Cycle

I tested the tap water, and all the levels were actually quite wonderful, everything was either 0ppm or near 0ppm.

I had two new fish die, one didn't last for more than 2 hours and the other almost made it two days. I've been discussing this with the LFS (they know me quite well), and we decided it would be best to completely empty the tank, give it a really thorough cleaning, and then fill it back up with tap water (plus about two gallons of the old water).

After I did that, the water was less cloudy, but I still could barely see out the back of the tank! I feel I didn't do a good enough job cleaning the gravel when I first emptied the tank. There was a ton of gunk under there, uneaten food, dirt, etc, and I don't think I got it all with my gravel vac. I just tested the new water, and my phosphate, nitrate, and nitrite are next to 0ppm, but my ammonia is sitting at a good 4ppm, which I'm thinking is from that gunk underneath the gravel. So right now I'm debating doing this over again, but this time doing a much more thorough job by literally taking the gravel out and putting it in some sort of sifting cooking dish (the kind you would drain your pasta in) and running water over all the rock for a good half hour. I also didn't clean the glass of the tank very well, I just used a wet paper towel and wiped it down since I don't have access to a garden hose or anything (I live in an apt. complex and I don't even know where the outdoor faucet is). So what I would like to do is take the tank over to a friends house and use her garden house to spray it down real good. After that, I'd come back and put it all back together, and see how it looks then.

All my other fish seem to be doing fine, no sign of ich or stress for them. And they've stopped swimming at the top now that the water has been changed.

Any comments?
 
Well, I ended up emptying the tank of everything but the gravel and whatever water I couldn't get out of it. I then took the tank down to the LFS, and the guy there cleaned it out for me, free of charge. Rinsed the rock out real good until the water coming off of it was entirely clean. I brought the tank home, set it up, and it looks beautiful now. I'm gonna run some tests on it later tonight and let you guys know how it goes. Thanks for the advice thus far.
 
WOW! I just read through this entire sticky on cycling and found it very informative. I would classify myself as a "semi noob" I had a 10 gallon aquarium with a few hardy fish in it for about a year then I moved and sold it, I also have experience with some exotic hard to maintain animals such as poison dart frogs. but as I posted earlier in the noob section I recently bought a 72G bowfront tank I have had it running for 2 days now and not tested the water, its pretty darn clear and I am considering going to my LFS to get a water test and buy some of that cycle stuff. How long do you think it would take this tank to cycle? ( i bought it used so the gravel and filters are used also) I had absolutely no idea what a fishless cycle was until I found this forum. It would just about kill me to have this thing sit in my living room for a month with absolutely nothing it... so I am hoping I could get it up to par in a couple weeks. what do you think? any advise?
 
Get BioSpira. It seems to actually work to abbreviate/eliminate the cycle. All the other products are pretty much considered around here to be snake oil.

Personally, even an empty, cycling tank is preferable to one with sick/injured/dead fish from ammonia or nitrite poisoning... netting dead fish gets old pretty fast.

HTH,
Jim
 
JS cool thanks for the info, I looked into BioSpira at my LFS and I think I will start a thread based on that product alone and see what kind of feedback I get.
EDIT* I FOUND a very helpfull link allready on this product within our forums and here is the link http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45899
 
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Ok, like everyone else, id like some reasurrance that my tank is on the right path. Ive got a heavily planted 27g tank. Im cycling with fish. Its been up and running for 6 days now. I squeezed in alot of gunk from my old filter, and currently have one old filter media in my new filter. Ive tested for Ammonia and its at 0.00ppm and nitrates are 10ppm. What else should i be doing? How much longer till i finish cycling?

I did put in Cycle, only becuase i wanted to get rid of the last bit and becuase i cant get biospira.

I also have a CO2 system running, will it effect the cycling process??
 
Do you have a nitrIte test kit? The plants and seeding are helping you along so if your nitrItes also read 0ppm, you could possibly be done with the cycle.
 
How long does a tank take to cycle? I just set up a 10g, have a few guppies and a betta in there. This is about the third day and the water is cloudy.

I used "cycle" in it, as well as AquaSafe and a little bit of Coppersafe (one of the guppies had some shredding in his tail, I wanted to make sure it didn't get infected or anything). I also used a little bit of aquarium salt. I have since realized that mixing all the chemicals probably wasn't a good idea. I'm a total newbie to this business. I've sucessfully kept fish bowls for years, but never an aquarium.
 
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