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I went to my LFS earlier today to get my water tested. The lady said that my nitrates and amonia were a little high, or high enough that I sohuld do something. My tank has been set up for a little mroe than one week now. I have 4 fish in there that I added 4 days after I started the cycling process. She told me to fix the nitrate and amonia, I would have to do a 1/3 of a tank water change by syphoning it out of the bottom. She said to do a second one again in 1 or 2 days. Im not real experienced with FW but I though that you dont want to do any water changes until your tank is fully cycled? If I should do water changes to fix the problems should I really do two 1/3 of the tank cahnges? It just seems like a lot to me.
Any help would me great thanks

EDIT: Got rid of a lot of stuff since I notice that you've done saltwater before.

No, nothing wrong with doing a water change, it's probably better to keep your fish alive and delay the cycle a bit than to have a tank of dead fish.


[span class="edited"][Edited by Silverlight 2004-08-08 21:50][/span]

I have 4 fish in there that I added 4 days after I started the cycling process

The cycling process didn't start until you provided that tank with ammonia ( those four fish). That being said, I'd get my own test kits for myself instead of relying on lfs employees that give you a vague idea of what to do.

If you're not horribly attached to the fish and can take them back, I would try a fishless cycle. http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquamag/cycle2.html
Then there's not such a worry as there is no fish to kill due to ammonia or nitrite poisoning.

If you decide to stick with the fish cycling, small water changes will delay the completion of the cycling process, but like silverlight said, it's better than a tank full of dead fish.

edit- I just realized that the lfs employee told you that you needed to fix the NITRATES as well. You've had fish in that tank for how many days now...4? You don't have nitrates in that water unless they were already there from the tapwater. I doubt you even have nitrITEs yet. Definitely get your own test kits. Yikes.

[span class="edited"][Edited by jake 2004-08-08 22:01][/span]

Shaz, how familiar are you with the cycle? The FAQ section of this site has a copy of the HTML version of the Usenet FAQ. It doesn't cover fishless cycling, but other than that it's a very useful resource.

It sounds like you aren't really familiar with it - from what I understand there are SW tanks that need nothing but live rock and a protein skimmer, and don't need to cycle at all in the same way as FW tanks. If so, maybe you got nitrites and nitrates confused?

In any case as Jake says it's better to have your own test kits than to rely on the LFS to do your water testing, especially if they tell you things like "the water's fine" or "ammonia's a little high" or "ammonia's very high". Even if your LFS is run by intelligent people, that doesn't make them honest.

The concept for cycling is still the same, just that in SW the source of ammonia for SW are from the dead organism that eventually die off from the live rock in your tank.

Ok thanks guys, I jsut wasnt sure if it was too early or not.

EDITED TO ADD: After i take out the water fro mmy water change, and I am ready to put the new water in, should I let the water 'age' or can I put it in right out of the tap, with some stress coat?

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-08-09 09:47][/span]