Where Is My Tank At Right Now?

[WDE15]

Hello all, 

This is my first post and I'm looking forward to being an active member in the community. I'm a new a fishkeeper and am about 2 months into my aquarium. First off, I want to say that I've done about everything wrong that you could have done up to this point. I currently have 7 neon tetras that have been in the tank for about a month and are doing well and one corydora. I overstocked my tank a couple of weeks ago with about 9 guppies that all met their maker quickly. Now, I am trying to make sure my tank is stabilized before I add anymore fish to this aquarium. Here are the stats on my aquarium. 

Tank Size: 30 Gallons

Filter: Marineland Emperor 280

Ammonia: .25 ppm 

Nitrite: 0 ppm

Nitrate: In between 0 and 5 ppm (Tested with API Master Test Kit)

I unfortunately changed the filter cartridge on my filter after the guppies died. I now realize that was a mistake, because I lost all the beneficial bacteria growing in there. Before this last test, I held off on feeding the fish for 48 hours, hoping that the ammonia would get eaten up. I can't seem to get it down to 0 and am concerned that I'm not really reading any nitrates per my tests. I have done three 50% water changes in the last 36 hours with gravel vaccuming. I lightly fed this morning and am planning on only feeding once a day from now on. I will most likely hold off on feeding tomorrow. 

Does anyone have any advice on where my tank is at in the cycle right now? I really would like to not have to do another massive water change, but that might be what I need to do in order to get the last bit of ammonia out. Hopefully once I get this tank in good shape, I can have more confidence in the next fish I introduce being a successful experience. 

Thank you all for your help and Happy Holidays!

Cheers!

[WDE15]

[Ken Burke]

@WDE15 I’m sure you are gonna get a lot of great advice here.   we’ve all been there, probably will be there again.  

Normally I think the best advice is “things to think about, and questions to ask” but I’ll make an exception.  “Learn to appreciate the anticipation.” The journey is part of the fun.  You know, day dreaming about the tank you are gonna have, or researching new fish and plants.  

I would also have your LFS verify your test results. API test kits are pretty good, but I think they can give some wonky results on the low end of the ammonia.  Then I would think about one of the aquarium starters like the one by Fritz.  

 

[KaitieG]

I think it's a little hard to say where you are in your cycle for sure.  One thing about the API test kit for nitrates is that you have to really smack the bottle around on the counter and shake it until it feels like your arm is going to fall off to break up the crystals inside if you're going to get accurate results.  I learned that when I was trying to start my first tank and kept waiting and waiting and waiting for nitrates to appear.  Finally took a sample to the LFS and was shocked at how vigorously she shook those nitrate bottles.  

I'm certainly not as experienced as a lot of other people here, but I don't think you need to worry about the trace amounts of ammonia given the recent guppy experience and filter change--it sounds pretty normal to me and as long as it drops down in the next week or two and doesn't get a lot higher, you should be totally fine.  A starter like @Ken Burke suggested might really help get things going/recovered, if you can get your hands on one.  It won't hurt anyway!

And you can dose with something like Seachem Prime while you wait for ammonia to go to zero.  Your goal is not to eliminate anything that can turn into ammonia--you're just trying to build up enough bacteria to process the ammonia you're producing.  So, it helps if you can do that slowly--like you saw with adding the whole group of guppies at once, if you add a lot of fish at one time it can cause an ammonia spike until the bacteria catch up, even if your tank is fully cycled..  

That actually makes me think of something else--if you are dosing with something like Prime, just know that you're still going to get ammonia readings because the ammonia is still there--it's just "tied up" for 24-48 hours so that it can't hurt your fish.  

If it helps at all, here's how I added fish to my newly cycled 20 gal because I was really worried about causing a spike--I didn't have any blips:

-Week 1: 3 White clouds

-Week 3: 4 more white clouds

-Week 4: 3 Cory Habrosus (they're little like pygmies)

-Week 6: 3 more of the corys

-About a year later--5 guppies (which quickly turned into a lot more)

Not saying you need the year long gap or anything--I was just trying to decide what I wanted to do.  But the basic plan that worked for me was that I only added a few fish at a time to give everything a chance to adjust.  I made sure my ammonia went to 0 for at least a few days before adding anything new. It definitely gets a lot easier to add things once you have your tank established.  Like, last week I donated about 3 male guppies and replaced them with 12 neons and everything's gone very smoothly there (so far).

If you want guppies you might get things settled and then add a single female or just a pair or something like that--they'll grow the population automatically for you, and the handy thing is that the fry start out super tiny and the amount of bioload they produce grows right along with your biological filter!  

 

[Larrimore]

Another thing I didn't see mentioned.  If you bought all the guppies all at once from the same place, it may not have been your tank at all.  It could be they were sick before you ever added them.  

[howze01]

I feel like the best thing you can do right now is nothing. You’ve made a lot of changes between adding fish (and losing them), water changes and cleaning out the filter very quickly. Sometimes it’s just best to take a breath and let nature do what it knows how to do. Keep an eye on ammonia and feed lightly for a bit and in a week or maybe 2 I think things will have worked themselves out.

[WDE15]

Thank you everyone for your responses! I think my plan of action is going to be to let this play out on its own for the next couple of weeks and then re-evaluate. As you all have mentioned, a lot of change has occurred in a short amount of time. I feel like you can sit here and tinker with stuff forever and get nowhere. I will be picking up some Seachem Prime to make the trace ammonia that is left less toxic for the fish in the meantime. I would expect with light feeding, that the bacteria would be able to handle the ammonia eventually. If things get back to normal, I will be lightly stocking the tank with maybe 3 more Corydoras to go with the one I have now (since they really need a school). I plan on doing light additions into the tank whenever I buy new fish, so I don't overwhelm the tank. 

[PhillipHols]

Search YouTube for “fish in cycle” videos for some aid. You need to complete you cycle and unfortunately with livestock in the tank, your job is significantly more work than if you performed a “fish-less cycle”.

 I would assume you have dosed your tank with a beneficial bacteria starter?

 Prime is good product for dechlorinating your tap water and also neutralizing existing ammonia in the tank. Read dosing instructions on the bottle as the dose will differ from when your simply dechlorinating or trying to squash ammonia.

About a month into my first aquarium, I somehow crashed my cycle so I ended up doing both a fish less and fish in cycle.  After my crash (the position you are currently In) I did roughly a 50% water change EVERY DAY and dosed with prime according to the instructions. It took about 3-4 weeks of this to get my cycle in check and my parameters where they should be. I’m sorry if this is bad news but you will be rewarded when you make it through the trouble. 

As for the API kits, the ammonia and nitrite tests are straight forward. The nitrate kit isn’t as clear. The #2 bottle needs to have its but kicked before it decides to give you an accurate reading. This haunted me eventually as my nitrate levels were slowly on the rise and I was unaware because I wasn’t mean enough to the #2 bottle.  Smash it, pound it, shake it, slam it... whatever it takes. To illustrate this or to see if your beating the bottle enough, test nitrates before AND after a water change. If the results come out to be the same, you need to bully the bottle more. If the results are different and in line with the % of water changed, you have triumphed over the #2 bottle.   

[Ken Burke]

1 hour ago, Larrimore said:

Another thing I didn't see mentioned.  If you bought all the guppies all at once from the same place, it may not have been your tank at all.  It could be they were sick before you ever added them.  

Good put.  
 

if it was your tank, you would have seen an ammonia spike before you water change.  

[WDE15]

8 minutes ago, Ken Burke said:

Good put.  
 

if it was your tank, you would have seen an ammonia spike before you water change.  

I did not have a reliable water testing kit originally. I tested the water from the guppies that passed, prior to water changing and it was about 1.0 ppm ammonia per the API test. That was about 5 days ago. 

[Ken Burke]

4 minutes ago, WDE15 said:

I did not have a reliable water testing kit originally. I tested the water from the guppies that passed, prior to water changing and it was about 1.0 ppm ammonia per the API test. That was about 5 days ago. 

So with 1.0 ppm, you may have had sick fish from lfs, but I lean to ammonia spike.  
 

 I like your chosen course of action.  enjoy the ride.

[Jess]

5 hours ago, howze01 said:

I feel like the best thing you can do right now is nothing

I second this!  My tank has been slowly cycling for a month...there are no fish in it, and I don't plan to add any until the Spring.  There are a lot of live plants and the snails that hitchhiked on them as eggs...  Patience really is a virtue in this hobby.  When I was young, I didn't have any patience, I made change after change, and eventually got frustrated (it actually got worse after the internet became a thing...before that I only had books, so I had to take a more "wait-and-see" approach).  

[ChemBob]

Another thing to check, what are the water parameters from your tap? Some local water has low levels of ammonia, so if you are always checking after a water change, that may be the source of the ammonia. If that is the case, your bacteria should eat it away relatively quickly once you are fully cycled. 

I got tired of messing with the API Master Test Kit and am mostly utilizing test strips at this point. I find them much easier and more repeatable on the nitrate front. May not be as accurate, but it has been working well for me the past couple of months and will show changes in parameters. It has also cut down a 10 to 15 minute task to check all the numbers to about a minute.