MY CYCLE IS OVER!!! (Question)

[hcgirl80]

So I come home, and test my tank water. Here's what they all read:
Ammonia: 0!!!
Nitrite: 0!!!
Nitrate: 0!!!
pH: 7.6
The pH is a little high but I told myself I'd leave it alone, water changes should adjust that.

YES!!

I'm trying to decide what I should get first out of:
4 neon tetras
2 ottos
1 male betta

I'm thinking the betta. After the bacteria is all settled with him, I think I'll go for the ottos, then the neons, two at a time.

~Paige

[Watcher74]

Your nitrates are zero?

That's kinda alarming there. Are you positive you are doing the test correctly and the test kit isn't past expiration? I couldn't get zero nitrates if I did 50% water changes daily.

[hcgirl80]

I dunno, I just bought the test kit what, 2 months ago? It got ups'ed to me. It doesn't tell me if its like .5 it skips from 0 to 10. It could be low it just thinks its 0, maybe.

~Paige

[Watcher74]

Hmmm, well 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, and 0 Nitrates sounds like the readings from my tapwater.

Exactly how did you cycle the tank?

[Blinky]

I have to echo everyone else, it doesn't seem right that you have 0 Nitrates at the end of a cycle... my tap water has 5mg/L NO3...

[Leopardess]

Umm, I've got something to mention if your cycle really is complete (which I don't think it can be with no nitrates)...


The way a fishless cycle works is that it allows you to get all of your fish at once. It creates a sufficiently large bacteria colony to house a reasonable amount of fish. If you add just a few fish at first, the "extra" bacteria will die and you will only have enough bacteria to support the fish you add. If you get a betta, you will only have enough bacteria to support a betta. Then, when you add the neons, there can be a mini cycle...same goes with each addition after that. Also, you should get all of the neons at once since 2 alone will be very uncomfortable, especially in the presence of a big betta. In fact, if this is for a 10g, you should get at least 1 or 2 more neons.

Granted, neons don't produce much waste (and neither do otos) so the mini cycle shouldn't be huge, but the main benefit of a fishless cycle is that it allows all fish to be added at once while there is sufficient bacteria to support them.

[anonapersona]

really, how DID you cycle the tank?

I think that too many fish store salespersons say to fill the tank with water and let the filter run to cycle the tank-- this will allow chlorine to dissipate, but it does nothing to cycle a tank.

You need to either culture bacteria or import bacteria.

You can culture bacteris by adding ammonia and going through establishing the cycle (about 38 days). Or you can add a few fish and let them do the hard work of surviving the ammoina and nitrites of the cycle.

Or you can import bacteria. You can buy BioSpira. You can take an old filter and clean all the gunk out of the pads into some water and pour that into your filter.

[hcgirl80]

This cycle was an unusually long one. Mostly because a book mislead me. This book told me that I could cycle die-free with 3 platys, and 3 tiger barbs. I soonafter realized that A.) platys and tiger barbs don't get along, and B.) That is overstocking a 10g.
So I end up with 3 tiger barbs, 1 female and 2 males. Then 1 male died soonafter the platys, wich died 1 a day. And just when I thought the happy couple would make it, the other male died. So I am left at the end of the cycle with a relatively healthy Tiger barb.

When I got the aquarium and then the fish, over the course of about 4 days the ammonia was up. The cycle was going well. and then after maybe 4 more days, the ammonia dropped and the nitrites began to rise. But then I had a problem: the nitrites weren't dropping and I had to boost my w/c to 1.5 gallons every other day. Then the nitrites dropped back to 0 after about 3-4 days, while slowly the nitrates rose. They got up to 1.0, then after a week and a half, they dropped, too.

What could be the deal with the nitrites/nitrates is I have put prime in my tank about a week ago to dechlorinate. But some of you said prime doesn't effect testing.

~Paige:confused:

[anonapersona]

Prime shouldn't have affected the testing of nitrates.

You are down to one fish. Still doing water changes? maybe the fish is making such a small amount of ammonia that the end volume of nitrate is undetectable after water changes -?

[happychem]

It looks, at first glance, that you really don't know whether you're cycled or not.

Assuming that you were keeping up with daily water changes during the fishy cycle, you could expect daily inputs of ammonia to decrease as fish died off.

Now that you've got only a single fish in the tank, even one as small as a 10g, you have a very small input of ammonia. Very likely your tank has built up a sufficient colony to support this one fish. On the other hand, if you were very diligent with water changes, like twice daily, it's conceivable that little or no colony built up since there would have been little or no ammonia for food.

I suggest the following:
Go to a once a week water change.
Test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate daily.
You should see a gradual increase in nitrate, although with your stocking level, I'm not too sure.
Feed very lightly, make sure that ALL the food is eaten.
This should give us a better idea of what's going on with your tank.

Don't stress, it'll all work out. But before we jump into putting more fish in, let's work out this 0 NO3 mystery first.

Oh, and always test BEFORE water changes. The idea is to determine what's happened in your tank from one water change to the next.

Oh, and neon.

[hcgirl80]

During the Cycle:
I changed water every other day. (1.5g per w/c)
I tested every night. (water changes in morning.)

You think I should change my stock to:
5 neons?
3 ottos?
1 male betta
?

[happychem]

You still have the barb right?

How well do they get along with bettas? If they're compatible, add the betta and check your params daily.

If things are cool, then you could go with a couple neons, but do it REALLY gradually.

[Must4ng s4lly]

Just go for it! Put the fish in, take the barb out and sell to LFS as by himself he will pick on the others. Barbs are meant for schoolsof at least 4 - 5 with six or more being better. I think you will be fine. Feed lightly for a couple weeks. Watch parameters carefully and if you get any thing spiking, do 1/3 water changes daily. I really think you are going to be fine! I do!

I have a 10 gallon that has slowly cycled up over the months to handle a huge bioload of about 15 sword fry and one betta. I sell the swords as soon as they are half grown. I have 10 or so left that are about half grown.

Just add the fish you have listed and watch the tank. the key is not over feeding. I usually do at least a third to a half tank change every week to ten days