Cycling

[mcpeach93]

I am currently doing a fishless cycle on my sons tank for his room and it is reading ammonia at .25, nitrite at above 5 and nitrate at about 30. Should i do water changes during the cycling process or no, i have been lettig it cycle over a week so far with no water changes. I used 1 or 2 hikari algae wafers as my ammonia source to start the cycling. It currently only has an aqueon 10 filter which does 100gph hour, plus some matrix by seachem to help with biofiltration, but can't fit much in that filter with out disruoting the flow. i am upgrading it to a fluval aquaclear 30 next week and getting him sand substrate i had gravel in it but do not want gravel with the fish i plan to put in it which is tiger barbs and clown loaches, so i took it out. Any suggestions or tips please let me know. O and ph is currently around 8.2, so before i put in those fish listed from above, ill wanna get it down around 7-7.5.

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[mcpeach93]

Correction, i did one water change, and just found out that i forgot to plug back in the heater, so water was around 68 or 70 degress for a couple days now.

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[Hholly]

Hi. Your temp doesn't matter much in a fishless cycle but it sounds like you are planning to make it a fish in cycle very soon. The algae wafers won't get the cycle going much.
Here are some excellent articles that will help you a lot. And save you from a lot of newbie mistakes.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/guide-to-starting-a-freshwater-aquarium/
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/the-almost-complete-guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling/
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/fishin-cycling-step-dark-side/

For fish stocking guidance, this is a good guide: http://aqadvisor.com

Hope this helps!

 

[mcpeach93]

Thank you dor the suggestions, i will read those articles now.

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[Hholly]

Let us know how it goes.