I can't figure out what I am doing wrong with my tank? Please help!!!!?

Question

I have a 55gl freshwater tank. Set it up about 6 months ago. Two weeks after I introdused fish in to the tank I upgrated the filter to the Emperor 400. I went through a lot with this tank. Fish died, bad odor, cloudy water, fish disease, fish discoloration, more cloudy water, more fish died.....(I had 29gl tank before, so I introduced my fish to the new tank).

Anyway, for the last 3 months and a lot of work I see some improvements, but.........

These are the parameters:

55 gl freshwater tank

Filter: Emperor 400 bio-wheel

3 kissing gouramies (2in each)

2 black ruby barbs (1in each)

1 tiger barb (1,5in)

1 pleco (5in)

2 live plants

Temp - 81F

Ammonia - 2.0

Nitrite - 1.0

Nitrate - 20

Ph - 6.0 (or lower)

High range - 7.4 (or lower)

Additional information:

Weekly water changes

No overfeeding (small pinch of flakes and 2 algae discs for pleco once a day)

Please advise me what should I do? I've done a lot of research, but did not find info needed.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Your tank has not finished cycling.  Your water is cloudy because the beneficial bacterial is multiplying trying to keep up with the Ammonia in the tank.

You most likely lost fish to Ammonia poisoning.  It's possible to cycle your tank with the fish in it (that's how we all used to do it), but you will have to be patient, and continually testing the water.

Your goal is to have 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites and less than 40ppm nitrates.

Test the water that you use for your water changes. It's possible that your water source has a high ammonia level.  If that's the problem, then you will have to find a different source, or use a conditioner that will bind up the ammonia.

Try this:

Feed the fish a small pinch of flakes, but stop feeding two algae discs.  Feed 1/2 of a disc, every other day.  Step up your water changes to 10% every day until your ammonia level goes below 1.0, then cut back to a 10% change every week.

This will help keep the ammonia from becoming toxic to your fish, while still allowing colonization of the beneficial bacteria.  Your ammonia and nitrites should drop to 0 within 4 weeks or sooner.

Answer 2

you need to do a 50 percent water change asap

the ammonia and nitriet levels mean your tank is cycling this has been you problem the whole time it takes a month to cycle a tank during this time do not touch the gravel at all

any time the ammonia is above 1.0 do a partial water change this is done for the fish as ammonia kills them if you still have the 29 tank set up and have not washed the gravel siphon some water from the gravel and add it to your new tank crude and all

thake the filter pads and clean them in the new tank this will seed your tank with the needed bacteria the cloudness is a part of the cycle process and will clear up when the tank has finished cycling

if your useing a lot of chemicals to try and balance the tank you doing more harm than good because they tend to mask the problems right now and before your problems have all been because of the tank cycling and you not knowing how to cycle a tank with fish