Cycled in two weeks?

G

Genhawk

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Mar 12, 2007
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I've been cycling a heavily planted 29g with four zebra danios (and two corys, yes, I know corys are not for cycling) for about two weeks.

I admit I have been lazy and mostly testing ammonia only, figuring that if there's no ammonia there won't be anything else either. Today I decided to do all three and I have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrIte, and 10-15 nitrAte (kind of hard to tell exactly how much using the API drops + card). :eek:

Is it possible that the tank has fully cycled in such a short time? I did add a few cups of water from an established aquarium in the beginning, but it still seems too soon.
 
I had 6 danios in my tank while cycling. I had barely any changes in my numbers for 2 weeks and thought I missed my nitrogen spike (as my tap water does have nitrates from time to time). I dumped 5 platies in and my numbers went through the roof. Huge daily water changes and lots of testing for weeks (tons of work and stress). 3 of the platies died within 3 days. I'm sure that if I had waited a couple of days I would have seen the nitrite levels I hear everyone talking about, and my workload would have been much less. I believe the platies pushed my system over the edge. The danios are so small in comparison. Good luck!
 
heavily planted .established Plants., will not cycle like a regular tank.
the plants use the ammonia as a food source(it is their preferred food)

so yes you could be cycled.
 
Neat, thanks.

I'll probably check the water again tomorrow and then put in some more danios...
 
mozart said:
I had 6 danios in my tank while cycling. I had barely any changes in my numbers for 2 weeks and thought I missed my nitrogen spike (as my tap water does have nitrates from time to time). I dumped 5 platies in and my numbers went through the roof. Huge daily water changes and lots of testing for weeks (tons of work and stress). 3 of the platies died within 3 days. I'm sure that if I had waited a couple of days I would have seen the nitrite levels I hear everyone talking about, and my workload would have been much less. I believe the platies pushed my system over the edge. The danios are so small in comparison. Good luck!
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Yeah, 5 platies all at once would've upset the balance. You were right on that one. I had a similar happening with my 36-gallon. I had a senegal bichir and a bristlenose pleco and both survived with little stress. I didn't want to do a fish cycle because they wouldn't have jived well with my predatory bichir. ^__^;;
 
yep, the plants work miracles for you, but it's still a fine balance. I received some java ferns and moss a couple days after the ammonia dropped and nitrite spiked, and within 48 hours the nitrite was at 0. Even after adding a pleco to a 10 gal the amonia never showed, and nitrite only spiked for a day. I trying to get some faster growing plants in hopes of lowering the nitrate caused by the pleco, but I think my tank is at it's max bioload, which means that a 50 gal will be in the works before long!
 
My heavily planted 12g was confirmed to be cycled in 3 weeks. It is uncertain if it was cycled before 3 weeks because I had not purchased a test kit yet.
 
Genhawk said:
Today I decided to do all three and I have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrIte, and 10-15 nitrAte (kind of hard to tell exactly how much using the API drops + card). :eek:
Click to expand...

Yea. Isn't the API test kit for NitrAtes a pistol.Betrween 20 and 40 is like (to me) hardly any difference. Just thought it was my eyes.
 
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