will slow bacteria down . Temp a little higher and ph a little higher should speed it up and plenty oxygen.

Let everything get to 0 before you add anything with the exception of nitrates and check it stays like that. Nitrates 20 or below if possible. You don't want any nitrites as it stops the fish absorbing oxygen and no ammonia as it burns the fish. High nitrates can have an effect .

Ammonia needs to get high enough from the beginning to end up with enough bacteria to start you off with if you plan on adding anything substantial right away. For small tanks my ammonia got to about 2.0ppm and never above 4ppm during a fishless cycle. I still always stock gradually.

Adding fish flakes is a little more tricky to control. I know adding pure ammonia up to 4ppm and leaving it is one option but I have always used prawns or fish food and works ok for me.

The fact you have nitrites that high means your cycle is going ok and ammonia is nearly gone and your nitrates should be starting to rise. Since it was last week you checked I wouldn't be surprised if ammonia was 0 nitrites close to 0 so I would check as soon as possible.

You will be ok adding the L128's if you maintain a little more frequently for the first few weeks until the bacteria get enough to match waste production. I don't think you would need to do 50% changes all the time. I reckon sometimes changing too much upsets the tank causing crashes, major shifts in ph which knocks the balance of your tank and shocks the fish.

If there are big differences between the ph of the tank and the water you add small more frequent changes are needed. Some people may do things different.

I just know that when I have had a newly cycled tank and I changed a lot of water it would go cloudy and stress my fish then i experienced white spot. Small frequent changes worked for me and once the tank was more established I seemed able to change half without problems.

The larger the tank the larger the change at once but with small tanks it is more top ups and small changes and regular filter maintenance in old water!

Gravel cleaning shouldn't be over thorough , maybe think of malaysian trumpet snails. Bacteria exist in the gravel too and an over clean tank is just as dangerous as a neglected one , from experience.

 

[zeebo]

hi, Jesson, we musta been typin the same time, i believe it is nearly finished cycling, see above... but still i am doing nothing..temp is 80d . Will bring it down a tad when i begin putting fish in there. It is still empty of fish , only the decorations in there ,and still rarely turn the light on , kills me.
Seems you were correct figuring my tests #s would drop by now .
na is very low , just 5.0ppm.

So when i decide to put a large plec in there , i will get more of the same/cycle ,i mean?

 

[jessonthenet]

Did you do a water change since as the nitrates would be very high not lower and ammonia shouldn't still be showing up, it should be staying 0.

I know if oxygen is low in places anaerobic bacteria could convert nitrates by using the oxygen from it.

Have you done a water change?

 

[jessonthenet]

hi, Jesson, we musta been typin the same time, i believe it is nearly finished cycling, see above... but still i am doing nothing..temp is 80d . Will bring it down a tad when i begin putting fish in there. It is still empty of fish , only the decorations in there ,and still rarely turn the light on , kills me.
Seems you were correct figuring my tests #s would drop by now .
na is very low , just 5.0ppm.

So when i decide to put a large plec in there , i will get more of the same/cycle ,i mean?

More of the same cycle? Depends. If you have added ammonia and keep adding a little ammonia source to keep the bacteria going then once you add the fish , if the waste production is less or the same as equivalent ammonia source to cycle then the added fish should not affect the tank.

It will only make a difference if the new fish add more waste in form of ammonia then was used to cycle the tank. There will be less bacteria than needed.

If there is more bacteria than needed, the fish waste production is less than ammonia added to cycle then the excess bacteria will die off if extra ammonia isn't added to meet demand. Nothing will be affected.

It is hard to judge. Once you add the fish you could take readings to see if anything changes, if not then there should be enough bacteria.

If you don't feed too much once adding fish I think you will be fine.

You could make the mistake with an established tank full of fish and accidentally tip too much fish food in and cause ammonia spikes. I have done this but luckily have a heavily planted tank and the only consequence was a couple of days of cloudy water followed by really green plants. I guess I would still be in danger every time I want to add more fish but I would just cut food to compensate for a little bit then gradually raise feeding again.

 

[zeebo]

hi, no wc's , nothing. just letting it ride and these are the numbers i am getting. not adding amonia or any cycle enhancer. no food ,no fish. The tank is just riding from after the disaster.

when i did have fish in there (and i will continue this when begin to restock) i did 10% wc's daily and gravel vacs weekly. This regiment seemed to work very good for this tank, so i plan to continue when i get new fish, till then , doing nothing...

ok , so about adding large plecs(1 at a time) how do i get extra bacteria in there? are you saying add amonia or did i misread that ?
I know not to feed them/overfeed , esp when adding new fish, and the bio-load of dither fish will be small again. thanks,

Georgie

 

[jessonthenet]

Sorry I am finding the situation with your tank a little confusing.

The bacteria present will still need a food source to stay alive. If you didn't add ammonia and have 5.0 nitrite the ammonia must of already been at a high level. I will have to look back over your previous thread. Did high ammonia kill your fish and that is the ammonia already there?

I think 10% water change a day is extreme unless trying to grow fish. If the fish are grown then 25% max along with gravel clean per week would be what I would do. The usual checks at lights on, removing dead plants or large poops especially if sand substrate. Check all fish for changes in behaviour at lights on too, daily, so you can catch problems early.

Try not to mess with water too much and avoid chemicals if possible. Add catappa leaves to promote good water conditions and chemical free water treatment. Will lower ph slightly to suit your fish.

Maintain filters, make sure they don't get clogged and are providing sufficient aeration for bacteria so you don't get any die off suddenly and ammonia spikes. Be careful when turning over large amounts of gravel at once and don't miss getting under large wood or other decor. Large pockets of gas can kill fish off within 24 hours of a very big maintenance.

If fish seem to be fanning a lot and at the surface or agitated test the water immediately.

My regime.

 

[zeebo]

hi Jess, the wipeout was caused by my mother-in-law(dementia) spraying her inhaler in the tank..you can read more detail about it on this site a few back.

It happened at night and i found them gone in the am , tested immediately, after it happened and got 0's across the board, so caught things before amonia from the deceased fish.Iwas shockedtoo as i waited a few weeks to begin cycling and found it was cycling itself. When i have fish in there, of course i have the lights on, however , with an empty tank, too depressing to put the lights on ,so for the first few weeks, ran the filters ,but no lights. Just didnt want the water to get stagnant. there are also 2 hydra-sponge filters in the tank , aside from the 2 HOB's.

I have always cycled my tanks fishless with food, just did the q-tank that way, always had good luck doing it that way and easy for me. Did the 30g the same way before getting the medusa.

that is all i got , wish i could help more, not really sure what happened.

Still biggest concern is adding the adult L128's and getting amonia or another cycle. I expect some amonia but hope not too much, which is why i never feed for a few days , but these plecs are big, so that concerns me.

Just something crazy going on with the 54g, all i can think is must have been some mulm or something left over that the inhaler med didnt kill , and seems it cycled itself with whatever was left, however no fish survivied the inhaler med, so this was a shock

 

[zeebo]

seems while trying to figure out why my tank is cycling without doing anything, i am still looking for an answer concerning adding large plecs to a newly cycled tank .

When members here add a large plec to their tank, does it cause a cycle or mini-cycle ? Anybody ?

thanks,
Georgie

 

[jessonthenet]

seems while trying to figure out why my tank is cycling without doing anything, i am still looking for an answer concerning adding large plecs to a newly cycled tank .

When members here add a large plec to their tank, does it cause a cycle or mini-cycle ? Anybody ?

thanks,
Georgie

I have had the opposite problem when I removed a pardalis 1ft in size and my tank went funny and started clouding. Very strange. I assume the waste had dropped and the bacteria lacked a food source and my plants weren't doing as well. My tank is low or understocked so I add larger amounts of food to boost the tank on occasion. Sounds weird but works, I need more fish. Having a planted tank causes its own problems though.

I have added a large plec without a problem and lowered feeding for a few days and built it up gradually. This was with an established tank with fish already in. I have done fishless cycle and borrowed media from another filter and only run it for 3 days before moving fish over and was fine.

Any large increase in waste production, doesn't have to be a plec, will affect the tank. I think you should be ok if you stop feeding as much for a while.

Leaving a potato too long in my tank knacked it up far more than any fish being added.

I do remember your family member with the dementia now who was using the fish lights to check the inhaler was working, not good. Shame your fish didn't have asthma.

Hope you sort your tank out.

 

[Lornek8]

Good advice thus far. As far as getting ammonia from new fish it all depends how you cycle. The bacteria will only establish a colony large enough to handlethe ammonia present. Thus if you aren't adding ammonia chances are that the bacteria level would be rather low and you'd get ammonia. However as Jesse said, if you add a fixed amount of ammonia daily then you could set the level of bacteria in the filters. For instance if you add say 4ppm of ammOnia daily, then your established filters would be able to handle 4ppm. It's unclear exactly what level of waste the phantoms would produce but 4ppm is pretty high.

 

[zeebo]

thanks guys, seems since the tank has cycled itself, the filters wold not be seeded enough , so i guess i should add begin to build it up . Thanks

Georgie

 

[Brengun]

You could try tossing in some cheap shrimp to see if everything is ok now in the tank. If they start flicking, do not add any fish.

 

[jessonthenet]

You could try tossing in some cheap shrimp to see if everything is ok now in the tank. If they start flicking, do not add any fish.

lol, that is pretty cruel. Why not add some guppies instead, they are cheap. If they do belly rolls don't add any other fish.