Cycling a new tank help

[librarygirl]

I thought ammo went to 1; it went to 4?!

I have no idea how much waste your fish produce; if it's a cycled tank though the waste should be taken care of by the bacteria and ammonia shouldn't show up. Even a mini-cycle somehow shouldn't raise ammonia to 4. Do you clean your gravel/substrate when you do water changes?

I'm not sure what happened, but in the meantime I'd be doing pwc any time ammonia and/or nitrite hit .25 and hope the filter sorts itself out quickly. If it doesn't we'll have to figure out what's going on. Could the filter media have dried out during any time when you didn't have fish in there?

 

[Steo the great]

No didn't get to 4 but when cycling I had it at 4 and the bacteria was removing it.
And was wondering if it could remove 4 ppm why can it remove the angels waste?

 

[librarygirl]

No didn't get to 4 but when cycling I had it at 4 and the bacteria was removing it.
And was wondering if it could remove 4 ppm why can it remove the angels waste?

Hm, yeah, cycling at 4 should be overkill, so it should be able to remove the ammonia the fish are putting out. Something had to have happened in between. Perhaps not enough ammonia was added in the interim when you didn't have fish (although if you kept cycling to 4 it should be OK). If you added a few fish at first and then waited a while to add the others, especially the Angel, your bacteria may have adjusted to the lower bioload and now has to catch up.

 

[Steo the great]

Hm, yeah, cycling at 4 should be overkill, so it should be able to remove the ammonia the fish are putting out. Something had to have happened in between. Perhaps not enough ammonia was added in the interim when you didn't have fish (although if you kept cycling to 4 it should be OK). If you added a few fish at first and then waited a while to add the others, especially the Angel, your bacteria may have adjusted to the lower bioload and now has to catch up.

Yeah that could be it if it adjusts like that. Cause the week I was adding the ammo I was only putting it up to 1.

So hopefully it doesn't take long to fix itself.
Thanks for the help though from all of you. I'll update again on Sunday and see how it is then.