Freshwater cycling

[Smitty114]

You could put it in a media bag and set it on the tank.

Depends on how much gravel your "borrowing", you could put it in the filter. If your planning on giving it back. The bag thing would be alot easier.

Can't help with the Bio-Spira.

Thanks for the reply. What do you mean put it "on" the tank? I'm guessing that's a typo and you meant in the tank?

Also, I'm still not sure how to do it. Just set it in there and start adding ammonia and wait until I see a nitrate rise? And, how much is an ideal amount to borrow?

Sorry for all the questions lol..

 

[KBS1664]

I've been cycling my tank and it's been at 3 to 4 ppm for over a week the ammonia levels have not dropped at all but there's been a huge spike in nitrite. Is this normal? I would of thought the ammonia would be down to at least 1 or 0.5 by now

 

[Rbishop]

Start a thread in GFW with as many details as you can about tank size and what kind of test kit you are using.

 

[fwiffo]

i agree with mr. bishop.

also, the nitrite spike is good i believe. that means the cycle is going through its natural stages. the nitrite part is the second stage.

 

[MudskipperFan]

Sorry for asking this 128 times, but will a good water change completely remove nitrites from my cycling tank? the other levels are good, but the nitrites are just at .50 and I want to get them down. What can I do to clean them up? Anacharis? Water change? Please tell me.

 

[Lupin]

Sorry for asking this 128 times, but will a good water change completely remove nitrites from my cycling tank? the other levels are good, but the nitrites are just at .50 and I want to get them down. What can I do to clean them up? Anacharis? Water change? Please tell me.

The amount of nitrite removed depends on the amount of water you replace. Keep retesting as you change a large portion of water until nitrite test reads zero. If your tank has no fish yet, leave it alone.

 

[MudskipperFan]

The amount of nitrite removed depends on the amount of water you replace. Keep retesting as you change a large portion of water until nitrite test reads zero. If your tank has no fish yet, leave it alone.

I read in an archive here that I'll have to do a big water change at the end of the cycle.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=197992&postcount=9
This is where I clean out the nitrites or no? I'm going to put anacharis in the tank too to allow hiding spaces for the fish and decoration and oxygen.

 

[bradlgt21]

I would like to add a technique to the new tank cycling idea. This will only work if you have multiple tanks. I did this by accident to setup my QT tank. I know your supposed to match the water in the two tanks as much as possible. So what I did was used my gravel vac and sucked water from my established tank into the qt tank. I filled the qt tank half with dirty tank water and half with tap. In a few days time I tested the water and to my surprise it had a good amount of ammonia already. But it makes sense, the water is dirty, it's fish waste and everything that feeds the bacteria. So I would think this is the best way to cycle a tank, no chemicals, no risk to fish and it's free. It's like a fish in cycle without the fish being in. Just every water change dump a good amount of the dirty water into the new tank. Eventually your readings will all go down to zero as the tank has cycled. No visits to the hardware store and fears of using harsh chemical additives and measuring out and dosing and worrying about hurting fish. Just plain fresh fish waste with no fish in the tank.

Many will argue that you can just use tank filter media from a established tank and put it into the new tank and just throw in the fish. I tried that idea twice, I tried gravel, filter mesh, bio balls. For my QT tank I used about 30 bioballs that were soaking in a established tank for over a month and the filter was used completely out of old filter floss from the same tank. It was enough to maintain a 29 gallon but it couldn't prevent a cycle in a 10 gallon. There is just to much bacteria needed to prevent a cycle and short of using all the gravel and all the decorations I don't know any way of getting enough of it into a new tank. While it's your only option when doing a emergency hospital setup if you have new tank or a qt tank and a established tank my idea I think would be the best option.

 

[Lupin]

For anyone interested in the toxic levels of ammonia influenced by pH and temperature, you'll find it here.
http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/AmmoniaTox.html

Further discussions can be continued here if anyone has questions.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203320

 

[Deneault]

Cycling a 200g. (my last tank i was completely new to cycling and it took some time)

Yesterday i took some test of my new tank cycling, (was 2nd day filled) I had 0 Ammonia 0 nitrites and 5ppm nitrates. From my understanding this means my tank has alrdy cycled nearly.

Ammonis ~> {turns into nitrite} ~> Nirtite ~> {turns into nitrate}
And nitrate is reduced by plants and water changes.

So tests showing mini amounts of nitrate would suguest i have the good bacteria in my tank.

Here comes my question.

If you dont have much stock to create ammonia that fast, to feed the bacteria to nitrites and then nitrates, and you have several plants, can the plants eat all the nitrates and it not show up on tests?

This morning i took another test and everything was reading 0. I know i have alot good bacteria in the tank. I've added 2 meddium-large pieces of wood from my old tank. Filter media is also old, aswell as the serval plants i need have some. Not to meantion, eco-complete gravel is said to have benefical bacteria to help lower the cycle lenght needed.

My guess would be all that good bacteria is eating the ammonia, then nitrites so fast i dont get the chance to read them, which is making my nitrates, which disappeared this morning. (as i stated above i tested and found some yesterday) Possible the plants ate em?