Cycle problem

Capps

Capps

Cichlid Freak
Mar 4, 2005
66
0
0
45
TN
I changed my 75g SW over to FW last week and I took the media out of the canister filter(rinsed it with dechlorinated FW) and put it in my Cichlid tank for a day or two. Once I got the tank set back up, I returned all the media and added a HOB filter. I do things the old fashioned way and added 6 one inch Tiger barbs. After a week I still don't see any amonnia. Did it go through a mini cycle and I missed it or not enough bio-load yet to get it started? I know people are againist fishy cycles, but do I need to add more?

Oh and another thing the water is cloudy now. I've never had that happen before during a cycle. Could it be the driftwood or maybe die off from the bacteria from the old SW tank?


Thanks
 
I know people are againist fishy cycles, but do I need to add more?
Click to expand...
People are against doing a fishy cycle in a less than responsible manner.
Small bio-loads will accomplish the same result without as much worry and without the constant work. I would leave things as they are. it still take a couple weeks, and you will still need to add fish very slowly a few at a time (major drawback of fishy cycling is it takes much longer to stock your tank than with fishless). I would test for nitrates after the second week. I have had many fishy cycles that showed no ammonia or nitrite, when using low bio-loads and big tanks. Adding more fish will just increase risk, but will not speed up the cycle. if you have fish in the tank there is ammonia even if it's too little to read on your test kit. The reason Fishless uses high levels of ammonia is not to speed things up, but rather to prepare a bio-filter big nough for an entire stocking load at once.
dave
 
Ok, I tried something different the other day and bought some BIO-SPIRA. I wasn't to sure about this but I tried it any way. Before I added this there were 6 Tiger barbs and the water was a little cloudy, I guessing a bacterial bloom and ph buffer. I added the bio-Spira and 75% of my stocking limit, which was suggested by my LFS and 24 hours later no signs of Amm. or Nitrites and Nitrates were between 5-10ppm. Now here's the thing the water is still cloudy, is it the bio-spira or the buffer. I did a 10% water change and it clear up a little bit. Any thoughts on this? I would greatly appreciate it.


Thanks
 
first of all, bio-spira is generally regarded as a good product that does what it claims if it's fresh and handled properly, so that was a good move.

As far as he cloudiness, put some water in a jar hold it up to a sheet of white paper. see if the cloudy has a green tint. If it does do a 3-4 day total balckout of the tank. Many new tanks experience algae blooms, and especially those with high ammonia levels and light. once the algae is there it will not go away without being killed off. but once you kill it it will probably stay away if you have good maintenance.

If it isn't green, I'd give it some time and most likely it will go away on it's own.
Dave
 
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