Question about cycle

[IHaveAquariums]

Setup a new 10g that'll be a RCS breeding project, put the filter cartridge that came w it in another filter so it would grow BB. Let that sit there for 2 days (this isn't my tank it's my dads and him and my mom are impatient with it ?) and put it into the 10. I tested the water 2 hours after adding that cartridge and a piece of driftwood from another tank. pH was about 7.0-7.2 and ammonia/nitrite/nitrate were all 0. I then searched around and retested nitrate after really shaking the bottle and still got 0. Is this an ok thing to have for now? Is the tank cycled or will it crash with any bioload of significance I add? Ive not new to this but the water chemistry still confuses me sometimes haha, thanks!

 

[Fishkeeping411]

If there is no nitrate then you may not have a cycle, keep adding something like fish food until you see a change in numbers. If your nitrate goes up and the others stay at 0 then your nitrate may have been low due to a large water change. If you ammonia rises and your others stay at 0 then there is no cycle. Do you have the tank heavily planted? Plants generally suck a lot of nitrate out of the water for food.

 

[flitabout]

What are you using to dose the tank with ammonia? What were your lvls before adding the filter. Is it planted? I ran a filter for a month in one of my tanks and it still took a week before it was totally cycled and ready for fish in the new tank. Plants will eat up ammonia, Nitrates and to a lesser extent nitrite for food. So unless it's very heavily planted then it's not cycled.
I totally get the water chemisty being confusing I have been playing with tanks for 20 years now and I still get confused especially when you start adding plants co2 and fertilizers in to the mix. some days it makes my brain hurt.

 

[Discusluv]

Highly unlikely the tank would be cycled in 2 days with seeded media. The last tank I cycled, a 180 gallon, took 17 days to cycle despite adding biological media from 2 other tanks.