dlwn88
Aquarium Advice Activist
Hey Everyone,
I'm familiar with the nitrogen cycle, however, I've never seeded a tank before with gravel from an established tank. I've read this sometimes cycles a tank instantly, or speeds it up...but I want to ask and be sure so I don't screw up lol.
My 75g tank has been running nearly for...I'd say two weeks now. Added pure ammonia from ace hardware, I'm at 4ppm right now. Did this for my buddy as well 4 days after starting mine, gave him my old 20g, and his showed nitrites two days ago. Even though I'm using a powerhead for surface agitation and doing the majority what the article on this site suggested (I didn't add the ph down). Not sure how that happened but I'm figuring not having the lid helped him, he didn't buy one till yesterday. Any ideas? I've read on here that size doesn't mater as far as how long it should take.
Anyways, yesterday I was able to get a decent amount of gravel from someone that had an established aquarium. It's been exactly 24 hours since it's been inside my tank and my nitrite test tube isn't blue anymore woohoo! I'm at .25ppm and it appears that my ammonia is just starting to go down.
But my main question is...
When you seed a tank this way should I see the nitrite spike all the way up, then go down as nitrates increase like a normal cycle? Or is it possible that I already have enough nitrite to nitrate bacteria from seeding and the ammonia will slowly disappear but will see little to no nitrites, and nitrates will increase?
Thanks for your help guys.
-Dave
I'm familiar with the nitrogen cycle, however, I've never seeded a tank before with gravel from an established tank. I've read this sometimes cycles a tank instantly, or speeds it up...but I want to ask and be sure so I don't screw up lol.
My 75g tank has been running nearly for...I'd say two weeks now. Added pure ammonia from ace hardware, I'm at 4ppm right now. Did this for my buddy as well 4 days after starting mine, gave him my old 20g, and his showed nitrites two days ago. Even though I'm using a powerhead for surface agitation and doing the majority what the article on this site suggested (I didn't add the ph down). Not sure how that happened but I'm figuring not having the lid helped him, he didn't buy one till yesterday. Any ideas? I've read on here that size doesn't mater as far as how long it should take.
Anyways, yesterday I was able to get a decent amount of gravel from someone that had an established aquarium. It's been exactly 24 hours since it's been inside my tank and my nitrite test tube isn't blue anymore woohoo! I'm at .25ppm and it appears that my ammonia is just starting to go down.
But my main question is...
When you seed a tank this way should I see the nitrite spike all the way up, then go down as nitrates increase like a normal cycle? Or is it possible that I already have enough nitrite to nitrate bacteria from seeding and the ammonia will slowly disappear but will see little to no nitrites, and nitrates will increase?
Thanks for your help guys.
-Dave