Changes in cycling tank

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jlbfish

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Feb 21, 2012
Messages
806
Location
Texas
We have 2 tanks cycling. I want to make sure my thought prices is right.

First tank
28 Gallons
Fish In Cycle (6 Neon tetras)

Today's measurements:
Ammonia .25
Nitrates 10
Nitrites 0

We have never had a reading above 0 for nitrites on this tank.

We have been cycling for about 3 1/2 weeks and added seeded media about a week ago.

I figure for this one water change every other day wait for ammonia to read 0 for 48'ish hours and nitrites to stay below 10. Is that right ?

In this tank I'm wary of a nitrite spike to come should I be?
Second tank
20 Gallons
Fish Free Cycle

Today's measurements:
Ammonia 1-2
Nitrates 10
Nitrites .25

Dose ammonia back up to 2/3 or wait till it falls below 1.
No water change at the moment change if nitrates go higher


So excited to be seeing changes!
Jana
 
I think you got most of it right. for the fishless cycle - 20 gallon. the general guideline is to dose your tank to 4ppm of ammonia. when it drops to 2 or below go ahead and redose back up to 4ppm. be careful though - you want it to be 4ppm not 5 or higher. as far as the cycling goes that is pretty much it. you want to be checking your PH here pretty soon. sometimes you can have a crash in PH and this will lead you to do a big WC. but for now - you are fine. don't worry if you get high nitrItes - this is fine. just keep dosing your ammonia back up to the 4ppm. eventually it will drop to 0 every day.

now, for your fish in cycle. the goal is to keep ammonia and nitrItes below .25ppm. you will do this through frequent water changes of 50%. have patience - those nitrites will come. as long as you are doing frequent (daily or every other day) WC then you probably will not be having an issue with the nitrAtes. but you might want to check these on a weekly basis as well. so the key here is daily testing of the ammonia and nitrItes - make sure they are below .25ppm and if not do a 50% WC (with temp matched and treated water of course)

make sense?
 
Agree once a tank is established, ammo and nitrites should be 0 and nitrates should be low (around 10 or less)
 
Agree, once a tank is established, ammo and nitrites should be 0 and nitrates should be low (around 10 or less)
 
Tank downstairs is registering 0 ammonia! So can I get fish now?!?? LOL kidding but on a serious note how long does that tank need to register 0, 0 and less than or equal to 10 before we know it is done?

Luckily upstairs is still the same PH and I am getting it back up to 4 carefully.

Thanks for all the help!

Jana
 
Basically once your tank can convert 4ppm of ammonia into nitrates within 24 hours, your cycle is complete. At this point your nitrates will probly be >10 so at that point you can just do a massive PWC to bring them down. Once you're at that point you can add fish. Just make sure there's some kind of ammo source until you get them, or you could lose beneficial bacteria (bb) and start the cycle over.
 
And what do you look for in the Fish In Cycle?

Thanks again. :)
 
Think so...

"The fish have shown no signs of ammonia stress in any of the fish in the aquarium for at least two weeks.
You can go at least two consecutive weeks with only once a week water changes with absolutely no signs of ammonia stress.
If you are testing the water, your ammonia and nitrite tests have been 0 and both remained 0 for at least eight consecutive days.
If you are testing the water, your nitrate test indicates that nitrate is rising in the water."

Sound right?
 
We have 2 tanks cycling. I want to make sure my thought prices is right.

First tank
28 Gallons
Fish In Cycle (6 Neon tetras)

Today's measurements:
Ammonia .25
Nitrates 10
Nitrites 0

We have never had a reading above 0 for nitrites on this tank.

We have been cycling for about 3 1/2 weeks and added seeded media about a week ago.

I figure for this one water change every other day wait for ammonia to read 0 for 48'ish hours and nitrites to stay below 10. Is that right ?

In this tank I'm wary of a nitrite spike to come should I be?
Second tank
20 Gallons
Fish Free Cycle

Today's measurements:
Ammonia 1-2
Nitrates 10
Nitrites .25

Dose ammonia back up to 2/3 or wait till it falls below 1.
No water change at the moment change if nitrates go higher


So excited to be seeing changes!
Jana

For the tank with the neons, since the load is quite small and you added seeded media you may not see nitrite. Nitrate is a good sign; that means the nitrite is being converted. Nitrates will go as high as the fish load (or ammonia load); so in the fishless cycling tank nitrates will rise higher as the cycle progresses. With fish, nitrates can end up being anything depending again on what fish. 10 seems a bit high for just neons though; have you tested your tap water for nitrate? This tank looks good though. Also it can be hard to tell between 0 and .25 on the API kit; you might want to test against some spring or distilled water to see if the ammonia is really .25 or actually 0 (might be a good idea to test tap water too).

I'd wait a couple more weeks on this tank just to see if ammonia can stay at 0 consistently and nitrites don't show up. If all is good then you can add some fish slowly.

The fishless cycling tank looks good too; nitrites are starting to show which is good. As the others said, watch the PH in this tank. Because there is so much conversion happening so fast PH crashes are common. How long has this tank been cycling? If it's been a few weeks and you haven't done any water changes it wouldn't hurt to do one to replenish minerals and such in the water.
 
So if the load is small and the measurements are looking better would it help? hurt? be dangerous to new fish? if I added the last 2 of the neon school?

The measurements looked good this morning:
Ammonia about .125
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 10ppm


The FISHLESS cycle has been going for a little over a week. We use this link to set it up:
Tips and tricks for your fastest fishless cycle!

I have been checking the PH and it is staying consistently 8 for now I might check again after a PWC. Do you do 50?

This morning the fish less read:
pH 8
Ammonia 1.5
Nitrites 2.0
Nitrates 40

I am doing a PWC and dosing the ammonia back up to 3-4.

Thanks again for all the help! Love this forum.
Jana
 
As long as ammonia and nitrite are 0 in the tank with fish then it's OK to add slowly. The more fish you add at a time the more ammonia is put into the tank from the fish and the bacteria have to adjust, so if you add fish slowly and let the bacteria adjust between adding fish you may still get some small spikes but some water changes to keep things low would help and wait in between before adding fish (1-2 weeks of consistent 0 ammonia and nitrite readings). Adding a few more Neons would be fine.

Wow you've only been cycling fishless for a week and have nitrite and nitrate already? That's great. Have you tested your tap water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate? I'd just be curious if any are coming from your tap water. If it's only been a week and PH is stable then no need for a water change yet unless you're bored and want to do one lol
 
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