J) When your levels of nitrItes and nitrAtes get so high that they’re off what your test kit can show you… do a 50-60% water change. A water change will have no negative impact on your cycle and will help keep things moving and bring your levels low enough so you can actually tell what they are. You can also add another pinch of ground up fish food just to make sure the bacteria has lots of nutrients and phosphates to grow. A water change will also restore the buffers in your water to prevent any fluctuations in pH at the end of your cycle. Remember your dechlorinator!
K) Wait for the magic to happen. Keep watching your levels and adding the ammo up to 4ppm. Keep a very sharp eye on pH at this point. If you see any hints of the pH level dropping…time to break out the bucket and bottle of Prime to do a 50% water change. We want to make sure we have plenty of buffers in the water to keep the pH stable.
One morning you’ll wake up and when you test the water…Ammo and nitrItes will be gone! They’ll have vanished overnight! Technically this means your cycle is complete, but we’ve still got a bit of testing to do to make sure.
L) Add your ammonia up to 4ppm one more time. Look at the clock. If within 24 hours you can turn that 4ppm of ammonia > nitrItes > nitrAtes… congratulations! After the 24 hours your test results should be ammo-0 nitrItes-0 and have lots of nitrAtes. You grew one heck of a bio-filter and are going to have ridiculously happy fish!
M) Now you’ve just got to keep your bacteria alive until you add fish. Add around 1ppm of ammonia daily just to keep the bacteria alive.
N) The day before you plan on adding fish, you’ve got 2 important things to do… Number one, TURN THE HEATER BACK DOWN! The bacteria love the warm water, but your fish probably don’t want to be dropped into a hot tub. Also, perform a HUGE water change… I’m talking around 90%. The nitrAtes will have built up like crazy during this process and you’ve got to get them into a safe level for fish. The lower the better, but as long as you can get them below 20 you’re good to go!
O) Add some of your fish. You’re bio-filter is so strong that you could technically add the full stocking level to your tank, but you don’t necessarily want to. Some types of fish need time to establish territory and dominance, so if you throw them all in at once it can be asking for trouble. Personally I stocked my tank around 50-60% full initially with peaceful community fish. You don’t want to add too many at first, but if you only added a couple tiny fish at the beginning they won’t provide the amount of ammonia that your new bio-filter needs to stay strong. Shoot for a middle ground and add a reasonable sized amount of fish depending on your tank size and by researching the type of fish you plan on getting. This is where common sense is most important.
P) Final steps… enjoy your fish and tell your friends to fishless cycle!
