bacterial longevity

[Mephistopheles]

I've been cycling my classroom aquarium using drops of a 1M pure ammonia solution from the store-room. Ammonia spiked immiediately. My nitrites have spiked and are coming backdown. almost done right? well my question is this: We are coming up on a 3 day weekend where I won't have access to the tank. Will my bacteria colonies survive until monday without any food? How long could I leave them alone?

It's a 10 gallon tank that I seeded with sand and about 1 lb of LR from my established tank at home to get things started.

 

[tecwzrd]

Bacteria will survive for a couple of days without an nh3 source assuming the tank is still oxygenated ie: keep the filters running. Still I’d put a pinch of food or a little more of that M1 just before leaving. If the tank is cycled by Friday a damsel could be added instead and can easily go 3 days without food.

How long have you been adding the drops? What is your nh3/no2 reading now?

 

[Mephistopheles]

started last week about thursday, didn't see any rise in nitrates until this week monday it was at 4 ppm. I halved the NH3 dosage and as of today nitrites are at 10 after having lept off of the my test strip scale. ates are beining to rise and i'm at 20 ppm now.

I fear that if I add a damsel, it will become a sacrificed damsel for 1 of two reasons 1) my understanding is that I can expect a tremendous amount of ates quickly because of the cycling method (all the ammonia that goes in comes out as nitrates) and I'm afraid it may overwhelm any fish this soon in the game before I can make sure I've got everything dilluted. 2) if that doesn't work, my plan is to put a firefish in there and if they don't get along, the damsel is the one that's going. Are my fears unfounded? I like the idea of putting some food in there, I didn't think of that.

 

[tecwzrd]

no2 is too high for any fish at this point and probably won’t come down for another week. A 10 gal isn’t going to be able to house many fish. Two smaller or one 4” at the most IMO. I’d just add a little flake and wait for the tank to finish cycling. Get the no3 <20 ppm before adding fish and get as close to 0 over time. I’d use distilled, ro, or ro/di water and keep well 10+ gal of aged SW on hand for quick changes if needed.