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Old November 10th, 2006, 05:18 PM
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Sneaky Sneaky is offline
Fish Guru - Formerly sneakypete79
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Ladysmith British Columbia
Posts: 536
Hi there,
my concern is that you say you have ammonia and nitrites and
nitrates are neglible.
In a cycled tank, you should always read 0 for ammonia,
0 for nitrItes, and nitrates always over 5ppm - usually they
sit around 20-30ppm in most peoples tanks.

The ammonia could be caused by the fact that youre not
vaccuuming the gravel enough.

A Good water change schedule would be 35% water changed
weekly with 50% of the gravel vaccuumed at that time.

If youre not doing enough water changes, crud, poop,
and mulm can build up in the tank to a level that causes
ammonia spikes, and every time the ammonia spikes,
a fish dies.

Id increase your water changes to once weekly, at least 10%,
with 35-40% being much better. Always alternate sides when
gravel vaccuuming, one time do one side of the tank thoroughly,
the other time do the next side. This will prevent your beneficial
bacteria from being robbed from the tank.

The filter bag should be rinsed in used tank water once monthly,
I usually take a small container, scoop up some tank water,
and then scrub the bag around in it till its as clean as it will
get, and then pop it back in.
You have a bio-wheel, so cleaning the other media will not
damage your cycle.
The problem with carbon is, that it only sucks crud out of the water
for about 1 weeks time. After 2 weeks, it starts releasing the chemicals
its absorbed back into the water column. This is why you want
to rinse it in used tank water regularly.

I think if you improve your cleaning schedule, youll see your
ammonia drop off, and wont lose any more fish.
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