Hi All... Help With Water Test Results Please

Unfortunately, all these water changes are necessary with a fish-in cycle.....

... hopefully the  test results reflect this 

So, just for instance, lets say you've removed ALL of the Ammonia present in the tank with the latest water change. The fish will be pooing and expelling Ammonia from their gills and uneaten food rotting down and the Ammonia will climb again.

Have a zero reading now is great as it means your fish aren't currently swimming in toxic water.

However it WILL climb again until the cycle is complete.

Just hang in there, I know all these water changes are a pain but they are necessary.

"colombo bactuur" is supposed to be a quick-start to add bacteria to the aquarium.

Sue can give you the history on these products but there are only two products on the market that have the correct formula to help this process and "colombo bactuur" isn't one of them.

Seachem Prime is mainly used as a water conditioner to remove the Chlorine, Chloramine and other heavy metals from tap water before you add it to the aquarium.

Without a water conditioner your tap water may contain these harmful chemicals that can damage the slime-coat of the fish and kill the beneficial bacteria you are trying so hard to encourage.

The other thing that Seachem Prime does (as well as one or two other products too) is to neutralise the Ammonia and Nitrites into a non-toxic form.
The great thing is that even in their neutralised form they are still adequately feeding the bacterial colonies that will complete the cycle.

my filter maintenance says to replace one of the carbon filters, should i stick to the maintenance schedule?

Carbon is basically useless TBH.
Many feel it's there nowadays merely as a way of getting us to keep shelling out on filter cartridge replacements.
You're better of replacing it with foam, or floss or another container of ceramic media or bio-balls.

Hope all that helps.

...
whats causing my ammonia to spike like this? im assuming itll be at 1ppm tomorrow and ill need to do a whole tank flush again!

This is normal. You still don't have enough of the bacteria required to convert the Ammonia to Nitrite.

Fish naturally expel Ammonia in their waste. Decaying, uneaten food is converted to Ammonia.

You are treating your tap water with a conditioner when you do a water change, right? Just checking you're not inadvertantly killing any bacteria you're cultivating.



Unfortunately growing the Ammonia-eating bacteria is the fastest part of the process. It takes a fair bit longer to get the Nitrite-eating bacteria to grow.


I'm afraid, for a good few weeks you're probably going to need to do large water changes daily or every other day.


Something else we haven't mentioned before - do you know anyone locally with an established aquarium?

If you can take a small peice of their filter medium, some foam, borrow an ornament, or even a small handful of gravel (put it in a small bag made from the foot from a pair of ladies tights).
All of these things will carry an amount of the necessary bacteria which, if placed in your tank, would seed your tank with the bacteria and speed up the process.

If you transport anything from the above list, make sure you keep it wet in water from the donor tank before adding to your aquarium.

Of course, you do risk transferring disease, if their tank is carrying anything, so only do this if you trust the fish in the donor tank are healthy.

i tested my tap water for nitrate and it come back 0!

That's very unusual. I find it hard to believe there's 0 Nitrate in your tap water.

I'm not familiar with a kit that uses powder. Mine needs 10 drops of two different compounds, one of which must be shaken vigorously for 30 seconds before adding to 5ml of the subject water. Then the mix needs shaking for 60 seconds!
Lots to get wrong!

my fish seem not as happy today, all the guppies are nipping at each other, and 1 of them is swimming in a corner....

Unfortunately, fish-in cycling is very stressful for your fish (and for the Fishkeeper!) and, it has to be said, deaths are almost an inevitability.

Thise that still practice fish-in cycling tend to use a cheap, hardy species before adding the remaining livestock.

Good luck with it all.

Unlikely the other fish could devour a Guppy in 1 night. Must be hiding somewhere.

I recently lost a Cardinal Tetra, even went so far as buying a replacement to keep the shoal at 12, and it reappeared a few days later. 

Yes you still need to keep up with the water changes.

Prime messes with the ammonia tester - don't take the results as necessarily accurate after dosing the tank with Prime.

Quote from Seachem's website

A Nessler based kit will not read ammonia properly if you are using Prime®... it will look "off scale", sort of a muddy brown (incidentally a Nessler kit will not work with any other products similar to Prime®). A salicylate based kit can be used, but with caution. Under the conditions of a salicylate kit the ammonia-Prime complex will be broken down eventually giving a false reading of ammonia (same as with other products like Prime®), so the key with a salicylate kit is to take the reading right away.

If your ammonia tester turns greener the more ammonia there is, that's a salicylate tester. If it goes shades of brown, that's a Nessler tester.

Thanks Sue, must be a salicylate tester, so I can still use it then? What does it mean by take caution? I take it it just means there's more chance of a false reading?

brilliant, thanks, atleast i can have a couple of days rest from the waterchanges 

Ruby shark, aka rainbow shark, Epalzeorhynchos frenatum

From Seriously Fish (my red highlighting)

A slightly better choice for the community tank than E. bicolor but tankmates must still be chosen with care.

While small specimens tend to hide away much of the time they become increasingly territorial as they grow and can display particularly high levels of aggression towards similar-looking species.

Some individuals may be more belligerent than others and there exist reports of apparent alliances with other species such as Chromobotia macracanthus. We’re unsure if these behavioural differences are indicative of gender but at any rate loaches from the genera Chromobotia, Botia, Syncrossus and Yasuhikotakia do seem to be left in peace by Epalzeorhynchos species whereas congenerics and members of Crossocheilus, Garra and Gyrinocheilus, for example, tend to be attacked constantly. Please note that in terms of the loaches not all may be housed together and proper research is essential.

Other bottom-dwelling fishes including cichlids and most catfish are best avoided as they may too be picked on. For the upper levels choose robust, active, schooling cyprinids. Ideally the Epalzeorhynchos should be the final addition to the tank in order to avoid it claiming ownership of the entire space.

This species probably lives a solitary lifestyle and in nature would probably have only come into contact with others of its own kind infrequently and during the spawning season. These instincts heighten as the fish get older and we therefore recommend it be kept singly in the majority of cases. In a very large tank with lots of cover a cohabitation attempt might be possible but each individual is likely to require a territory with a diameter of at least a metre.

If you want to keep small fish like neons, you need to rehome the ruby shark. But if you want to keep the ruby shark, you need to rehome any fish that it might eat/fight.

I wouldn't trust any fish with shark in the name with small torpedo shaped fish. You might get away with deeper bodied small fish as they'd be harder to eat because of the shape. The deeper bodied tetras tend to be the more aggressive ones which would cope better due to their nature, but they could pick on other tank mates. Look at the photo in the fish profiles of black phantom tetras to see what I mean about body shape - there are a few tetras that shape.
But xrays are torpedo shaped I'm afraid.

The best one to use is Tetra Safe Start. But read the instructions on the pack before you buy. I haven't used it myself but I have read that you aren't supposed to use it when there is anything added to the tank to detoxify ammonia. Or not for a certain time after adding the detoxifier - and that includes Prime. Safe Start isn't guantanteed to work as it will have been damaged if it has been stored incorrectly at any point between manufacture and your tank. But it does contain the right bacteria. Other bottled bacteria products contain the right ammonia eaters but not the right nitrite eaters.