Any estimates on cycle?

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Starrchild

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
7
Location
South Florida
Hello. Newbie here (to this site, but not to aquariums). I'm in the process of setting up a 75 gallon blackwater tank for tetras and angelfish. I've had it running...no fish....with the sand, gravel and driftwood for about three weeks. I added a couple of plants a week ago, and there's peat in the filter. Right now the ammonia test reads at 4.0 ppm. This is the largest tank I've set up. All smaller ones I've cycled for a couple of weeks, and then just put the fish in and all was fine. (I do add some water from my outdoor pond to start the cycling). My question is, does anyone have an estimate as to how long this tank will take before it stabilizes? Will adding more water from the pond speed up the process?


Thanks for any responses.
 
You can take filter media from your other cycled tanks and put it in your 75 gallon tank's filter. It will speed up the cycle a ton.
 
Are you adding ammo to the tank? Just remember that your tank is cycled when you hit 0 ammo, 0 nitrite, and 5-20ppm of nitrate, What are your parameters right now. That will give us a much better idea of how long you still have.
 
Thanks for the replies.
No, I haven't added any ammo. Perameters as of this posting are:
PH: around 7.2
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: between 5.0 ppm and 0 ppm
Ammonia: looks to be at 2.0 ppm (if there were a 3.0 on the chart I'd pick that).

I added a cup of water from two of my well established tanks after I took these readings. So I'll check it again tomorrow.
 
Thanks for the replies.
No, I haven't added any ammo. Perameters as of this posting are:
PH: around 7.2
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: between 5.0 ppm and 0 ppm
Ammonia: looks to be at 2.0 ppm (if there were a 3.0 on the chart I'd pick that).

I added a cup of water from two of my well established tanks after I took these readings. So I'll check it again tomorrow.

Water doesn't really help much. Take some things from the filters, like one of the cycle tanks filter cartridges would work best
 
I can take one of the old cartridges, but I would have to dump out the carbon inside as that will take the tannins out of the water, and this is a blackwater setup. Will it still work with just the used floss part?
 
There is very little if any bb in your water. You will have more on your hardscape and in your filter sponge. I would try to either get a good squeezing from the old filter or actually put the old sponge next to the new sponge to seed the new one. You could also use some of your gravel from the old tank in some tied off panty hose stuffed into your filter. You can remove it when the tank is cycled.
 
you can definetly use the filter floss I also wouldn't worry about the carbon taking out the tannins. The small amount in those filter is pretty much used up within days of adding it. After that it just becomes just another place for bb to grow.
 
Okay, so I've had a cartridge from an established tank in the filter of the new tank for a few days. The ammonia reading is still between 4.0 and 2.0, with an edge to the higher side. But I decided to try some fish anyway. I bought three young bloodfin tetras (since its tetras I'll be putting in this tank anyway). They've been in there over 24 hours and are doing fine (just a little overwhelmed by going from a cramped 10 gallon in the store, to my 75 gallon lol). Could I be getting a false reading regarding the ammonia? Could my test solutions be bad?
 
More likely that the bacteria hasn't had time to cycle all the water yet. Personally I wouldn't have put the fish in yet, but given that you already have the next best thing to do would be to add Tetra SafeStart or Fluval/Nutrafin Cycle.
 
Well, the tank has already been running for almost four weeks now (might even be longer, I lose track of time). I've never had a tank run that long before putting fish in, and I've never had a problem. When I was younger, there weren't even all these test kits to check anything. Most of the time, one bought a tank, set it up, added the dechlorination drops, and put the fish right in. I don't remember ever "testing" for anything until recent years. The only fish I've ever had die off was when a new one was addded to an existing tank and it didn't acclimate.
Its been over 48 hours now, and those three fish are still doing fine. I do have a hard time waiting for things. I always feel I'm running out of time to do things. Since the fish I want to put in there aren't "in season" right now anyway, I have to wait for them whether I want to or not.
 
You really should've waited, but now you are just doing a fish in cycle. I would not add tetra safestart, because of the horror stories that I have personally heard from it but that decision is up to you.

I will say that, although I am a steady opponent of fish in cycling, the fish you chose are good. I have bloodfin tetras myself, and they are very hardy. Just make sure you do water changes to get ammonia and nitrite under .25 ppm, and nitrate under 30 ppm.
 
You really should've waited, but now you are just doing a fish in cycle. I would not add tetra safestart, because of the horror stories that I have personally heard from it but that decision is up to you.

May I ask what horror stories exactly? I know you get a nitrite spike (which is expected, as it converts the ammonia to nitrite first). But apart from that I've only heard good things?
 
May I ask what horror stories exactly? I know you get a nitrite spike (which is expected, as it converts the ammonia to nitrite first). But apart from that I've only heard good things?

Well, maybe horror stories is exaggerating :lol: but I have heard multiple times of people who dose ammonia up to 4 ppm, dose safestart, and it goes down to 3 ppm in one day. And stays there for weeks following that. Someone on this site heard of someone on another site who used safestart, and didn't get any results for months. He got really mad because he thought that the people on there were lying to him and that fishless cycling was actually impossible. But since this is a fish in cycle that doesn't apply very much. I usually hear of those bad situations during fishless cycling, and not during fish in, but I think it still applies.

For me, really, relying on a product that is absolutely not in any way reliable is not something I want to do.

But it is up to the OP.

P.S. Thank you for replying respectfully, my comment may have been interpreted as... perhaps an accusatory statement. Some people would not have responded well to that.
 
Well, maybe horror stories is exaggerating :lol: but I have heard multiple times of people who dose ammonia up to 4 ppm, dose safestart, and it goes down to 3 ppm in one day. And stays there for weeks following that. Someone on this site heard of someone on another site who used safestart, and didn't get any results for months. He got really mad because he thought that the people on there were lying to him and that fishless cycling was actually impossible. But since this is a fish in cycle that doesn't apply very much. I usually hear of those bad situations during fishless cycling, and not during fish in, but I think it still applies.

For me, really, relying on a product that is absolutely not in any way reliable is not something I want to do.

But it is up to the OP.

P.S. Thank you for replying respectfully, my comment may have been interpreted as... perhaps an accusatory statement. Some people would not have responded well to that.
From what I've seen, most the time that it doesn't work is when people don't read the instructions to shake the bottle like you're shaking maracas at carnival.

I've used Fluval Cycle in my own tanks before and had great results personally, then I've looked online and seen all these people saying how it just doesn't work. I guess it's a bit hit and miss, and the people who do have results don't tend to post about it.

Haha, it's only a forum. I'd rather understand why someone has one opinion on something than just tell them they're wrong. There's too many people on here (and other forums) who have the idea of "I'm right, you're wrong, shh".
 
From what I've seen, most the time that it doesn't work is when people don't read the instructions to shake the bottle like you're shaking maracas at carnival.

I've used Fluval Cycle in my own tanks before and had great results personally, then I've looked online and seen all these people saying how it just doesn't work. I guess it's a bit hit and miss, and the people who do have results don't tend to post about it.

Haha, it's only a forum. I'd rather understand why someone has one opinion on something than just tell them they're wrong. There's too many people on here (and other forums) who have the idea of "I'm right, you're wrong, shh".

Yeah, well one thing that I've heard is that it has to be refridgerated, which I have never seem happen in stores. If that is true, than that would explain a lot, but if it isn't then it's just another rumor.
 
Yeah, well one thing that I've heard is that it has to be refridgerated, which I have never seem happen in stores. If that is true, than that would explain a lot, but if it isn't then it's just another rumor.
Tetra bought the rights to the original recipe, which had to be refrigerated. Tetra then reformulated it so it doesn't have to be refrigerated.
 
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