[MissBec]

I have 1 siamese and 1 molly in 20 litre tank. I had already cycled my tank before adding them. Since I had added them into tank all the water level had spike again I have done water change but still I have no luck I also have added ammonia lock which has lowered the ph level but has dramatically spiked.

I have had 1 fish pass away already and I have had them for 4 day now...

What should I do? Keep doing water change? Should I do vacuum clean?There is all lot of green algae growing in my tank. I know my tank is small for my molly but I have been looking at purchasing bigger tank. I have 1 nitrate snails in my tank at the moment.

Ammonia 4 -8ppm
Ph 7.6 darker
Nitrite 0.25ppm
Nitrate 10ppm

I think my betta has got ammonia burn what should I do? I'm scared that I am going to lose them. Could it be my filter.

 

[lilnaugrim]

Oh your poor fish :-(

How long did you cycle your tank prior and what method did you use? ie. Fish-Less with Shrimp/fish food/ammonia, fish-in or did you use any cycling products?

With ammonia burns you can use a bath of Methylene Blue to help, you would do it in another small container like a 3.4 liter (1 gallon) or anything smaller will be fine as long as it's not smaller than 1 liter ideally; just makes dosing easier if you use around 1 gallons. It's good for treating both ammonia and nitrite burns.

What kind of filter do you have in the tank? I think that's enough questions for now, it's okay if you can't answer some just do your best ^_^

 

[MissBec]

It aqua one 101f maxi, I used fish food and it took about month for my tank yo cycled. Should I keep doing water changes?

 

[lilnaugrim]

Yeah, keep doing daily water changes if you can, if not every other day.

Can you test your tap water for pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate?

Did you add the fish all at the same time? Or gradually over a few weeks?

 

[BWG]

Sorry MissBec, but based on your post http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/beginner-freshwater-aquarium/ammonia-wont-go-down-need-advice-362233/page3/#post4124018 it doesn't seem like you were done fishless cycling. You were getting there but not done yet. Fishless cycling is done when your aquarium can convert 4 ppm of ammonia to nitrates in 24 hours.

First thing, absolutely no more fish. 20 liters is about 5 gallons. That's enough for a Betta and a snail, but not anything else. I know you said you're planning a bigger tank, but we have to deal with things right now first. That's just too much bioload.

lilnaugrim gave good advice with keeping up the water changes. Make sure that when you do you are using a dechlorinator that will lock the ammonia. This will be safer for the fish, but will give you a false high reading. That's ok. Fishless cycling takes work, but it's not the end of the world and people on here can help you through it.

One other thing, not sure if you have plants, but they will help. Floating plants especially since they will grow quickly even with stock lighting since they are so close to it.

 

[MissBec]

I thought I did completed the fish cycled... no one responded to my post so I talked to this guy at the pet shop he said it did cycled, I have been talking to guy for about month and half. I was alway in and out of the shop now I know not to trust him!!!!

How long will it take my tank to cycled while I have fish? What if I added another filter in my tank? Or would that be overload ?

I added all this fish at the same time

 

[BWG]

Adding a second filter will give bacteria more places to grow, but will not increase bacteria. I'm going to be honest and say I've never had a tank that small. I almost wonder if a second filter would create too much current for you. I'd personally pass, especially since you should get the molly into a bigger tank at the first opportunity you get. They get much too big to be in something so small. Since the goal is hopefully to move it you shouldn't be worried about additional bioload.

I can't say how long it will take. You have a start, so hopefully not too long. I would also stop feeding the fish for a while so you can get the ammonia back under control. BTW I said you should use a dechlorinator that locks ammonia, that is unnecessary since that is what your Ammonia-Lock is doing. Your test is reading high because of it, otherwise at those levels your fish would be dead already. Keep using that and keep doing water changes.

 

[MissBec]

What type of floating plant i should get? Also Can plant cause ammonia?

I feed the fish twice a day should I cut back? Betta seems to have big apetite she alway eats the Molly food. How many day should I stop feeding them or should I cut back to feedibg to once a day?
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[lilnaugrim]

I recommend Water Wisteria or Anacharis for good ammonia soaking plants. Basically the faster the plant grows, the more it soaks up excess ammonia and other nutrients; this also helps keep algae away too if you have enough plants.

Were you bringing samples to the store to get tested or just talking to the guy? He might know his stuff but just didn't know your situation is all. Each tank is different in some ways depending on if you've got live plants or not or how your water is straight from tap. Generally it does take a month so he was most likely guessing that it was cycled, I wouldn't hold it against him really but politely inform him is all. You know when your tank is cycled when both ammonia and nitrite are reading zero, nitrates will be high but you'll do a large water change to decrease them and them test the next day and both ammonia/nitrite again should be zero and nitrates will be mostly acceptable range. If ammonia/nitrite are NOT zero then the tank is not finished cycling yet. Generally we recommend testing for a whole week just to be completely certain that the tank is cycled and ready for fish.

You can fast the fish for around a week right now just to really get that ammonia under control, it won't hurt them at all. And then you can do once daily feedings afterwards and then go back to your twice daily if you so wish to. What foods are you feeding them? Higher quality food won't foul the water as much, is why I ask. If you do want to feed them make sure there are absolutely no leftovers!

 

[BWG]

For floating plants I'm personally a fan of Amazon frogbit, dwarf water lettuce, and wisteria. Red root floater is also nice. I've never had success with watersprite. Rotala rotundifolia was a nice easy to keep stem that may or may not work since I don't know your lighting situation. I'm not sure what plants are available in Australia, but any floater should work for you. I consider duckweed a nuisance, but have to admit it grows quickly. You'll just never get rid of it

lilnaugrim is right again. If you told the guy at the fish store that you had zero ammonia and nitrites and were showing nitrates he would assume you had cycled. Which is right. I just prefer to see more bacteria built up from the start to avoid situations like this. I'm also leery of using food or shrimp to try and fishless cycle. My preference is pure ammonia since it is much easier to know how much ammonia you are adding. I didn't relize when I was trying to help you before that you were using food. That was likely why your ammonia was so high. My fault for not finding out and I'm sorry.

Not going to repeat the rest of what lilnaugrim said. I personally only ever feed once a day and also fast once a week.

 

[lilnaugrim]

Really? Oh geeze, my water sprite takes over EVERYTHING when I add it to any tanks! I routinely have to trim off the babies and either throw them away, sell them or throw them in an extra tank if I actually happen to have any lol

I agree with the duckweed, once you have it you'll never get rid of it! So just be mindful of that, it also blocks out the light for plants under it if you happen to have other ones. If you just have fake plants under them it could be okay but I'd still definitely go with one of ones that BWG posted for sure!

I also only feed once a day and fast 2-3 days in a row just because I'm not at home for those days but the fish don't mind they can easily live months without food, of course it's not terribly healthy for them to do so but it is possible!

 

[MissBec]

It's okay BWG, I did got my water tested at the shop every thing was zero except for nitrate which was 10ppm then they told me it that my tank was cycled.

I will go and purchase some plant tonight I tested my tap water everything it was 0 and ph was 6.8. Is it common for molly to eat baby snail? i watch him yesterday morning and he ate a few. I can't seem to find any baby snails at the moment in my tank.

 

[lilnaugrim]

Yeah, that's pretty common. I had a sorority who wiped out my snail infestation in just a few hours lol How many snails are in the tank/what kind? They also contribute highly to the bio-load so that could also be an issue.

As for the levels getting to zero, that's great but as I said, we generally like to test for at least a week after the initial test at zero. Sometimes it can be false as yours might have been and you just caught it at a good moment is all. But now you know for the future!

So all you can really do now is just keep up with water changes daily if you can. Don't feed for at least a week so you can get the ammonia under control and then feed sparingly every other day or so. What kind of food do you have and what are the first three ingredients?

Even though it is recommended with Fish-Less cycling to immediately add your fish, it depends on which type you used. With food cycling I find that you don't grow as much bacteria, it is just enough to take care of the food waste but not enough to take care of a molly, a betta and whatever snails you have in there. With using pure ammonia you can increase the ammonia so that the bacteria can handle a larger bioload when the fish are introduced after the cycle is done.

Also, I do agree that Molly's get much too big for a tank that size, they can reach up to 5 inches but generally on average of 3 inches. Regardless of size, Molly's are livebearers and livebearers tend to be rather messy and poop a lot lol. Bettas on the other hand do not poop as much, once a day generally at most sometimes twice but it's not as much and not as often so they have less of a bioload. And then snails, even Nerite snails which poo the least amount of all the freshwater snails, still poo's a lot. Any fish/invert that eats algae will poop a lot, shrimp not as much though.

 

[MissBec]

I did have 10 baby snails but they seem to disappeared and 1 nitrite snail (full grown) in the tank.
The food that I am feeding for my siamsee fish is:
Betta Granules - Aquarium (this is my local brand) , it doesn't say much except for shrimp and fish based protein.

Nutrafin Max flakes - cereal, fish and fish derivaties, molluscs and crustacean

For my molly I had realized he doesn't come up to the surface to eat so i only give 1 small pinch since the Siamese always eats the food and he eats the left overs. He does poop all lot lol.

 

[MissBec]

I just brought regular pink baby tears for my tank. I tested the water before adding them it is, what should i do next??
Ammonia 2ppm - 4ppm
Ph 7.6
nitrite 0.25ppm
Nitrate 20ppm

 

[lilnaugrim]

What kind of lights do you have? Baby Tears generally require high lighting situation and depending on the type, they prefer co2 addition as well.

 

[MissBec]

I have 11 watt... Man I feel like I'm not getting anything right

 

[lilnaugrim]

It's okay, this stuff happens but you learn from it!

Do you know what the Kelvin rating is of the bulb? I assume it might be an Incandescent bulb? Does the light look orange-ish? The Kelvin Rating is the color temperature of the bulb, most incandescent bulbs--well frankly, they suck and aren't good for anything except not growing algae lol. The typical incandescent that comes with a tank is around 2,000 Kelvin. For optimal color temp you want 6,500K or higher to grow plants.

I've personally never seen an incandescent above 4,000K lol but for cost efficiency and a better light you should look for a CFL or Compact Fluorescent Light which won't heat up your water like incandescent's do. Fluorescent's also use less energy which is what your wattage measures so you can easily have a 7-9 watts and be waaaaayyyy more efficient than any Incandescent light!

Hope this helps, let me know if something doesn't make sense.

Also, I found my Mini CFL's at Wal-mart at 6,500K, it was a 3 pack for only 2.88! Pretty cheap and awesome if you ask me ^_^

 

[BWG]

There are three species of baby tears: giant (Hemianthus umbrosom) which are rarely seen here but yeah I have no clue what kind of plants are sold there, regular which is also called pearl grass (Hemianthus glomeratus but usually sold as Hemianthus micranthemoides), and dwarf (Hemianthus callitrichoides). If that's not confusing enough there's a terrestrial plant called the same thing that wouldn't grow underwater.

The regular is easier to keep than the dwarf. I've actually heard of people keeping it in low light/low tech tanks. Dwarf baby tears on the other hand do better with a lot of light and CO2, but then most plants do.

Long winded explanation short. You might be ok.

Oh and yeah I killed watersprite :/ One of my very first plants and something I plan to try again. It never grew at all. The wisteria I added at the same time did enough for both. Going to try my hand to the watersprite again though when I find some.

 

[MissBec]

With the light it compact fluorescent 11 watts, 11 watt ballast, Ac210V50Hz. Oscar Enterprises Inc.
Nominal current: 0.155Amp

I cant see what the kevin rating is but the light is bright white, the shop that i brought the plants from had low light... finger cross

I did tested water this morning, it look all lot better today
Ph 6.8
Ammonia 0.50ppm
Nitrite 0.25ppm
Nitrate 10 - 20ppm

what should i do next?