BuckeyeFisher
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Hello all. First time poster here but been reading these forums a long time.
I need some advice from the experts out there! It seems that I've completed the cycle in my 55 gallon in a mere week and a half. Here's some background:
We have a running, cycled 20 Long in my son's room with good semi-aggressive healthy stock. I decided to get ambitious and buy a 55 gallon tank and stand off of Craig's list ($60 - what a steal!).
So, I brought my new tank home and set it up. I bought an Aqua Clear 70 as a filter and a Hydor Koralia Wavemaker to help move water. I filled the tank and "seeded" it with the old filter media from my son's tank. I stuffed this old filter media in my new filter behind its media. I also took out two cups of gravel from his tank and put it in the foot of a nylon stocking, and dropped it in my 55.
To start producing ammonia, I decided to remove the 7 cherry barbs from my son's tank and put them in my 55. After two days, I deemed the bio load to be weak as I wasn't reading any ammonia on my test kit (I have the API master freshwater test kit). I went to my LFS and purchased 4 Zebra Danios and put them in my tank. Still not reading any ammonia after 48 hours, I took my son's iridescent shark (don't worry, he's still small!) and put it in my tank - hoping to produced some traces of ammonia. 48 hours later, still nothing... but strange enough, I'm starting to pick up just the slightest traces of Nitrate (the test tube was just a little orangey yellow).
So I decided I was going to take a risk and stock even more on day 7 of my cycle in my 55. I added another small iridescent shark, pictus catfish and a german blue ram. I tested the water that night and got the same result. Every night this week, the ammonia has stayed at 0 but the Nitrates are rising. Last night, I tested out at 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate. Tonight, same result - 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate.
Is it possible that I've completed a cycle in 10 days?! I guess I didn't realize that seeding helped that much!!!
Any advice you guys can give is much appreciated.
I need some advice from the experts out there! It seems that I've completed the cycle in my 55 gallon in a mere week and a half. Here's some background:
We have a running, cycled 20 Long in my son's room with good semi-aggressive healthy stock. I decided to get ambitious and buy a 55 gallon tank and stand off of Craig's list ($60 - what a steal!).
So, I brought my new tank home and set it up. I bought an Aqua Clear 70 as a filter and a Hydor Koralia Wavemaker to help move water. I filled the tank and "seeded" it with the old filter media from my son's tank. I stuffed this old filter media in my new filter behind its media. I also took out two cups of gravel from his tank and put it in the foot of a nylon stocking, and dropped it in my 55.
To start producing ammonia, I decided to remove the 7 cherry barbs from my son's tank and put them in my 55. After two days, I deemed the bio load to be weak as I wasn't reading any ammonia on my test kit (I have the API master freshwater test kit). I went to my LFS and purchased 4 Zebra Danios and put them in my tank. Still not reading any ammonia after 48 hours, I took my son's iridescent shark (don't worry, he's still small!) and put it in my tank - hoping to produced some traces of ammonia. 48 hours later, still nothing... but strange enough, I'm starting to pick up just the slightest traces of Nitrate (the test tube was just a little orangey yellow).
So I decided I was going to take a risk and stock even more on day 7 of my cycle in my 55. I added another small iridescent shark, pictus catfish and a german blue ram. I tested the water that night and got the same result. Every night this week, the ammonia has stayed at 0 but the Nitrates are rising. Last night, I tested out at 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate. Tonight, same result - 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate.
Is it possible that I've completed a cycle in 10 days?! I guess I didn't realize that seeding helped that much!!!
Any advice you guys can give is much appreciated.
