Can I add a green spotted puffer to a 5 weeks of cycled aquarium?

[Sai Sauce]

My brackish been cycling for 5 weeks now, I see some bacteria on the sands. Can I add him now or wait? I use stress zyme to help cycle.


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[PNWaquarist]

Is your bacteria able to completely convert 3-4 ppm ammonia into nitrate within 24 hours?

 

[Sai Sauce]

My ammonia is at .25ppm and everything else is 0ppm and ph is 8.0


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[PNWaquarist]

I'd add one more 3 ppm aliquot of ammonia and see if your reading is 0 ppm ammonia the next morning. (Depending on which kit you're using, it can be hard to differentiate 0 ppm and 0.25 ppm ammonia.) If you get the same reading but have 0 ppm nitrites, you're most likely cycled.

What are your current nitrate levels? You'll have to do a large water change to get these to 20 ppm or lower.

 

[Sai Sauce]

My nitrate and nitrite is 0ppm


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[Sai Sauce]

And I use API saltwater master kit


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[PNWaquarist]

My nitrate and nitrite is 0ppm


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How do you have 0 ppm nitrate after five weeks of cycling? Even if you did a massive water change, you should still have a good 5 ppm left over.

 

[Sai Sauce]

I haven't do a water change after 2 weeks .__. I did a 50% water change due to lowering my salinity. I did a water change on week 3.


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[Sai Sauce]

I use fresh drinking water not tap water btw..


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[PNWaquarist]

You're going to have to explain exactly how you performed your cycle and what your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate readings were during the cycle. What was your ammonia source? From what I'm reading, it sounds like your cycle failed.

 

[Sai Sauce]

I think it did failed lol. So I start by pouring freshwater to my 20 gallon and added salt to make it to the salinity I want. Then the day after that I put live sand and rocks in there and test the water and it was 0ppm on ammonia nitrite nitrate and Ph was 7.2. I test the water on the week after that and came with same result but ph was 7.8. 3rd week was when I had stress zyme and added that to help boost my cycle, but before that I did a 50% water change cause I wanted to lower the salt so I can have guppies and platies in there at 1.005. Then 4th week I test the water same result as week 3 and added stress zyme. I added stress zyme on the 5th week and test the water and it was the same result again. Then I test the water yesterday and result came to .25ppm ammonia, 0ppm on nitrite and nitrate, and ph raised to 8.0 I believe. Then what now? Then I read some articles and decided to add little of fish food in there to create ammonia and do the things. This was what I did. What did I do wrong?


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[Sai Sauce]

Btw I test the water on Monday which was where it showed nothing, Tuesday was when I test it again and it was where it shows the ammonia and raised ph. Now is Wednesday in the morning at 4:50am


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[PNWaquarist]

You need to add a source of ammonia to the tank to begin your nitrogen cycle. This can come in the form of pure ammonia solution, ammonium chloride solution, or (less desirably) pieces of shrimp or fish.

There are two main ways of doing this: the fishless cycle (which you appear to have tried) or the fish-in cycle. I recommend the former, as it is less labor-intensive and is more humane. (The downside is that you need to wait a while before adding fish.)

Of the fishless cycles, there are two ways to do it. You can use the traditional method, or you can use the bacteria-in-a-bottle method. The traditional method takes 4-6 weeks, but builds a very strong colony of nitrifying bacteria. The bacteria-in-a-bottle method is somewhat controversial, as some of the products on the market use the wrong type of bacteria. However, I've used DrTim's One & Only bacteria and ammonium chloride solution and was able to cycle in nine days. The downside to this method is that your bacterial colony is not super-strong at first and you should slowly introduce your fish over the first month (start with one school of 6-8 fish or a similar setup so that your initial bioload is less than 50% of what your tank can handle).

I hope that helps.

 

[Sai Sauce]

How about API Quick Start? Do you recommend that? And how would that work?


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[PNWaquarist]

I can only recommend DrTim's bacteria, as it's the only one I've used successfully.

 

[Sai Sauce]

But for the API quick start I been hearing some people saying that it jumps the ammonia to 2-5 ppm, is that what it's suppose to do?


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[PNWaquarist]

No idea, I've never used it. I'll let somebody who is experienced with this product chime in.

 

[Sai Sauce]

Ok


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[Sai Sauce]

So like my brother has a 24 gallon nano cube, should I take some of his water and put it on mine?


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[Sai Sauce]

It's marine and fully cycled


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