Am I Cycled Already?

[hoppershaun]

My Ammonia and Nitrites are both 0 and have been for the past few days. My Nitrates are 10 also. Does this mean I am cycled? Or should I wait a week or so to make sure the readings remain the same? Also when I introduce new fish will the ammonia increase a little at first because of the extra waste? Thanks in advance.

 

[rich311k]

Sounds like you are cycled. Add fish slowly and you should get little or no ammonia spikes. You could wait a couple more days to be sure if wish. How long was the cycle? Did you check your tap water for nitrates?

 

[hoppershaun]

Cycle took 2 weeks. Nitrates in my tap water are 10 also. Gonna wait till the end of the week till I get some more fish anyway, so I should find out if the tank is completely cycled.

 

[rich311k]

If your tap is 10 and you tank is 10 you have not produced any nitrates. It looks like to me your cycle hasn't started. Did you have an ammonia or nitrite reading at anypoint?, and what were they?

 

[hoppershaun]

Yeah, my ammonia had a reading of .50 ppm and went down to 0. I'm cycling with 2 fish so the cycling must be getting done, right? The nitrites have been 0 whenever I've checked them, but didn't have a test kit for the first week. Surely if the cycle hadn't started then the ammonia would be higher because of the fish waste and food waste?

 

[rich311k]

Is this two small fish in a big tank? You may be just sneaking into it slowly, no real cycle just a slowly adjusting bioload.

 

[hoppershaun]

It's two leopard danios in a 35 litre tank, so not a big tank. Had 3 to start with but one died, possibly ill from the LFS.

 

[rich311k]

I would keep monitoring for a week or two and add one fish at a time. You may be silently cycling.

 

[hoppershaun]

Was just thinking, I haven't got gravel in the bottom of my aquarium, instead I have ceramic media which I got with the aquarium. On the website it says that the ceramic media works better at getting the filter bacteria established. Also there is chemicals in the filter that help with this. Do you think this could be why it seems to be cycled so soon? The instructions said that after 24 hours of setting up the aquarium it would be activated, surely they can't mean cycled do they?

 

[ksfishguy]

My thought is that you are at the very beginning of the cycle. Ammonia then nitrite will spike. One thing I have learned in the past month or so, you can't bypass the cycle, no matter how much you want to start stocking, don't do it until you have spiked ammonia and nitrite, they both go back to zero and your nitrate has elevated past your tap water reading.

 

[7Enigma]

Uh oh. Sounds like you have a nitrogen absorbing media in the filter which most definately will affect your cycle. If this is the case what normally happens is the bacteria are starved of nitrogen (ammonia and nitrIte) since the chemicals are very effective at removal. I would highly recommend you do not add any more fish to the tank and please let us know exactly what chemicals you have in the tank.

Because of this you will have much lower numbers of bacteria in the tank than someone who didn't use the chemicals. Sorry to say but your in a tough spot. I would be worried about removing the chemicals now since you might have a bad ammonia spike, but at the same time it will take much longer to cycle...

 

[hoppershaun]

I've actually added more fish already! I've added 2 cherry barbs and a dwarf gourami. I've had them in for 2 days and the ammonia has went up but the nitrite and nitrate are the same. I'm now doing 2 pwc a day trying to get the ammonia down. Wish I'd went with a normal tank with gravel rather than this now! Fish seem fine though, just gonna keep an eye on them.

 

[7Enigma]

The ceramic media did not slow down your cycle as compared to gravel, its that you added too many fish too quickly.

You should have taken Rich's advice on this one because you are in for a rough week or 3..

 

[ksfishguy]

How's it going, where are you at?

 

[hoppershaun]

My ammonia is reading a constant 0.25 ppm, but I'm doing 2 water changes a day, one in the morning and one at night. Nitrites are still 0, and nitrates are 0. My fish seem fine though, I'm just feeding them every other day now. I'm glad I've got fish in that are a bit hardy.

 

[ksfishguy]

How's it going? Have the nitrites shown up yet?

 

[hoppershaun]

No nitrites yet! I'm beginning to think I'll never get them! Ammonia is rising though, so I'm still keeping up the daily pwc and have lowered the pH so it's not as toxic for the fish. Having a bacteria bloom at the minute, so hopefully when that sorts itself out then I might see some nitrites. Can't wait till the little test tube turns a different colour than blue!!

 

[ksfishguy]

I never mess with pH, I just check it to see if it changes, haven't had any problems, it is 7.8.

My nitrites should up right after my ammonia spiked. I'll be honest, I'm not sure my frequent water changes changed the water much. Once nitrites showed up, I held off and only did a few water changes. When I did change the water, it had little if no affect on the levels.

I can tell you one thing, when you are fully cycled your water will look incredible.

Here's what I have to date:

6 rasboras (what I cycled with) (these guys are awesome, always together and darting around)
2 neon tetras (only two out of eight survived, I attribute it to high pH and buying them at Walmart, not to mention, they seem hard to keep)
3 dwarf gouramis (very colorful)
3 marigold swordtails (one male)
3 albino cory cats (fun fish)
1 rainbow shark (very cool I might add, his name is Junior)

Great to correspond with someone from across the lake. Look forward to hearing your progress.

David

 

[hoppershaun]

Still got no nitrites, I've got some gravel from a friends tank now though, so hopefully that will speed up the process. Sounds like you've got a nice set-up of fish there, dwarf gouramis are very cool! My pH goes down naturally because it has a low KH so normally I would buffer it with baking soda to get it to pH7, but I've just been adding water so now it's down to 6.6. I'll have to add baking soda again eventually though, because the pH will drop below 6. It was like this before and my leopard danios I have did not like it at all. They had there fins tooked in but as soon as I raised the pH they put their fins out and looked quite happy.

 

[ksfishguy]

I will have to test the pH more regulary, thanks for the info.