Fishy cycling my tank - how often should I do partial water changes?

[samsaramom]

Hi folks. I was in the middle of a fishless cycle of our 10gal and someone donated their fish - since they were moving. We live out of town, and taking them to a LFS is more of an inconvenience. Anyway, I was in the middle of the fishless cycle. The ammonia was starting to drop on its own, the nitrites were elevated, and there was bloom in my tank (It went cloudy). Because the fish (a cory, a plattie and a pleco) were put into a bowl with very unattractive water - I decided to abandon the fishless cycle and introduce them to the tank. Well...not with out a bit of modifications...

So, I did a 90% water change with conditioned water. I tested the water - and the N03 was 0.6 mg/L, nitrites went to 0.3 mg/L. (They were 4.9 mg/L and 1.6 mg/L respectively during the fishless cycle). The next day, prior to introducing the fish I did another 50 % water change. I stabilized the temp and added the fish. Today I tested, ammonia was zero, nitrite was 0.3 (which is on the boarder to being elevated in this test - the Hagen Nutrafin reagent test).

So today I did a 10% change (again, with conditioned water).

I assume that a bacteria cycle has at least started. I did not clean the filters or any of the media. (It may be out of whack with all the water changes).

My question is - do I do daily 10% water changes while the nitrites are registering on the test?

And do I feed daily, or every other day? When do I resume a daily feeding schedule? When the cycle is over?



H

 

[Star_Rider]

monitor daily and do atleast 10% wc
any level of ammonia and nitrites can be harmful to sensitive species.

have you considered adding live bacteria??

you probably alreadyhave atleast at some level started the cycle


the cycle is pretty much going when you get consistent: 0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite and 20-40 ppm nitrates
at that point you are at 10 % wc

 

[TKOS]

Sicne you didn't get rid of filter media and gravel you have some bacteria in the tank. Just do enough water changes to keep that ammonia below 1ppm and nitrites below 0.25 ppm. Lower is always better, especially with cories.

So if a 10% change is good enough that is great, it may take a 50% change. Remember that a 10% change only drops the current total by 10% (thus 100 would be 90 etc...).

 

[anonapersona]

good advice

yes, daily water changes, up to 50%, sounds like good advice!

 

[Ms.Bubbles]

I don't think anybody mentioned the fact that the pleco will get WAY big & needs a bigger tank than 10 gallons...

 

[samsaramom]

Yep they did

Someone did mention this. I'm considering the 10 gal a temporary shelter before I go bigger. Any recommendations on the next size up I should go?

Oh, and I'm hooked. :help: