Cycling Issue

[Goes to 11!]

What were the parameters before the WC?

I get the impression you didn't check beforehand & I am not quite clear why you are changing the water without knowing this as you are cycling with fish atm IIRC.

[fishywish]

What were the parameters before the WC?

I get the impression you didn't check beforehand & I am not quite clear why you are changing the water without knowing this as you are cycling with fish atm IIRC.

Ammonia this morning was at 2, nirites and nitrates at 0....Sorry...I don't know what "atm IIRC" means....
I am not purposely cycling with fish...my tank was established until my filter broke 2 months ago...

[Cliff]

You are not changing enough water. You need to base the size of the water change on the ammonia or nitrtie levels to keep them below 0.5ppm (0.25ppm is best)

If your level was at 2ppm, you should be changing 80 to 90% of the water to get it under 0.5ppm

This is just like cycling with fish

[Goes to 11!]

RE: Cycling with fish - I understand it's not intentional, It IS what it is though.

ATM = At The Moment // IIRC = If I Recall Correctly.

Wow - Yeah 2ppm Ammonia is not going to be good [As you noticed].
You would need a 75% WC just to bring it to .50 which is the upper limit you want it and .25 is better.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Cliff... And not even for the first time today

[fishywish]

ok....should I do another one tonight? I'm assuming that you can't do all 90% at once?....I have an Aqueon changer so it's pretty easy for me to do :)
Thanks guys!

[Cliff]

Yes, I would suggest another water change very soon (next few hours soon). Test again and base the size of the waterchange on the results

Sometimes poeple will do two 50% water changes a short time apart if they feel a 80 or 90% water change would be too much to do at once

[fishywish]

yea...i think my fish would run out of room if I did it all at once...ok gonna do another one in a few...and add Prime again? Since I've been using the Aqueon, I've just been dosing the entire tank, since I can't treat the water before it goes in....
I'll keep you guys posted..Thank you so much...so glad you guys were around tonight!

[Cermet]

First off, always use the Prime before adding the new tap water to the tank (I am assuming you have standard city water) - you need to passivate the chlorates as they are added to the tank.

From your posts and considering the length of time you are taking to cycle, maybe you should strongly consider an in tank algae scrubber - it will cycle within a week (grow the required algae) and process all the waste ammonia the fish produce and as a side benefit, remove the nitrates and phosphates. While that unit keeps the fish alive and well, keep the bio-filter running and it too, in time, will cycle.

These units are small, easy to keep up (just clean out the algae once a week) and are extremely passive (no materials to add nor bacteria to worry about) and as a benefit, they prevent algae from growing in the tank. I have one and it does exactly what I hoped – keeps my nitrates and phosphates almost at zero.

Can't really lose with this approach and the simplicity is really in its favor. Also, water changes like you are doing must be a pain - this will reduce that to a small change once a week.

[imma24]

yea...i think my fish would run out of room if I did it all at once...ok gonna do another one in a few...and add Prime again? Since I've been using the Aqueon, I've just been dosing the entire tank, since I can't treat the water before it goes in....
I'll keep you guys posted..Thank you so much...so glad you guys were around tonight!

Yup - that's the way most of us do it - put in the water conditioner to treat the entire tank prior to putting in the new water - it works instantly.

+1 with all of the above advice - while cycling, you need to keep a sharp eye on your ammonia and not let it go above .25 - you can do more than 50% at a time - you can do 75% if needed so you don't have to change it so often and then test again after an hour or two to make sure the ammonia is going down.

While cycling, you do want some ammonia in there because that's the food for the bacteria growing.

[Lady Hobbs]

You don't keep changing the water just to change the water. As Cliff wrote, you do your water changes based on your ammonia readings.
You have to have some ammonia present or the tank will not cycle but not so much that it kills the fish. Ammonia reading of .25-.50 should be ok but some fish can not even tolerate that.

Not only does ammonia kill them, continuing levels of ammonia kills them and 2 months is a long time to be fighting ammonia levels.
When you changed your filter, you lost the bacteria in the old filter unless you moved the filter media over to the new filter.