Re-Cycling??? HELP HELP HELP

[drawnon]

Let me first warn that this is going to be a long post. If your not into reading, then just stop here. For those of you who don’t mind reading a long winded post, and are willing to help, thank you so very much in advance.
I bought, and setup my first tank ever, in February of 2006.
So, being a complete beginner, I did every thing wrong, I killed some poor fish, and then to make matters worse, got bad advice from some snot nose kids working at pet smart. So after a bunch of sicknesses, (ick, dropsy, pop-eye) and a bunch of research on the internet, I started going down the right path. It cycled and I had only a few minor issues.
Until now… And maybe I was never doing the right thing to begin with after reading a bunch of posts on this forum.
I have a 29 gallon freshwater tank. I have an emperor 280 bio-wheel, and I use a lee’s corner filter. I use that fiber stuff in the lee’s filter with an “algone” (clean water product) bag in it, and in the bio wheel filter I use amo-carb in the refillable plastic filter and a “rite-size e” filter. I’ve been reading about people saying they don’t use carbon unless it’s a new tank, or for removing medication, but the rite-size e filters come with carbon in them, so I’m confused there. The lee’s filter uses an air stone and I also have a big flat air stone.
I have 5 mollys (1 baby and 4 adults, there were 2 babies until the other day. I haven’t had a death in almost a year), 3 small oto cats, 3 black kuhli loaches, and 1 hillstream loach (mislabeled as a butterfly pleco). Also, I am infested with pest snails that were smuggled aboard with 5 live plants I had. I’m down to 1 now, but that happened over the life of this aquarium. It didn’t happen over night or anything.
I do a 25% water change every Friday. I use “aqua safe” to treat the tap water. Every third Friday I clean the gravel, and change the filters and fiber. Every 6th Friday I take the bio wheel apart and clean it out. I put the actual wheel in the water I siphoned out of the tank so it won’t dry out. The water is usually nice and clear for about 5 days then it starts to get grimy looking. I’ve always been so jealous of the pics and videos I see of other freshwater tanks that are so crystal clear and clean looking. My tank never looks like that. “sigh”.
So 4 weeks ago I vacuumed almost all of the gravel. I usually don’t do that, but what was coming out looked black, so I went to town. Then while replacing the water, I poured some over the bio wheel. The next day the water was all white and cloudy. So I assume from what I read, and pieced together from other fish websites, is my bacteria colony died, and the tank is cycling again. I read that the slimy aqua safe can coat the bio wheel and kill the bacteria. I also read that people don’t vacuum their gravel at all. So I’m confused there too.
I haven’t cleaned the gravel or the filter since. I’ve been doing 20% water changes every 3 days and testing the water for ammonia. I ran out of test strips yesterday but its always been within the ideal parameters. The first week of this I used the whole medium sized bottle of cycle (not all at once. I followed the directions on the bottle). I couldn’t find, or now afford the bio-spera I’ve been reading about.
So I’m asking… what the heck? What should I do? I don’t want to lose any fish. I really got attached to these guys. They are cool fish. How much longer until the tank cycles or is that not the problem at all? I could use some good advice please.
thank you in advance.
james

[cocoa_pleco]

you always should do weekly water changes. I think what happened to you was your tank had a mini-cycle to keep up with your waste levels. If the ammonia gets out of hand, do water changes. also, skip the ammo-carb crap. That stuff does ZIP. it just masks the real problem, and only water changes get rid of nitrate and ammonia.

Hope this helps!

[coachfraley]

The forum experts are going to need all of your water parameters. If you don't have a full test kit, you should probably invest in one.

BTW, I think the long post will help them solve your problem. Good luck!

[cocoa_pleco]

The forum experts are going to need all of your water parameters. If you don't have a full test kit, you should probably invest in one.




yep! always have a ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite test kit

[Lady Hobbs]

I don't see how you could be having a mini cycle when the tank has been set up for over a year. If the gravel and decorations were all cleaned in chlorinated water and excessive cleaning done then it would be understandable but you have not done that.

I am using AquaSafe right now myself for the first time and altho I like it well enough, I am finding that after doing my water changes that my water is cloudier than it is using another type of dechlorinator. It takes a full day or two to become completely clear again.

You mention you change your water every week. That's fine but I would up the amount you do to 40-50%.

You also mentioned plants. When you have plants, you need not clean the gravel as plants use this waste as fertilizer. If you want to clean the gravel just suck up what's laying on top and don't dig into the substract IF your tank is planted. If you have only one or two plants, they cleaning where there are no plants would be fine.

I would not use the Algone. Altho it's said to be a good product, I don't know as it should be used for constant use. The product is used to clear algae and some algae is needed to maintain a healthy tank. I would probably not use it unless I had an algae bloom.

Using carbon in your filter is something of personal choice. I believe it helps remove toxins and meds but it's the only time I use it. I just buy floss in a bag and jam it in the back of my filter where those charcoal inserts would go.

Try to think back to when you started having cloudy water and what you changed at that time. Check your plants to see if you have any rotting leaves that need to be removed.

Could you be over-feeding? If you have done no cleaning for a month now, that water should have cleared up again if you had a mini cycle. Something if making this water cloud up for you.

I have to wonder if your tap water has ammonia in it. This is where a test kit comes in very handy. If you have a pet store near you, see if they will test your water (from the tap) and also the water that's been in your tank before your next water change.

For now, I would eliminate the ammo-carb and the AlGone and see if it improves. Possibly these two products used together might be giving you a problem. If your tank is trying to do another cycle and these products are used to block ammonia, then your tank can not finish the mini-cycle it's trying to do.

Don't change your filters at all for now. Let that bacteria grow on them again.

[kimmers318]

Let me first warn that this is going to be a long post. If your not into reading, then just stop here. For those of you who don’t mind reading a long winded post, and are willing to help, thank you so very much in advance.
I bought, and setup my first tank ever, in February of 2006.
So, being a complete beginner, I did every thing wrong, I killed some poor fish, and then to make matters worse, got bad advice from some snot nose kids working at pet smart. So after a bunch of sicknesses, (ick, dropsy, pop-eye) and a bunch of research on the internet, I started going down the right path. It cycled and I had only a few minor issues.

First, don't feel bad about making beginner mistakes it happens to alot of people, especially when they listen to the LFS.

Until now… And maybe I was never doing the right thing to begin with after reading a bunch of posts on this forum.
I have a 29 gallon freshwater tank. I have an emperor 280 bio-wheel, and I use a lee’s corner filter. I use that fiber stuff in the lee’s filter with an “algone” (clean water product) bag in it, and in the bio wheel filter I use amo-carb in the refillable plastic filter and a “rite-size e” filter. I’ve been reading about people saying they don’t use carbon unless it’s a new tank, or for removing medication, but the rite-size e filters come with carbon in them, so I’m confused there. The lee’s filter uses an air stone and I also have a big flat air stone.

I have no idea what "algone" is, never used it so I can't help there. As for carbon, that is as you have seen, a debateable issue. Some do, others don't. I personally do use it, haven't seen any problems with using it, and alot of my filters also have the rite size filters with the carbon in them and I don't worry about removing it.

I have 5 mollys (1 baby and 4 adults, there were 2 babies until the other day. I haven’t had a death in almost a year),

Babies can and do frequently get eaten in an aquarium, are you sure they died, or did they disappear?

3 small oto cats, 3 black kuhli loaches, and 1 hillstream loach (mislabeled as a butterfly pleco). Also, I am infested with pest snails that were smuggled aboard with 5 live plants I had. I’m down to 1 now, but that happened over the life of this aquarium. It didn’t happen over night or anything.
I do a 25% water change every Friday. I use “aqua safe” to treat the tap water. Every third Friday I clean the gravel, and change the filters and fiber.

When you do a weekly water change, clean your gravel, this helps to get the gunk out of the tank that settles in the bottom. At that time, rinse your filter media in the used tank water and return them to the filters. Media without carbon in it only needs to be replaced when it is in bad shape. The carbon filled stuff should be changed every 4-6 weeks as I have heard that carbon will leech stuff back into the water that it took out if it gets old. Another tip when you have multiple types of media is to only replace part at a time as your bacteria lives mostly in filter media, gravel and decor. This way you are not removing too much bacteria at once and your tank can easily make up for it.
Every 6th Friday I take the bio wheel apart and clean it out.
You never need to clean a bio wheel unless it gets so nasty it can't turn, and I have not yet seen that. The bio wheel cultures mega amounts of bacteria and if you clean it, you lose it. Out of 11 tanks, each one that came with a bio wheel had the same directions, don't clean it unless necessary.
I put the actual wheel in the water I siphoned out of the tank so it won’t dry out. The water is usually nice and clear for about 5 days then it starts to get grimy looking. I’ve always been so jealous of the pics and videos I see of other freshwater tanks that are so crystal clear and clean looking. My tank never looks like that. “sigh”.
So 4 weeks ago I vacuumed almost all of the gravel. I usually don’t do that, but what was coming out looked black, so I went to town. Then while replacing the water, I poured some over the bio wheel.
Pouring water over the bio wheel might have rinsed some of the gunk into the tank.
The next day the water was all white and cloudy. So I assume from what I read, and pieced together from other fish websites, is my bacteria colony died, and the tank is cycling again. I read that the slimy aqua safe can coat the bio wheel and kill the bacteria. I also read that people don’t vacuum their gravel at all. So I’m confused there too.
I have no idea if aqua safe can coat the bio wheel and kill the bacteria, do some research on that. It is not a product I have ever used, have always had good results with Stress Coat. I use Prime in my shrimp tank though since there seems to be some Q as to the shrimp not doing well with Stress Coat. As for vacuuming the gravel, that is a must, otherwise how would you get the uneaten food bits and poo out of there???? Haven't yet heard of a fish that eats up poo, although alot will look around for the old food.
I haven’t cleaned the gravel or the filter since. I’ve been doing 20% water changes every 3 days and testing the water for ammonia. I ran out of test strips yesterday but its always been within the ideal parameters. The first week of this I used the whole medium sized bottle of cycle (not all at once. I followed the directions on the bottle). I couldn’t find, or now afford the bio-spera I’ve been reading about.
What exactly do you mean by "always been within the ideal parameters"? Ideal parameters for ammonia and nitrite are ZERO, there is no range. Some fish can tolerate slight spikes in both, but in the long term it is not a good idea. Nitrate should ideally be kept below 20ppm, hardier fish can tolerate up to 40ppm regularly. This is another area where hobbyists disagree, but if you do a weekly water change with gravel vac, rinse filter media in used water, leave your bio wheel alone you should be fine unless you are grossly over stocked or have seriously messy fish.
As for Cycle.....there is some debate on that one also. Some people use it and have good results, others consider it crap. I have used it, and seemed to have good results, but I don't know if that could have been the fact that I had a LARGE tank, with SMALL fish, and the cycling process was sped up by the fact that I transferred all of my decor from old tank in to new tank or if it was actually the cycle. I have tried it on other tanks that had "issues" and it didn't seem to do anything, so who knows. I wouldn't depend on it to get you thru the cycling process. Bacteria cultures are live, the chances that they lived sitting in a bottle on a shelf for an unknown amount of time are slim to none. The biospira that you spoke of is kept refridgerated from start to finish which keeps the bacteria in a suspended living and when you open it you actually do have live bacteria in it which can help your tank. That of course depends on whether it has been kept at the proper temperature the entire time it was being made, shipped and sold. Beware, I have seen that PetCo is now keeping the Cycle in their fridge, probably to make people think it is similar to Biospira.
So I’m asking… what the heck? What should I do? I don’t want to lose any fish. I really got attached to these guys. They are cool fish. How much longer until the tank cycles or is that not the problem at all? I could use some good advice please.

thank you in advance.
james

Get your test kit as advised, so you can keep an eye on things as you go forward. If you see any spikes in ammonia or nitrite over the next couple of weeks, just do water changes to dilute the toxins, don't touch the filter or gravel until things settle back down. Once you are back on track with your cycle follow a weekly water change schedule, vacuuming the gravel, rinsing the filter media ets.
I hope that helps, and keep us posted on how things go.

[drawnon]

thank you everybody for your ideas and suggestions. this is a very informative forum. you all do a great service. keep it up.
james

[Lady Hobbs]

It's really hard for us to know what's going on without those water tests. Knowing for sure if you're going thru a mini-cycle or if your water is just dirty or your filter isn't doing a good job is a quessing game at this point.

What makes me almost think it isn't a mini-cycle is that your wrote your tank is pretty clear for 4 or 5 days. Generally with a mini-cycle, the water will cloud back up very soon....in hours. But again, since you have the ammo-chips, it may just be taking it longer for you.

I definately would have that water tested and then you'll know for sure but have it tested after removing the ammo-chips after a few days.

Good luck. Hope all works out well for you.

[kenyth]

I'm going to go out on a limb here with a theory. You have inadequate biological filtration. The "cloudy" water problems I've seen had a tank with a minimum capacity power filter as the sole filtration device. Every time an event had an impact on the bacterial colonies in the power filter, there would be a spike in ammonia and a bacterial bloom in the tank to compensate.

I'm once again going to tout the UG filter as a solution to the problem. They help keep your water clean by giving you a huge area for the bacterial colonies and redundancy for your power filter.

[drawnon]

so i got a new test kit today.
.25 ammonia
20 nitrate
0 nitrite
50 total hardness
0 total alkalinity
6.4 ph

my ph is down from 7 i notice. since my first post on sunday, i have done 2 water changes, a 50% and a 20 %. i have removed most of the carbon, and have done nothing with the filters or gravel. its been about 3 and a half weeks since this creepy white water came to visit. am i going through a long re-cycle or do i have a bigger problem.
any ideas anyone?
thanks
james

[kenyth]

so i got a new test kit today.
.25 ammonia
20 nitrate
0 nitrite
50 total hardness
0 total alkalinity
6.4 ph

my ph is down from 7 i notice. since my first post on sunday, i have done 2 water changes, a 50% and a 20 %. i have removed most of the carbon, and have done nothing with the filters or gravel. its been about 3 and a half weeks since this creepy white water came to visit. am i going through a long re-cycle or do i have a bigger problem.
any ideas anyone?
thanks
james

The continued ammonia spike is a bad sign. Are you sure there's nothing dead and rotting in the tank? Either that or, as I said before, you have inadequate biological filtration.