Another cycle ?!?

sueglancy

sueglancy

AC Members
Feb 7, 2005
29
0
0
I finally cycled my 20 gallon tank after almost 6 weeks (ended up using biospira). A few weeks after the cycle was complete I removed about 4 small handfuls of gravel (there is still lots of gravel in the tank!) b/c I read it is better to go without gravel for goldfish. I read to remove some at each cleaning rather than all at once since it could disrupt the "good" bacteria. Well, the nitrites were fine for the next couple of days after I removed some of the gravel but after the 3rd day the nitrites went back up to .5-1 ppm. Do you think I put the tank back into another cycle?? If so could I expect it to last as long as the first time? Thanks for your help.
 
I have an aquaclear 50. I have not cleaned it since setting up the tank (about 2-3 months).
 
What you have is a mini-cycle, it shouldn't take to long to resolve itself. These sometimes happen when you make changes to your tank, especially in newer tanks. In all likelihood it was probably a combination of adding fish and removing gravel which teed it off. Just do water changes to keep the nitrite and ammonia levels at a bare minimum.

Also, there does exist the possibility that some of your nitrates are actually reversing into nitrItes, though this is pretty atypical. Still, it is a good idea to have a nitrate test kit. Using nitrates as an indicator of when to do water changes is better than any other method in my opinnion (25% or greater when nitrAtes rise above 20 ppm). This is especially important with goldies, who are notoriously messy fish and given that nitrAtes are a good indication of how dirty the water is.
 
Oh yeah goldfish are messy. So messy.

I was at the LFS today looking at the appaling feeder goldfish tank with about 100 goldfish in no more than 40 gallons. I watched three die right in front of me in about ten minutes. Disgusting on so many levels.
 
At a guess--disturbing the gravel released some trapped solid wastes, which are now decomposing and producing ammonia--which bacteria can quickly catch up in size to process, which results in nitrites--which bacteria can't quickly catch up with.

You do need to clean the media in the filter--it traps solid particles too, increasing the bio-load. I clean the media on my filters with each water cahnge. Just remove, and scrub it off in either the water you just removed, or in a bucket of clean, dechlorinated water.
 
Thanks for all of the tips. I'll try cleaning the media in the filter today and hopefully this is just a mini cycle!

Sue
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom