Cycling my tank...
- Thread starter $eaba$$
- Start date
LOL, yes you would get it for that price. You probably would be OK canceling the ebay order, just be ready to make somebody mad, but you never know maybe they won't mind. Test strips just are not worth the money you pay IMO, they are innaccurate and can be hard to read.
EDIT: I don't know if they do the pricematch at petco because my local petco store is terrible and I don't shop there.
EDIT: I don't know if they do the pricematch at petco because my local petco store is terrible and I don't shop there.
Both Petsmart and Petco's will pricematch whatevers on their website and sometimes even from each other because of competition.
$eaba$$ said:
These fish, they're in the 20gal? If not, you need to get something in there for an ammonia source, or manually add ammonia. No ammonia source = no progress on cycling. So to answer the question, "but will they actually help speed it up?" the answer is, they will make it happen. Without them, nothing happens.
Test strips, to put it bluntly, are about a shade this side of useless. They are better than nothing because by using them you will get into the habit of testing your water on a regular basis. As for the results you get from them? Generally useless. I have dipped three at a time from the same package and had different reading on all three.
As to cycling - with fish in the tank, you will need to keep the ammonia under control. The idea here is to use water changes to strike a balance between enough to build a bacteria colony, and too much killing the fish.
Once the ammonia spikes then returns to zero, you will be looking for Nitrites. Not as deadly to fish, in much the same way as getting shot with a .38 Special isn't as deadly as getting shot with a .357 Magnum. They will both kill.
You will need to keep the Nitrites at the same kind of balance as you did with Ammonia. Build bacteria, but don't kill fish. By the time you get through this stage, Nitrites will stop showing up, and you will start to see a climb in Nitrates.
Depending where you live, you might be able to test your tap water and get excellent looking parameters. Ammonia = 0, Nitrite = 0, and Nitrate = 5 That would be good in a cycled tank. But does that mean you have a cycled tank just because you get those numbers? Obviously not. All it would mean is that your tap water has Nitrates in it. (yuck) It wouldn't stay that way once you added fish and they would promptly die of ammonia poisoning.
There are way too many variables to guess at how long a tank will take to cycle. It is not a quick process. You'll do a lot of water testing, and you will become a pro at water changes.
A word of caution: If you cycle with a few fish, you will have a tank that is able to handle that bio-load. Add more fish, you increase the bio-load. Guess what happens? I'll give you a hint : Mini-cycle doesn't mean "small motorcycle". So you will need to add fish s-l-o-w-l-y. Don't go to max capacity in one jump. But the mini-cycle is usually pretty quick if you didn't add more than a couple of fish.
The number one requirement for a successful tank is "Patience".
Check this out: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84598
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Does gravel from another used tank work as well as bio-spira?
I have a 2.5 gallon minibow lol, which I've had for nearly a month now, and I setup my 20 gallon aquarium 6 days ago, and I put some of the gravel from my 2.5. Should that help quicken the cycle as much as the bio spira?
I have a 2.5 gallon minibow lol, which I've had for nearly a month now, and I setup my 20 gallon aquarium 6 days ago, and I put some of the gravel from my 2.5. Should that help quicken the cycle as much as the bio spira?
