So I have my feeder tank actively going for a couple of months now. I continue to loose my cycle. I have just lost all my baby guppies and the adults aren't looking good either . More importantly - the pleco - he is pale. I checked my levels again and I have lost the cycle on the tank.

Ammonia 0.25
Nitirite 1.0
Nitrate 40
PH 7.8

This tank does not have substrate but it does have a Tetra Whisper EX70. How important is the substrate in establishing and keeping my cycle?

Brooksie....

P.S. Between this and a very sick dog, I'm pulling my hair out! We need an Emoticon for that!!!!

Brooksie...that just plain sucks! Did you add fry food in the last day or so which could have mucked with your status quo...dunno about the substrate..I haven't got it with my baby O's so that I can get rid of all waste ASAP...I do have it with the guppies though and I am only running a sponge filter in there. To deal with the other waste including uneaten food I have both a bristlenose and a bronze cory who clean the floor and walls and outside of the sponge all day and night for me. Don't know...c what the others say and I really hope your doggie is OK..is that him on your avatar..he looks like a teddy bear. Shaz x

what about this?

I LOVE IT !!!!

Penn...new emoticon please.....call it the "Brooksie having a bad day"

Doing a bit of research, I cannot find where the Tetra Whisper EX70 has a bio-wheel or bio-media. Can you confirm this?

If you don't have biomedia, and you have no gravel/substrate, there is going to be no surface area for bacteria to thrive and colonize.

jcannonb wrote:


DAMN.... you are so right! It has a Bio-Scrubber:

www.tetra-fish.com/sites/TetraFish/media...20Bio%20Scrubber.jpg

Unlike other filters, the Whisper® EX contains multiple layers of progressively denser floss to remove even the smallest particles from the water. The carbon inside eliminates odors, discoloration and, most importantly, harmful toxins. Finally, the BioScrubber® removes ammonia and nitrites that are deadly to your fish.

I made an assumption that it would do the same thing. Did I kill my own fish???

I am sure it is nothing that you did that killed then. No worries there. No need to beat yourself up. If you can, I would get a complimentary HOB filter like an aquaclear or a marineland filter that has some type of biomedia to compliment your existing filter, or add the substrate. You can never have too much filtration (that is my motto anyway)

I would say your guppies died due to ammonia and nitrite in the water, also the nitrate is getting high but guppies should be ok with that.

Having a substrate or not should make no difference when it comes to keeping fish except for certain types of fish (which you dont have)

A sponge filter will do the job of filtering a small tank, the bacteria can live on the sponge

Was the tank cycled before you added the guppies. Also is the filter big enough and do you think you have been overfeeding. It looks to me like you lost your cycle, have you done anything to lose it

dont worry about losing your guppies, keeping fish is a learning curve!

i do use another way to breed guppies, and that is with gravel and the tanks heavily planted with fast growing plants.
No filter at all, but there's no other fish in there, just the guppies.
I don't remove the babies from the parents and have a very low waterchanging scedule, that is, compared to my filtered tanks.
the plants grow like crazy and hardly any babies get eaten.

this just to point out that Guppies are very hardy fish and i do not think the absence of gravel in your tank will be the issue...

Thanks all... I'm pretty sure that Cebo is right and that I lost my cycle when I purchased my new filter. I thought I had a hold on it but apparently I didn't do the switch out correctly. The breeder tank is dead except for the pleco. I was going to put him in my big tank but he is only 3" and the O's will tear him up! So he is in the little tank... 50% water changes, putting some water from the big tank in there to help the cycle along. Fingers crossed!