The Puffer Forum

Hi guys im in the midst of cycling my new tank about 13 days in now using some tiger barbs..(14 to be exact) with stress zyme booster

The water parameters are

Ammonia 4ppm
Nitrite >5ppm (Very dark purple)
Nitrate 10ppm

My barbs seem to be doing really really well though, swimming all over the place. I Just need some advice onto whther i should cut down the number of tiger barbs to hopefully hasten the cycling process, or should i just wait it out?

I know that i shdnt have added so many barbs at one time but i wasnt aware of the slow stocking practice at that time I also tried planting my tank during e cycling process with some ADA soil, could that have increased my ammonia content?

My cycle is kinda messed up now, so i m kinda in a fix now..

Thanks for readingz

StressZyme doesn't work.

When cycling with fish, you need to do water changes to keep ammonia and nitrite below .25ppm. Do a massive water change ASAP.

+1 do a water change and use prime declorinator if you have it. I'm not going to gripe at you too much for using the fish to cycle the tank since I believe it is your choice weather or not to do so. However I would like to tell you that the fishless cycling process is much quicker/more humane than using fish. (library/water-filtration/fishless-cycling/)

I would also recommend dosing your aquarium with some Prime to alleviate the stress from the ammonia burns. It'll convert the ammonia to ammonium which your beneficial bacterial will still consume as a source of food. High dosages of Prime is also known to alleviate some nitrite problems, but chemically, I do not understand how this works.

Also, if your tiger barbs can handle aquarium salt, I would buy some and add it into your aquarium to alleviate any further issues with nitrites. Your tank should still cycle properly after this. Good luck.

Okay for now im gonna perform daily WCs to maintain my ammonia and nitrite levels at around 0.25 ppm. Will continue monitoring from here...

IMO, if you say you can return some of the barbs, then please return ALL of them. Cycling with any fish is cruel, causing their gills, eyes & skin to burn, possibly causing irreparable damage to them. Then look up the fishless cycling article in our Library.

+1 to Pufferpunk' s comments.