Cycling Question..

[THE V]

Highly possible that your tank is well on it's way to being cycled. By squeezing those filters into the new tank you've added billions of bacteria to the tank. It is probably not at levels of handling a fully stocked load yet but you've probably got a really good start on it.

I would feel free to add 25% of what you planned to stock to tank with now. You can then feel free double the bioload every 3-4 days.

If you want to be really sure you can add ammonia today (.25-.5 ppm) and see if it is gone tomorrow.

 

[Oii]

It could be cycled, it could not be. There are too many variables in play to make an accurate diagnosis over the internet. The only way to find out 100% is to test it. Add an ammonia source and test the water.

there should have been some ammonia from the backside of my filter media. I literally dumped in the nasty pudding like substance off of the back of my filter cartridges. I will throw a couple of chunks of food in there for the ammonia, I'm not sure how much will produce enough ammonia. What would you recommend? I have a bunch of different flakes, pellets, and frozen stuff.

The filtration I'm going to be running on this tank is a xp3, emp 400, and a hydro 5 sponge filter. Everything is on there right now accept the xp3, I might not add it for another month though because I have it on one of my other tanks. Do you think this will be enough filtration for 100gallons if I'm only keeping 3 2.5" fish?

I just remembered I had at least ten 1" convicts that I am going to throw in there one by one to see if they can live with the conditions.

I'm want do a 20% water change on the tank tonight and get some of the nasty crap that sunk to the bottom yesterday. Should I leave it right now if my parameters are right or should I get it out?

 

[Oii]

should I vacuum the gunk out of the bottom of my tank or should I leave it there? I don't know if its going to ruin the cycle or not. I dropped some food in there last night to see if it would release ammonia, I dropped some huge pellets in there that added up to about the size of a thumb. I will post my parameters within a hour.

 

[Oii]

my nitrates are still at 0 but my ammonia is .15ppm now and my pH is about 8. I decided to test my tap waters pH and it was beyond the regular pH limits. I didn't test it with the high pH but I'm sure its around 8.2 at least.