Kevin010382
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Hi all.
I've recently bought a 33g tank to replace my 15g tank. With the tank came some nutrafin cycle. I wondered if this stuff really worked so did some research and thought I'd share my views/findings here.
Firstly I researched into what nutrafin claimed was in their product. They claimed it contained bacteria in a suspended state which would start to thrive once in the aquarium. I won't list them all but I looked into the several types of bacteria in the bottle and to my surprise I found that once the bacteria were starved of ammonia they do indeed enter a suspended state. It's worth mentioning at this point that the research paper I found on this subject noted that the original bacteria quickly dies off but at that point new bacteria would fill the gap.
I figured it wouldn't do any harm to try this product out so here's what I did.
I added new substrate, filter, heater, water and the plants from the old tank along with some new ones. My intention was to do "fish-in" cycling with six neons and a cory, test the water daily and preform a water change when needed. On day one my water results were as follows
Temp: 79
No2:0
No3:0
Ph:6.7 (a little low but my tank will contain amazon fish)
Gh:10
Ammonia:0
Over the next few days (adding the bacteria as the bottle said) I tested daily. On day three the ammonia reading was at 0.01mg/l so I preformed a 15% water change. Day four the ammonia was back at zero and the No3 reading was at 10mg/l. Day five and it read the same.
Does this mean the tank has been cycled (if that is the case then its new record) or am I to expect a second ammonia spike?
It's worth pointing out that this is a hobby for me and I am not an expert in the subject (7 years of fish keeping) I'd be interested in people's views on the subject.
I've recently bought a 33g tank to replace my 15g tank. With the tank came some nutrafin cycle. I wondered if this stuff really worked so did some research and thought I'd share my views/findings here.
Firstly I researched into what nutrafin claimed was in their product. They claimed it contained bacteria in a suspended state which would start to thrive once in the aquarium. I won't list them all but I looked into the several types of bacteria in the bottle and to my surprise I found that once the bacteria were starved of ammonia they do indeed enter a suspended state. It's worth mentioning at this point that the research paper I found on this subject noted that the original bacteria quickly dies off but at that point new bacteria would fill the gap.
I figured it wouldn't do any harm to try this product out so here's what I did.
I added new substrate, filter, heater, water and the plants from the old tank along with some new ones. My intention was to do "fish-in" cycling with six neons and a cory, test the water daily and preform a water change when needed. On day one my water results were as follows
Temp: 79
No2:0
No3:0
Ph:6.7 (a little low but my tank will contain amazon fish)
Gh:10
Ammonia:0
Over the next few days (adding the bacteria as the bottle said) I tested daily. On day three the ammonia reading was at 0.01mg/l so I preformed a 15% water change. Day four the ammonia was back at zero and the No3 reading was at 10mg/l. Day five and it read the same.
Does this mean the tank has been cycled (if that is the case then its new record) or am I to expect a second ammonia spike?
It's worth pointing out that this is a hobby for me and I am not an expert in the subject (7 years of fish keeping) I'd be interested in people's views on the subject.
