Our Cichlids - their short tragic history

I'm sorry to hear of your tragic start into cichlid keeping. Bio-spira is a
great product and has saved many people starting new tanks. Where it does add
the bacteria to start a colony, it doesn't perform miracles. Even in a fully
cycled tank, which your tank was not yet fully cycled, adding too many fish at
once can cause ammonia and nitrites to spike. Other things that may have
affected your fish in addition to the deadly ammonia and nitrites may be pH
levels, abrupt changes in water temp, etc. Although you don't mention the size
of your new tank, it sounds like it's a smaller tank. Small tanks are very
difficult to maintain water parameters in. They're easily overloaded and any
changes to the water could drastically change the parameters of the entire tank.
I could top off one of my larger tanks with a gallon of ice cold water from the
tap and the temperature won't drop in the tank more than a degree. Do this in a
ten gallon tank, and you may drop the temperature ten degrees.
To make suggestions to avoid this type of disappointment in the future,
we'll need to know what size the tank, what type of filtration, and heating the
tank has and what the parameters of your water is out of the tap.
I hope you're not too discouraged.
AmateurCichlids
www.amateurcichlids.com

Welcome to the hobby... Great advice is shared here... Cycling chemicals,
as pointed help a little, but they are the the greatest wonder.. I suggest,
to everyone, get the largest tank you can, water parameters stay very
consistant, and with that thier are no suprises, like a sudden re cycle
stressing out the fish and killing them off.. I am going to suggest what
also has been suggested.. Read as much material you can, as this will help
with your success in keeping, raising and enjoying the hobby. Sometimes this
seems over whelming at first when you start to do some reading ( almost like
getting a biology/science degree ). Fortuanatly now there is a lot of
information out there, and a lot of good informitive web sites.. I like the
thekrib.com ... It has a lot of resources pertaining to fish keeping, tank
cycling etc... Its a larger site and can be boring at times, but
informitive..

Happy fish keeping...

Tim...
"Amateur" wrote in message
...
I'm sorry to hear of your tragic start into cichlid keeping. Bio-spira
is a
great product and has saved many people starting new tanks. Where it does
add
the bacteria to start a colony, it doesn't perform miracles. Even in a
fully
cycled tank, which your tank was not yet fully cycled, adding too many
fish at
once can cause ammonia and nitrites to spike. Other things that may have
affected your fish in addition to the deadly ammonia and nitrites may be
pH
levels, abrupt changes in water temp, etc. Although you don't mention the
size
of your new tank, it sounds like it's a smaller tank. Small tanks are very
difficult to maintain water parameters in. They're easily overloaded and
any
changes to the water could drastically change the parameters of the entire
tank.
I could top off one of my larger tanks with a gallon of ice cold water
from the
tap and the temperature won't drop in the tank more than a degree. Do this
in a
ten gallon tank, and you may drop the temperature ten degrees.
To make suggestions to avoid this type of disappointment in the
future,
we'll need to know what size the tank, what type of filtration, and
heating the
tank has and what the parameters of your water is out of the tap.
I hope you're not too discouraged.
AmateurCichlids
www.amateurcichlids.com

"Amateur" wrote in
:

I'm sorry to hear of your tragic start into cichlid keeping.
Bio-spira is a
great product and has saved many people starting new tanks. Where it
does add the bacteria to start a colony, it doesn't perform miracles.
Even in a fully cycled tank, which your tank was not yet fully cycled,
adding too many fish at once can cause ammonia and nitrites to spike.
Other things that may have affected your fish in addition to the
deadly ammonia and nitrites may be pH levels, abrupt changes in water
temp, etc. Although you don't mention the size of your new tank, it
sounds like it's a smaller tank. Small tanks are very difficult to
maintain water parameters in. They're easily overloaded and any
changes to the water could drastically change the parameters of the
entire tank. I could top off one of my larger tanks with a gallon of
ice cold water from the tap and the temperature won't drop in the tank
more than a degree. Do this in a ten gallon tank, and you may drop the
temperature ten degrees.
To make suggestions to avoid this type of disappointment in the
future,
we'll need to know what size the tank, what type of filtration, and
heating the tank has and what the parameters of your water is out of
the tap. I hope you're not too discouraged.
AmateurCichlids
www.amateurcichlids.com



We're not discouraged - as a matter of fact, we're planning on starting a
new 25g tank (the other one is 10g) and ONCE the cycle is complete,
having a cichlids-only tank. Will ask your advice on that later.

As for the 10g - it has a Whisper filter, the regular clip-on heater. The
water is rather hard, slightly acidic. There are plants, and a few
tetras. We moved our betta in now that the cycle is complete.

Thanks