# Setting up my tank problem!



## JoshOohAh (Aug 14, 2010)

Alright so my _smart_ friend told me to initially take my new filter and let it sit in his tank for a couple days so they it can collect some bacteria and start the cycle in my tank when I filled up mine. I then set up my tank and put my filter in and used dechlorinate. A day or 2 later I added some "Big Als Bio-Support" I used the directions given and everything seemed normal. At first the tank was a bit foggy but cleared up either the day I put the Bio Support in or the morning after. Then my _smart _ friend added 1-2 beta fish food pellets to help cycle it. Still everything was fine and this is about a week later it's still is fine. My _smart_ friend once again makes a suggestion and says lets buy a liquid test kit and make sure everything is okay before we find out before it's too late. So I bought the test kit. PH was suitable for the Axolotls I'm getting but the Ammonia is at 2 ppm and apparently it needs to be at 0. My friend tells me "oh don't worry wait 2 days it should be fine it will go down." 3 days later its the exact same. Then he says add another 2 pellets maybe it's not cycling properly. The next day I go check the filter cartridge and it looks like someone took a diarrhea on it (not sarcasm just wet brown stuff). This is the same filter cartridge that came when I bought it and I didn't check it everyday so I'm not sure when it started to look nasty like that. So I buy a pack of new cartridges. He also tells me to remove the toys I bought to put in the tank because the paint could have ammonia on it. So I remove them. Still the ammonia is at 2ppm. The day after this is suggest adding more Bio Support. I added it and the tank for FOGGY!!! He suggests that its just a bacteria bloom and it's normal it should go down soon and I'll notice the ammonia slowly going down. It has been 5 days since then and it has gotten twice as worse each day (fog). At first I could see my back wallpaper still foggy but I could see it, now I can just see barley the 1/4 of the tanks depth. I doubt this can be normal and I was looking for a suggestions. I have been trying to read online but the best I can see is to do a 15% water change every day. I started doing that and I was looking for some help.


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## pat3612 (Jan 29, 2008)

JoshOohAh said:


> Alright so my _smart_ friend told me to initially take my new filter and let it sit in his tank for a couple days so they it can collect some bacteria and start the cycle in my tank when I filled up mine. I then set up my tank and put my filter in and used dechlorinate. A day or 2 later I added some "Big Als Bio-Support" I used the directions given and everything seemed normal. At first the tank was a bit foggy but cleared up either the day I put the Bio Support in or the morning after. Then my _smart _ friend added 1-2 beta fish food pellets to help cycle it. Still everything was fine and this is about a week later it's still is fine. My _smart_ friend once again makes a suggestion and says lets buy a liquid test kit and make sure everything is okay before we find out before it's too late. So I bought the test kit. PH was suitable for the Axolotls I'm getting but the Ammonia is at 2 ppm and apparently it needs to be at 0. My friend tells me "oh don't worry wait 2 days it should be fine it will go down." 3 days later its the exact same. Then he says add another 2 pellets maybe it's not cycling properly. The next day I go check the filter cartridge and it looks like someone took a diarrhea on it (not sarcasm just wet brown stuff). This is the same filter cartridge that came when I bought it and I didn't check it everyday so I'm not sure when it started to look nasty like that. So I buy a pack of new cartridges. He also tells me to remove the toys I bought to put in the tank because the paint could have ammonia on it. So I remove them. Still the ammonia is at 2ppm. The day after this is suggest adding more Bio Support. I added it and the tank for FOGGY!!! He suggests that its just a bacteria bloom and it's normal it should go down soon and I'll notice the ammonia slowly going down. It has been 5 days since then and it has gotten twice as worse each day (fog). At first I could see my back wallpaper still foggy but I could see it, now I can just see barley the 1/4 of the tanks depth. I doubt this can be normal and I was looking for a suggestions. I have been trying to read online but the best I can see is to do a 15% water change every day. I started doing that and I was looking for some help.


This is what I would do vacum the gravel do have a python or piece of hose will do, take all the water out you do not need food to cycle the tank. Go to your friend house and get some used media from his filter take it and swish around a bit in your tank then add the rest of the media to your filter. give it a day or two to clear and you should be ready to go. Its good you have a test kit. You do not need bio support it does not work and is a waste of money. Thats my opinion never have used the stuff.hope this helps you out. I start all my tanks this way .OH dont forget to add the declorinator. IT could be a bloom but seems to me it would clear by now unless there is a ton of food in there.


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

Yeah, just vacuum out all that crap out of the gravel, and patiently wait for the cycle to finish. DON'T add any "miracle solutions", just wait, it will go down on it's own.

All you should need is Prime for your fresh water changes.


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## pat3612 (Jan 29, 2008)

50seven said:


> Yeah, just vacuum out all that crap out of the gravel, and patiently wait for the cycle to finish. DON'T add any "miracle solutions", just wait, it will go down on it's own.
> 
> All you should need is Prime for your fresh water changes.


  Its been 5 days and its still getting worse if you dont want to start over I would at least do a 50% water change there is not much good bacteria in the water anyways.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

pat3612 said:


> Its been 5 days and its still getting worse if you dont want to start over I would at least do a 50% water change there is not much good bacteria in the water anyways.


Oh boy, well, your friend is pretty smart. He seems to know a bit about cycling a tank. The only exception is the food thingy. I don't know why people keep doing that and this advice always ends up with a beginner completely lost with a stalled cycle.
Here's the whys:
The idea behind using food is to create ammonia when it rot. This in turn will feed the ammonia eating bacteria and hence start your cycle. Fish flakes would have been a preferable option; even if it was the wrong path from the start. Pellets will take some time to start to decay, so the first few times may produce nothing, this cause people to put more in. Then finally, the first batch of food starts to release ammonia when they rot. Now you have a few more batch that's waiting in the queue. This usually ends up with what you have right now. Which is a complete mess. And that's where in lies the problem with using food to start a cycle. You can't control the amount and time of when the ammonia is release. This is because it depends on the temperature of your tank and also a bit on how sanitized was your tank when you started.
And that's why there is stuff like biosupport. It's a form of ammonia generating stuff. It's properties is very similar to urine. em ... "just so you know, you could have pissed in the tank and it would have produce the same effect". So .... ah, don't drink it and wash your hands after you used it.
Anyway, With this stuff, you can control the amount and when. You also don't have to put up with the rotting stage and the stench that comes after. So problem 1, you double dip. You added the biostuff and on top of that, you did the food thingy. Try to stick with one.
As a third option, as suggested by pat3612, exchange a used filter media sponge with your new filter media sponge with your friend. Do the swosh thing and then put that in your filter. It will help jump start your tank and you should be more or less cycle by the end of the week. You don't have to do the food thingy, and you don't even have to waste money on the bio-support. This is because your friend's biomedia (sponge) have all the poops and establish bacteria in the sponge. So your tank is partially cycled. You just need to wait a 3 or 4 days and test the water to make sure it's safe and start adding 1 or 2 fish at a time. Remember, only a few at a time because your tank's bacteria colony is still fragile.
A fourth option is, you could have run your new filter in your friends tank for at least 1 to 2 weeks. Then just bring it over and plug it into your tank and you'll be at the same maybe even better start than the 3rd option. This depends on how long you've leave it running at your friend's tank. This method, does need a bit of juicing in the initial startup. By that, I mean you need to squeze your friend's sponge a into your filter, then start it up in your friends tank.
So now we come to where you are at. You can either press the reset button and start every thing new or you can do the control damage and keep repairing until it's fixed.
Either way, you have to do a major water change to get rid of all that rotting food and biosupport water. Also, you need to take out your activated carbon because it's absorbing all the ammonia and therefore directly compete with your ammonia eating bacteria. Put it back in when your tank is fully cycled. Anyway, activated carbon is only usefull for the first month. After that, when it fully absorb all the chemicals, it's inert and should be remove.
Then pick one of the options above and stick to it. My advice is, stay away from the food thingy method.

Good luck.

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## pat3612 (Jan 29, 2008)

Zebrapl3co said:


> Oh boy, well, your friend is pretty smart. He seems to know a bit about cycling a tank. The only exception is the food thingy. I don't know why people keep doing that and this advice always ends up with a beginner completely lost with a stalled cycle.
> Here's the whys:
> The idea behind using food is to create ammonia when it rot. This in turn will feed the ammonia eating bacteria and hence start your cycle. Fish flakes would have been a preferable option; even if it was the wrong path from the start. Pellets will take some time to start to decay, so the first few times may produce nothing, this cause people to put more in. Then finally, the first batch of food starts to release ammonia when they rot. Now you have a few more batch that's waiting in the queue. This usually ends up with what you have right now. Which is a complete mess. And that's where in lies the problem with using food to start a cycle. You can't control the amount and time of when the ammonia is release. This is because it depends on the temperature of your tank and also a bit on how sanitized was your tank when you started.
> And that's why there is stuff like biosupport. It's a form of ammonia generating stuff. It's properties is very similar to urine. em ... "just so you know, you could have pissed in the tank and it would have produce the same effect". So .... ah, don't drink it and wash your hands after you used it.
> ...


Totally forgot about the carbon never use the stuff unless I have used meds in the tank. If my water is a bit cloudy I just grab a little bottle of stuff from Walmart it works in a few hours.


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## qwerty (Dec 15, 2009)

My first bit of advice is to stop using the carbon. You're free to if you want, but I personally find it to be an expensive PITA unless you're using it for a specific reason.

Your friend was smart running your filter on his tank. What he failed to account for though was that there is no beneficial bacteria in the water column. It's on the surfaces.

So what I would do is take your filter over to your friend, and swap 1 piece of media from his filter with 1 piece of media from your filter and then run both filters on his tank for at least a week.

Just running a filter on an established tank wont do much. It will cycle eventually, but it'll take just as long as any other method. You need a seeding material (one of his sponges, a handful of gravel, a couple stones that are in his tank, whatever) to be in contact with your filter media in order to speed things up.


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