Hmm. So, should I dose the tank to prevent the tetras from getting an infection also?

Aeromonas is very opportunistic and ultimately not very contagious. The best prevention for the tetras is to keep them healthy and stress-free by keeping the ammonia problem in check.

Treating aeromonas in tank is an option, since alot of the medications used to treat it will not destroy your nitrifying bacteria. However, given your water parameters and issues you're having, I wouldn't add ANYTHING to your tank other than maybe a bit of aquarium salt.

One other thing - aeromonas is an anaerobic bacteria. Increasing oxygen levels can be a big help. If you don't already have an air stone running, run one. If you have an air pump that can handle it, run 2 or even 3.

This is why I'm a bad freshwater owner.

My response? It's $6 worth of fish. You jumped the gun on your cycle, lesson learned. See if they pull through it and if not, well they're gonna die - shit happens.

Seems like a lot of work and worry for what amounts to a tropical bait fish, that's all.

In many ways, that's true.

That's why I suggested cycling with mollies.

They only live a couple of years anyway. They're "expendable" in that sense. And if you do happen to like them, just scoop up a few babies once in a while and protect them. They have FORTY AT A TIME.

How was I supposed to know I was jumping the gun on the cycle, though? The water parameters indicated that it wasn't a problem to add fish at that time, especially these small tetras. You are right, though, that it apparently was too much too soon. I'm just not sure how I was supposed to know differently.

From what I read about aquarium salt, tetras don't respond well to it, so I haven't done that yet.

Also, the bettas swelling is completely gone this afternoon, and he's no longer hanging out doing nothing on the bottom of the tank. He's back to being alert and active, swimming all over the place and eating. WTF? His belly was swollen and he looked like a pinecone this morning. Did his belly explode? LOL

You really can't know. A lot of it has to do with your filtration and what kind of surfaces you have for the anaerobic bacteria and other beneficial critters to multiply.

I did it when I set up my first freshwater setup, did it again when I set up my saltwater tank (and that !@#$er has 150 gallons of overall water when you include the water in the sump; 4 fish was enough to blast it).

Until you have a very very established system, you probably don't want to add more than a couple fish at a time. And even then, sometimes the only way to plow through a cycle is to...well, plow through the cycle.

Tetras are cheap, so there a viable solution, but they're also small so they probably don't really increase your ability to handle bio-load very well. Ultimately the mollies are probably the best bet. Unlike tetras, which are very susceptible to bad water, Mollies are pretty much tanks and will probably survive the spike. They'll also make enough waste to really finish the cycle, as opposed to the Tetras that are more likely to simply fall victim to it.

Tetras are fine with salt. Scale-less fish and sensitive fish like Corydoras catfish should only be subjected to half-doses of salt. Mollies and other livebearers actually love salt.

That being said, if you can get them, I'd go with Wonder Shells over aquarium salt. Better blend of minerals and overall just a better product.

REALLY?!?!? I gathered from your previous post that he was DEAD. ROFL

It's possible he was REALLY constipated - what are you feeding them? Feed him some bloodworms. Bettas LOVE bloodworms and they have a "husk" or skin which is high in fiber.

I thought he was dead, too. He was acting like he was about to kick the bucket, and his coloring was all off. Now, he's fine.

I give him bloodworms twice a week.

I went and got the airstone. Really, it's a 12 inch air bar hooked up to a 20 gallon Whisper air pump, so it's putting out a lot of bubble agitation. I may have to get a check valve to cut it back some, but it's nice and bubbly now.

Just did a 90% water change with a double dose of Prime, just in case. Also, I bought some Start Right, and dumped about 1/8th of the bottle in there after the water change. I don't know if those bacteria will live, or if they were even alive to begin with, but it can't hurt at this point. No one around here has Turbo Start, so this was my next best option.

Before the water change, ammonia was still off the charts at 8 ppm, nitrites have risen to about 5 (!!!!), and nitrates were somewhere around 100 ppm.

This is ****ed. I don't know why adding four 1/4" in fish caused it to spike like this. I mean, these tetras are REALLY small. I don't have any mulm. I'm feeding once a day, very lightly. No dead plants. Filter media hasn't been washed or changed since the tank was set up.

Oh well.

If he swells up again, try thawing and mushing up some frozen peas. That works well for constipation.

Does it have one or two air outlets? If you can, split the line and use two stones. This will eliminate the need for a check valve and increase the total oxygen input because you'll end up with more surface agitation over a wider area.

I wouldn't ever recommend doing more than a 50% water change. The potential change in water parameters when doing a 90% change will probably kill your fish faster than the ammonia ever would. Start Right is largely useless, sorry.

90%? Dude... that's way too much. You're not leaving enough water in the tank to maintain anything. Cut back on how much you're changing. I'd say that's part of your problem with stabilizing it.

Maintain what? The bacteria are in the filter and substrate, not the water, right? It's temperature matched when it goes in, so it shouldn't be shocking anything.

I only did the 90% once, when everything was spiked to hell and back. The rest have been 50% water changes twice daily.

Last night when I went to bed, ammonia readings were still pegging the 8 ppm mark. So, I did a 50% water change, added a 10gal dose of Prime.

Just checked again, and ammonia is down to 1 ppm or below. Nitrites still pegging the 5ppm mark, and did so almost immediately upon adding the drops to the testing vial. I'm guessing that the Start Right did SOMETHING, whether adding to the ammonia eaters that I already had, or what, because there's hardly any explanation for it dropping so quickly all of a sudden after not dropping at ALL for so many days.

Should I do another water change with some Prime, or just add Prime, or leave it alone?

Air pump only has one outlet, which is why I bought the large bar. It's giving a ton of surface agitation, probably too much. The air bar covers 80% of the length of the tank. It looked like the current produced was stressing the fish, as the Tetras lost their red, and were hanging out on bottom of the tank to get away from the bubbles, as was the betta. I have it turned off for now until I can get a regulator to slow down the bubbles.

Leave. it. alone.

The more you **** with this, the more you're going to screw it up. The cycle will never actually finish if you keep interfering with it.

Just set it and forget it for a week. If anything survives it - bully.

Went to a Chinese restaurant the other day, the proprietor there had an interesting fish tank that is apparently hard as hell to build/maintain. According to him he never feeds the fish, never cleans the tank, never does anything to it. He has duplicated the ocean.
He had live coral and other sea plants in there, and the right mix of fish (sucker fish to clean, etc. I couldn't understand a lot of what the bastard said).
He had a name for it but I didn't quite catch it. Sake bombers you know.

Corrent, the bacteria adheres to surfaces. However, by doing such massive water changes you're depriving those bacteria of ammonia (I know, it's a catch-22. That's why they call it a "cycle") and potentially changing water parameters like dissolved organic compounds, gH, kH, and other things that are important to allowing the cycle to finish.

Actually, cycles work that way. They run and run and all of the sudden - bam - finished. It's possible that the Start Right worked but there's also volumes of anecdotal and scientific evidence that it doesn't.

Prime detoxifies nitrite. I'd add your Prime and otherwise leave it be. It sounds like you're nearing the end which is good news.

Hmmm...I've not experienced fish being stressed from "too much" air, especially Tetras, which generally love as much current as you can give them. My guess would be that their discoloration and lethargy is due to the tank cycling but I guess anything is possible.