Help me with my tank!!!!?

Question

I have a 14 gallon tank, I have 3 platies and a small algae eater left. Yesterday my ammonia level was off the charts. I came home and did a 65% water change per LFS. It dropped down to a 1.0. Today I changed out 3 gallons about 20%. It looks like it is between a 1.0 and a .5 and my nitrite level is .25. So my ammonia seems to be coming down and nitrite is going up so that means my tank is cycling. What should I do? Should I wait until tomorrow and change more. My fish that I have left seem to be doing fine. I have only fed my fish once today and once yesterday a very little amount.

Answer 1

You can very well keep doing your water changes.  It is a little odd that at 2 months time, you'd still see ammonia in the water.  What kind of filter do you have going in this tank, and were you cleaning out the filter?

You can and you SHOULD do at least weekly changes.  The fact about your water chemistry is this.  If your tap water is THAT much different then your tank water, something very drastic is going on in your tank.  Your PH and your hardness shouldn't be that far out of range with your tank water, unless again as I said, something really off is going on in your tank, so don't use water chemistry issues to avoid doing weekly changes.  Just try to avoid changes more then 50%.  I generally stick with 40-50% on a weekly basis.  My African cichlids have been breeding well over a year now because of that, and I'm sure they'd send a thank you card if they could.

About the only difference you might have to think about between your tap an tank water is temperature, but again, if you keep under 50%, you shouldn't alter that drastically either unless you use extremely hot or cold water.

Yes, by the looks of those results, you're still in cycle.  Why you are still showing ammonia at 8 weeks is very unusual, and the only reason I can think why is maybe you are cleaning out your mechanical portion of your filter, and thus wiping out your bacteria, but not all.  You probably would have just enough bacteria to oxidize a small amount of ammonia, and thus why you see nitrite.  That's all I can think of.  What kind of filter you have might explain this too.

Answer 2

I don't know about the ammonia and that stuff but I really want to tell someone with a bottom feeder a really cool tip. Take a half pinch of tropical fish food and add water to it. Mold it into a sphere. Put it under a powerful light and let it dry. It will be dry and half the size. Drop it in the tank and your bottom feeder will go crazy for it. My cory loves when I put them in (every other day). Good luck!

Answer 3

first of all i do not recommend doing over a 20% water change.  Changing that much water can change your other levels like crazy.  That might be the cause of your high nitrate level.  I would just wait until tomorrow and do another 20% water change.  How long has your tank been set up?  If it is between 2-3 months, then this is perfectly normal.

Answer 4

Do not change that much at one time do Some slowly once a day Very slowly until it clears up if you take to much out/put to much in it will Make it worse

Answer 5

I had the same problem.

U need to do a 20% water change every 2 days.

It will slowly lower the nitrite.

Feed the fish every few days a small amount.. and dont change or clean the filters.

Ask at ur local store for more advice.