Cycling with Active Sponge - Our Journey

[ThangaMean]

isn't cycling maddening?! DAHH! It sounds like you're well on your way, though.

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I did something cheeky and added a tower so I could hide my extra biomedia in it without having a big chunky mess. Our tank makes little sense aesthetically because my kid picked everything out, but it's nice not to be looking at that chunky sponge filter anymore. I tied some water wysteria to it up top. I have no clue if that will work but hell, I'll try anything at least once.

Yeah every time I loose patience, I just go back on line watch some video or read the forum about cycling. This keeps me sane and assure me this is how it is suppose to work

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[TankinWithUs]

Well if you ever get too impatient, I swear by seeded biomedia because within 36 hours I've gone from 4ppm, 0.0, 0.0 to 0.25, 0.5, 40. I am SO happy I did it. And that's AFTER restarting my cycle completely

 

[ThangaMean]

cool hope I don't have to do that after waiting for 3 weeks hope to have my in there in two weeks.

 

[TankinWithUs]

whoop whoop! fish in party!!

 

[TankinWithUs]

We dosed ammonia last night. Today's baseline is: 3.0 - 4.00ppm; 5.0ppm; 40ppm.

By tonight we should be seeing ammonia down, nitrite off the chart and nitrates skyrocketing. I'm not going to dose ammonia again until it goes down to 0.25 or so. I'll continue that way until nitrites and ammonia are 0 within 24 hours. We can't be far now!

We're off today to get a mossball for the ghost shrimp to enjoy later, and we're making our construction paper background today for Sunday Craft Day (toddler problems).

We are so excited!! Can't wait to meet DeeLee!

 

[DeeLee2013]

Same here! So happy to see your progress!!


? Diana Lee ?
? the St. Augustine Redhead ?

 

[TankinWithUs]

We added a Marimo Moss Ball today and Lox completed his little background. He's very proud of himself

 

[DeeLee2013]

Gah! It's so friggin cute!!!


? Diana Lee ?
? the St. Augustine Redhead ?

 

[TankinWithUs]

I totally just accidently posted this on a wrong thread, but I upgraded the light today

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[TankinWithUs]

cycle question

The past couple of days these have been my readings:

Day 3 0.75 3.00 10.00 Dosed Ammonia 10:00pm
Day 4 3.00 5.00 40.00 Added water 9:00am
Day 4 0.50 2.00 80.00 Did Nothing 7:42pm
Day 5 0.25 1.00 40.00 Dosed Ammonia 2mL 9:37am
Day 5 3.50 Dosed Ammonia add'l 1mL 7:40pm

It seems like I'm really close, but if tomorrow I have low ammonia, high nitrites and high nitrates...do I need to do a pwc? Or do I just keep dosing to 2ppm, regardless of my nitrite readings?

 

[TankinWithUs]

Going to test again this afternoon and see what we get

 

[TankinWithUs]

Well...I just realized that I cycled my tank with a filter meant to handle 3 gallons. That's fine and all for my cycle, but once I add fish and a clean up crew, it's going to be tight. *

*sigh*

Needless to say we're upgrading our filter so that bioload will not be a problem and the fish will stay happy. Will it instant-cycle if we move all biomedia and filter material out of old filter to new filter? Or do I need to go through the whole shabang again?

 

[DeeLee2013]

As long as the media stays the same (don't rinse it or try to "clean" anything) then all of the good bacteria on the media will happily keep the cycle going!


? Diana Lee ?
? the St. Augustine Redhead ?

 

[TankinWithUs]

woohoo! I'm still excited. Hey, anything is better than being stuck in a cycle so seeing things progress is good enough for me. I'm thinking we will be good to go over the next few days. The Aquaclear 20 will be here on Friday.

I have enough Java Fern growth to propagate it and start building our little java fern wall in the back. The planted tank forum folks say that I'm good with Flourish and Excel for the plants I have so if I can just get this tank cycled I have everything I need to keep it goin'.

 

[TankinWithUs]

The readings today after 50% pwc & dosing to 2ppm last night:

0.25 ammonia, 0.50 'trite, 40 'trate. I dosed to 2ppm ammonia again tonight.

We'll see where we're at tomorrow...sooo close.

 

[TankinWithUs]

I keep posting to the wrong post. Sorry!! This is the new reading tonight.

0.25ppm, 1.0ppm, 80ppm.

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[TankinWithUs]

Quick update! The new AquaClear 20 is in place with all of the media from our Azoo Palm plus more. Water test came out at after dosing to 2ppm last night:

0.25 ammonia, 4 - 5 ppm Nitrite, 80 Nitrate. Did a 50% pwc and dosed 1.75mL ammonia. I'm at Disney with my little dude, so won't get back to tank until Sunday, but I think we're nearly there! So excited

 

[FishyMamma]

Moving right along! Yay!


Keeping my sleeves wet...

~ Sent via Carrier Goldfish

 

[TankinWithUs]

Welp,not 100% sure how to feel...

Back from Disney (we had a BLAST!) and just checked on the tank. Ammonia: 0.50; Nitrites: 0.0; Nitrates: 40.0

Before I left, I did a 50% pwc, dosed 1.75mL of ammonia and installed the new filter with the filter material from the old filter (+ a sponge filter since my old filter was smaller than the new one).

I'm hoping the 0 nitrite is not because my cycle is starting all over and is actually because it's even closer. I'm a little confused by 0 nitrite and 0.50 ammonia...hmmmm.

At any rate, I dosed to 2ppm. I'll see what we end up with in the morning

 

[DeeLee2013]

It sounds like you're really close! The lack of nitrIte could just be a sign that your beneficial bacteria is ready to rock and roll!

If Ammonia drops back down in the next 24hrs, you're probably good to go. I would also check your tap water just to see if it has any ammonia or nitrite readings as a baseline.

Just my $0.02!


? Diana Lee ?
? the St. Augustine Redhead ?
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