Christopher Lewis wrote:
My girlfriend bought me a 100 litre tank for my birthday a few weeks ago. I
filled it with gravel a few fake plants and water and left the filter and
heater running for a few days.

I then went to my local fish shop and bought some small fish recommended by
them to cycle the tank.

All OK so far right.

Then.... My mother boyfriend turns up at my house after 2 days of the fish
being in the tank with a bag with about another 15 fish in it. They are
gourami's, 2 or three different kinds of mollies, a few red eyed tetra's (i
think thats what they are called), some tiger barbs, some sharks someting or
others (cant remember and i doubt they are real sharks).

So now i am doing a 20% water change every 2 days in an attempt to keep the
ammonia and nitrite levels down. Yesterday ammoina was somewhere between 1
and 1.5 ppm so i did a 40% water change.

Nitrite is about 1.0 ppm at the moment. they have all been in there 2 weeks
now and *seem* OK so far.

Is there anything else i should be doing?

Thanks Guys

Chris

p.s. I'm sure i'm going to enjoy this once i dont have to do water changes
every 2 days!!



Hi Chris,

Check out the following link for advice on cycling:-

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

It will give you some good hints...

Being in the UK a lot of these "miracle" products aren't available to us
but you might try some Nutrafin Cycle and Waste Control....the water
changes will also be helping...take a look at your filtration system -
often the filters sold with these tanks are the minimum for low stocked
tanks - try adding another filter/pump if you can stretch to it...the
suggestion of getting some established filter medium and/or substrate is
a good one - this is how I set up my tanks now but I have the benefit of
being able to "steal" from the tanks that I already own...

Try returning some of the fish...some places will give you credit for
them...MA certainly do...

Good Luck
Gill