Cycling Fish Are Dead

[steviep1982]

Alright, here is the deal. I started a 55 gallon salt water tank on the 14th. I used "spheres" or whatever they are called instead of sand. I mixed my water to an appropriate salt level and measured it with my hydrometer, it was within the acceptable range. I heated the tank to 79 degrees. My test kit that I bought all brought me within the safe range. I let the tank run until wednesday and added two blue dammzels. They ate, they swam after a few hours of getting used to the tank. One died this morning, after 4 days in the tank. What don't I understand about the cycling process with fish. I also had plenty of vertical oxygen and such, that should not have been a problem.

Thanks for the help,

Steve

[emc7]

There are several articles here in forums about cycling, just search. The short version: fish waste + uneaten food = ammonia. lots of Ammonia = dead fish. Ammonia + certain bacteria = nitrite. high Nitrite = dead fish. Nitrite + other bacteria = nitrate. The cycling process is all about getting a colony of each kind of bacteria of sufficient size to turn all the fish waste into nitrate. The trick is to have enough ammonia to feed the bacteria, but not enough to kill your fish. You need to test the ammonia and nitrite every day until they read zero again (naturally, the waters fine before you add fish, you need to see the readings go up and then down). You can speed up the process by adding bio-spira or stablity or stuff (filter media or gravel) from an established tank. There are things you can add to remove ammonia or to make ammonia less toxic to your fish (i.e. Prime). In freshwater, the easiest way to reduce the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels is to change water. I suggest you repost in the saltwater forum for other suggestions like nitrate absorbing substrate. What most people miss about cycling is that it can take up to 8 weeks to totally cycle a new tank. The only way to know for sure is to keep testing the water.

Once a tank is fully cycled, you only need to watch for nitrate, because the waste to ammonia to nitrite to nitrate process happens so quickly you won't see a measurable level of the intermediate products. However, when you add more fish to a fully cycled tank, you will have a "mini-cycle", in other works a spike of ammonia, followed by nitrite as the bacteria colonies multiple to catch up to the new load. The time should be much shorter than starting from scratch, but it's recommended to add fish only 1 or 2 at at time so that the ammonia peaks at a low enough level for the fish to survive.

Test your water and post the results along with specific questions and you are sure to get a lot answers from this forum.

[Fishfirst]

*still pondering what "spheres" are*



okay I'm taking a guess...


Bioballs??? if thats the case... they aren't doing squat. You need a wet dry filter for those to really be effective, and they definately shouldn't be on the bottom of your tank.