Almost killed all my zebra fry today

Tom Kvitnes · Post by **Tom Kvitnes** » Tue May 10, 2005 7:05 pm

I found out yesterday that it was time for them to get their own little tank.

I filled the tank with water and gravel from the main tank only, put in a filter that has been running in the main tank for over 1 month. Altso used rocks, slate and wood from the main tank.

All seemed just fine, checked temp, PH, NO2, NO3 late last night and it all seemed fine, moved over the fry and everything was happiness.

When i came home this afternoon i checked the values again and found that booth NO2 and NO3 had went skyhigh

Way over dangerous limits, so i moved all the fry back into the main tank again.

But i cant understand what made this happend, since everything i put in was from the main tank and well run in.

Any of you have an idea ?

Regards

Tom

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Tue May 10, 2005 7:16 pm

Could be several things. percentage of plants in the main tank not present in the new one, fish load... it's a living culture that gets affected by the sum of living things in both filters and the tank

I set up a tank for the youngsters just like you did, everything from the main tank, but I felt uneasy about it and left it with only an angel in it too see what happened. And sure enough, it did cycle

I'm just glad I didn't have my babies in there when it did!

I think the "get old filter material and water from an established tank" is merely to easy the cycle... not neccesesarily to eliminate it... I could be wrong though - woldn't be the first time!

Tom Kvitnes · Post by **Tom Kvitnes** » Tue May 10, 2005 8:08 pm

Sounds like a good explanation McEve, but in my mind i was sure that it should work well. But now i know that its not that easy

When it comes to plants, i never use that in my catfish tanks. Because of little light in the tanks the few plants i have used got rotten and died.

Regards

Tom

husky_jim · Post by **husky_jim** » Wed May 11, 2005 12:29 am

Tom Kvitnes wrote:Sounds like a good explanation McEve, but in my mind i was sure that it should work well. But now i know that its not that easy

When it comes to plants, i never use that in my catfish tanks. Because of little light in the tanks the few plants i have used got rotten and died.

Regards

Tom

try next time to use some Ceratophylum Demersum floating.It does not need a lot of lighting and it is the best nitrate eater!

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Fri May 13, 2005 3:23 pm

Sorry to hear about your near miss Tom, luckily you spotted the problem before there were any casualties.

If I remember correctly you have about four eheim filters on your main tank, I presume that it was one of these filters that you moved to the new tank. Sounds like the filter was unable to cope with the increased bioload, hence the increased NO2 and NO3 readings. When the filter was in the main tank it would have been able to support a colony of nitrifyng bacteria that would have been directly proportionate to the amount of available waste. As the filter was in competition with three others the colony would have been relatively small and as you found it was unable to cope with the increased bioload in the new tank. By introducing all the zebras in one go you effectively "shock" loaded the system and caused the filter to appear to cycle.

You can quite easily get around this problem by slowly building up the number of fish in the tank over a period of weeks. This will give the filter sufficient time to compensate for the gradual increase of the bioload.

Regards.

Adam

Des · Post by **Des** » Fri May 13, 2005 6:51 pm

Tom,

Or................ you may want to try adding a bacteria culture e.g. Cycle direct onto the filter media in your filter in your "baby" tank.Take it easy with the feeding, the first few days.

Regards,
Des.