Fishless cycle

[Bartny]

So my question is should i change the water out of my tank like if the cycle takes a long time i think i should since the water would get older and im 9 days into my cycle havent seen nitrites yet ive tried various times cyclimg and never seen nitrites starting to wonder i they even exist my ammonia is at between 4 ppm to 5 ppm its a 10 g tank no plants with a power filter hang on back its an aqueon power filter 10 thank you just wonderin if u can give me an estimate on when ill see ammonia go down nitrites rise then nitrites go down and finally nitrates up
thank you for your help really appreciate it

 

[bushwhacker]

your just starting its going to take time..dont change the water just have patience

 

[fishcatch22]

2-4 weeks of patience... or a friend with a filter you can use to seed your tank to skip cycling.

 

[Lowryder]

I am the middle of a cycl;e on my 15g and saw the ammonia drop on day 8. It is hard to give you a timeline as all tanks cycle differently. Once your ammonia drops then you will have a nitrite reading and it will spike very fast, at least mine did. Waiting for the nitrites to drop is the long boring part, it my take upwards as 2x as long to drop as the ammonia did. There is no need to do a PWC during a cycle unlewss your ammonia is >5.0ppm.

 

[Bartny]

Thnk u its just im worried ill never be able to cycle a tank since i could never get it to actually cycle i hope fishless cycle works cauz in past cycles with fish ive gone 4 months with no luck fish died adter 2 weeks never changed water and the cycle never completed ammonia just kept rising never went down

 

[Lowryder]

oh it will also help to crank your heater to the mid 80's

 

[Bartny]

Ive done that the thermometer reads 80 exact

 

[koipoloi]

If using a liquid kit for testing nitrates be sure you are shaking the reagent bottle (2) really well, at least for 30 secs before adding the drops or you will get a false negative result.

 

[stephenpence]

just finished my first tank's cycle. i'm an engineer so of course, i made a spreadsheet. i can't attatch it but if you'd like it to use for your cycle pm me and i'll shoot it off to you. i'm not sure if there's a reason to do WC's if there are not any fish at risk to be honest. i always kept my ammonia under 3 ppm and my nitrites below .5 or at least i tried. something to keep in mind is that the bacteria you need are coming from the air. You can add the liquid starter and everything but especially the nitrifying bacteria that take it from nitrite to nitrate are going to be coming from the air as there isn't really a way to keep them alive long enough to be bottled and sold. So you might try increasing your aeration.
what's the source of your ammonia? (i did mine the old fashioned way with hardy little feeder guppies)
the previous poster is exactly correct. first of all, make sure you're using a liquid measuring kit. API is what i use and it's awesome. second, once you get your nitrites and are looking for your nitrates to start coming up make sure you do the nitrate test exactly as instructed. and make sure there's enough medium in your tank for the bacteria to grow on. the bactera won't grow in the water rather on the substrate and the sponge filter if you have one, and in your HOB. so if there's room for them to grow, maybe try more of your liquid starter and then increase aeration.

 

[ianab]

If you are doing a fishless cycle, dont change the water. The worst thing that will happen is that you get a nitrate buildup, check for that at the end of the cycle and do whatever water change is needed before you add fish. Maybe nothing, maybe 80%, just depends how your cycle went. Just water change it down to 20ppm or less.

If the cycle is slow starting try seeding it from someones established tank. Get some gravel or gunge squeezed from their filter sponge. That will have about a zillion real live filter bacteria that can colonise your tank and multiply. Really speeds things up.

Ian