The Big Upgrade

[Mandabear]

Sorry but your tank was not cycled at all. All Cycle contains is dead bacteria, it's junk.
For future reference: library/category/water-filtration/

Is adding ammonia what I failed to do? Did the tank actually start cycling when I added the fish? I have a book on how to cycle a tank, and I thought it was fairly straight forward. . .

[Pufferpunk]

Without seeding the tank with established bacteria & adding some kind of ammonia source to feed it, you cannot create a biological bed to support the waste of a fish, especially a high waste-producing species like a puffer.

[Mandabear]

Without seeding the tank with established bacteria & adding some kind of ammonia source to feed it, you cannot create a biological bed to support the waste of a fish, especially a high waste-producing species like a puffer.

I was ill-advised on the first part of that by my LFS. They STRONGLY recommended that I buy Cycle. But I didn't feed the bacteria, so I'm assuming most of it died off. I'm very upset. I thought I did all of this correctly.

When I had a fish tank before, I had it for several years and everything went really well, but I guess that's because they were mollies and were the ones that actually cycled the aquarium. Thanks for the advice and the reading material, I'm just sorry I made these mistakes.

[Hilly]

Don't beat yourself up too bad you did your best to try and resolve the issues it was just unfortunate it didn't pan out for the best. You are now armed with a lot more useful information so if you do decide in the future you will be far more prepared. Lots of people will have made this mistake, it can be an upsetting mistake but we all have learnt from our mistakes. I wish you well in your future fishkeeping endeavours whenever they may be.

[Mandabear]

Don't beat yourself up too bad you did your best to try and resolve the issues it was just unfortunate it didn't pan out for the best. You are now armed with a lot more useful information so if you do decide in the future you will be far more prepared. Lots of people will have made this mistake, it can be an upsetting mistake but we all have learnt from our mistakes. I wish you well in your future fishkeeping endeavours whenever they may be.

I just don't feel good about making a mistake that cost the life of another living thing. But thank you. I will definitely learn from this.

[Pufferpunk]

I don't know of anyone who hasn't made that mistake, including myself. Now you know better.

[Mandabear]

I don't know of anyone who hasn't made that mistake, including myself. Now you know better.

Yes, I do. And now that I know how to correctly cycle an aquarium (and i have a decent size one) I think I'm going to convert it back to freshwater and keep a community of small fish. I will definitely have a puffer fish again in the future though. They are awesome.