5.5 gallon cycled after less than 2 weeks?

[CourtneyRose]

I'm not exactly a newbie as I have 3 tanks already (6, 10, 29), but I was curious about my new 5.5 gallon tank.
I got it on February 24th and set it up with about half of my substrate from a cycled 6 gallon, bog log and live plants from the six gallon and a cycled ten gallon and squeezed the filter goo into it. I fed it food, without any fish in there, until the 28th. I got the ammonia up to 0.25ppm. I then put two 6 week old molly fry in the tank that night. I know it's bad to cycle with fish, but I hate having an empty tank and I have a tank for them to go to when I'm done with them and they outgrow this. On the 2nd, ammonia was 0.50ppm. Every time I checked after that point, everything has read 0ppm for nitrates, nitrites and ammonia. Could my tank possibly be cycled already? I didn't notice any nitrite or nitrate spikes, but I didn't test it daily.
Thanks for any feedback.

 

[blue2fyre]

Your tank isn't cycled until you start seeing nitrates.

 

[I Love Mollies]

I agree and congrads on the mollies as you can tell from my username im obsessed with them but they wont grow out of that tank personally right now i have 2 one at a petstore the other at how good luck with the fry!! Add me tryin to make friends!!

 

[ianab]

If you get enough live bacteria (filter goop or used gravel etc) into a new tank you can cycle it instantly.

So as you seeded the tank well it will have had some cycle from day one, thats why you never got the ammonia very high.

The tank wont have a lot of cycle yet, but as there are only 2 small fish in there it can handle the load. The nitrate will eventually go up, but it's slow because of the small bioload and probably needs to get to 5 before the test kit can measure it. It may be 2 or 3 now, but still reads as zero.

When I set up new tanks I just use a spare filter from an established tank, and add a few fish, then slowly build up the numbers, or just let them grow. I works fine because I'm moving in a cycled filter, and not overstocking the tank in the beginning.

Fishless cycling is all good, but once you have an established tank you dont really need to do it, you can clone the cycle from a working tank and have the tank safe for at least some fish right away.

Ian