- Joined
- Jan 4, 2017
- Messages
- 78
- Reaction score
- 32
I can't express the anger I am in right now....the people at my lfs basically told me to leave my tank for 3 weeks before adding fish with live rock. They told me absolutely nothing about the Nitrogen Cycle. After reading more and more on these forums I have learned about the Nitrogen Cycle and the importance of ghost feeding and/or dosing ammonia to trigger the cycle creating the essential bacteria to break down the ammonia into Nitrite which then becomes Nitrate due to the salt in the tank which can be taken out via water changes. I know everything about cycling my tank now and am so mad at myself for simply listening to the people at my lfs telling me all I needed to do is leave my tank for 3 weeks (I left it while on vacation for 2 weeks).
So here is the situation...after telling them I had done as they had said and let my tank sit for 3 weeks they said I could add fish...so thats what I did. I added 2 clownfish and a cleaner shrimp as well as 6 hermit crabs. So now they are in the tank that has not been cycled :/ and here I am 2 days later learning everything about it.
I have been advised by people on reddit to buy some tank cycling bacteria asap which I intend to do as well as 12% water changes every other day and checking ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph every day. ATM, ammonia seems to be at 0-0.25, nitrite at 0, nitrate at around 10 ppm and pH at a low 7.4 (hopefully this goes up with my water change). When I added the fish the pH was at around 8, not sure why it dropped so much
With this plan of attack do you think my fish are still doomed? or do they have a chance? I get attached to stuff so easily so this sucks . At bare minimum, if my fish die, I will know 100% why and will not repeat my mistakes...I will also do a ton more research and preparation before ever adding fish again (talking multiple months). I am so sad rn....I wish the lfs people would at least educate me about this when I told them this is my first tank.......I so hope Simon and Garfunkel make it through . Is it possible to keep fish through a cycle? and what would you recommend I do given my circumstances?
IN CASE YOU WANT A PICTURE OF MY MOST RECENT WATER TEST (THIS IS BEFORE THE WATER CHANGE I AM PREPPING RN): http://imgur.com/a/KjaHA
So here is the situation...after telling them I had done as they had said and let my tank sit for 3 weeks they said I could add fish...so thats what I did. I added 2 clownfish and a cleaner shrimp as well as 6 hermit crabs. So now they are in the tank that has not been cycled :/ and here I am 2 days later learning everything about it.
I have been advised by people on reddit to buy some tank cycling bacteria asap which I intend to do as well as 12% water changes every other day and checking ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph every day. ATM, ammonia seems to be at 0-0.25, nitrite at 0, nitrate at around 10 ppm and pH at a low 7.4 (hopefully this goes up with my water change). When I added the fish the pH was at around 8, not sure why it dropped so much
With this plan of attack do you think my fish are still doomed? or do they have a chance? I get attached to stuff so easily so this sucks . At bare minimum, if my fish die, I will know 100% why and will not repeat my mistakes...I will also do a ton more research and preparation before ever adding fish again (talking multiple months). I am so sad rn....I wish the lfs people would at least educate me about this when I told them this is my first tank.......I so hope Simon and Garfunkel make it through . Is it possible to keep fish through a cycle? and what would you recommend I do given my circumstances?
IN CASE YOU WANT A PICTURE OF MY MOST RECENT WATER TEST (THIS IS BEFORE THE WATER CHANGE I AM PREPPING RN): http://imgur.com/a/KjaHA
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