I screwed up again (also rice fish are TOUGH)

[CT_]

I found another dead rice fish and thought "oh no not ammonia again!"  I'm doing a 1/3 water change 2x/week now (50ish fry in about 15g muck bucket) which i thought was plenty.  I checked levels and it was 0 or at least below 0.25.  Then I dipped the coop test strip in, which I hadn't used because i thought it wouldn't cycle that fast (though I did throw in a decent mass of plants.).  The nitrate/nitrite pads immediately tuned pink.  nitrite was off the charts(>10) and nitrate was at 100ppm.

 

So don't make my mistake and test your water in new setups!  I think the root of my problem (ignoring my wilful ignorance of parameters) is I was using the co-op auto feeder and was feeding too much.  The opening has a bunch of detents to control the size of the opening, but the door wobbles a bit.  I'm sure it doesn't matter for larger feedings but the first notch has wobble in it that effects how much is fed by probably a factor of 3 or 4 (when using easy fry food).  The workaround I just found today is to open the door wider but then close it down into a square shape with tape. 

 

Another lesson I learned is that the food clumps and gets stuck on the leaves of floaters (in this case broad leaf water sprite).  I'm sure uneaten food stuck to leaves also played a big role since none of that protein went into fish and it all became nitrogen.  I've now weighed down all my plants.

 

For fun here's a photo of my muck bucket from an earlier post:

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I feel like QT/grow out tanks/tubs etc are one of the harder aspects of fish keeping as we are all told to cycle the tank BEFORE adding fish. In these cases we hope that whatever media we put in is enough to at least keep the fish alive!!!

[lefty o]

its hard to learn if you dont make mistakes now and then.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’d double up on your floaters to sop up those nitrogenous wastes. Ricefish are pretty tough but can’t deal with nitrite- never had an issue with a bit of nitrate. 

[CT_]

On 11/8/2021 at 10:49 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

I’d double up on your floaters to sop up those nitrogenous wastes. Ricefish are pretty tough but can’t deal with nitrite- never had an issue with a bit of nitrate. 

I also just threw in a pothos, which I hope will help a lot too.

[CalmedByFish]

Approximately a zillion more pothos couldn't hurt. Maybe an entire oak tree. 😂

Pretty impressive how many survived that. They really are tough!

[Guppysnail]

Thank you for sharing what you learn. I don’t do tubs but my fry grow out tanks I stir the floaters as I have learned that same lesson. I also find fry food of any type fouls water much quicker because so much is missed by the fry.