Another cycling question

[DavidK]

Oh and I glad I found this forum. You all are great!

Okay, I have read everything I can find (here and in books) on cycling. I understand the purpose and all the chemistry of it but I'm still not grasping the tactics of the process. So please help me clarify.

I mistakenly listened to my LFS and thought that by running my setup aquarium for one week without fish that I was "cycled". Guess I am not. I now have three tetras in my 20 gallon tank but that's it. At the time they were added (yesterday) my pH was 6.8, and nitrates were 0.

I have a test kit and plan to monitor the PH, Amonia and nitrates. My understanding is that if when the nitrates or amonia get high, I need to do a 1/3 to 1/2 water change depending on how high they are. And continue doing this as needed. Is this correct?

My other question is at what point do I know I am done and ready to begin adding fish? Am I simply looking for the nitrates to return to and stabilize at zero? What's the end goal I am after to know I am ready to move forward.

And I do understand this may take weeks. I'm ready to be patient.

DavidK

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Do you have the test strips or liquid reagent kit? You'll need a reagent kit for cycling.

Basically your fish produce Ammonia. When enough bacteria has colonizes in the tank, the ammonia will turn to Nitrites. Nitrites will convert to Nitrates. Ammonia and Nitrites are poisonous at high levels (above 1 ppm). Nitrates don't get poisoning until you reach about 60 ppm. When your tank is cycled you will not see Ammonia or Nitrites, only Nitrates. When Nitrates get above 20 ppm, do a water change.

And yes, be patient. Cycling with fish takes quite a while.

 

[maxwell1295]

Cycling with fish is a long process. You really have to keep an eye on your fish and learn the beginning signs of stress. I started my 30gal with 2 giant danios and immediately saw them start to stress when ammonia levels reached 1 ppm. Based on that, I never let ammonia get above 0.5 ppm. When it hits 0.5ppm, I do a 40-50% PWC. I've been pretty much doing this every other day. I later added 5 neon tetras and they have done well. At first I was overfeeding, which led to elevated ammonia. Once I cut the feeding down to once a day, everything settled. All of the fish have been very active and really seem to be thriving.

I started a fishless cycle with a 10gal tank a week later and I imagine that tank will be fully cycled well before my 30gal is ready for more fish.

 

[DavidK]

Right now I only have test strips but I'm going out today to buy a kit for more accurate testing. This information helps out a lot. Thanks folks.

 

[donttaptheglass]

Where are you, David?

 

[DavidK]

I'm in Georgia, north of Atlanta. Plenty of acquarium and pet stores around so I should have no trouble finding the kit.

 

[donttaptheglass]

Oh yeah, should have no problem at all. Down there in the warm part of the country. Gotta keep backup aquarium heaters up here in the Arctic . . . I mean, Michigan.

 

[DavidK]

On Saturday I put some additive in my tank (don't recall the name now) to boost the bacteria growth but I'm still registering 0 on nitrites and nitrates and very low amonia as well ( < 0.25 ). SHould I be doing something else to get the cycle started?

 

[DavidK]

Oh, and forgot to mention that I am testing with the AP Master Kit now rather than strips.

 

[TomK2]

Cycling with fish requires patience, and a very low bio-load, and sparse feeding, and PWC's if ammonia or nitrite climb. So, as few fish as possible, preferably hardy ones,for several weeks. I have cycled with fish, keeping the ammonia and nitrite undetectable, and it took 40 days to see nitrates increase. For a long, wordy essay on the topic:

http://home.comcast.net/~tomstank/tomstank_files/page0017.htm

 

[bman]

Yes I agree with everyone who has posted, Patience and time are going to be the first lesson in tank cycling you will need to learn. I also have a 20 gallon (long) and it took me 6 weeks to cycle completely; I cycled with fish BTW. This lesson was the hardest to do, sit and do nothing! NTS or New Tank Syndrome hit me quite hard, and I wanted to change things and add things daily, but in the end (6 weeks later) my tank responded faster when I did nothing, but test test and test.

I would say that even though you may be testing regularly, and getting pretty low results, still wait the six weeks before considering your tank to be fully cycled. It may be done faster than that, but sometimes,as I have found, the AP kit has certain wait times before comparing against the color charts that have to be followed exactly. For example, I was getting really low nitrAte readings, but then I did the test exactly the way they said to do it in the (GASP) instructions, and got a totally different readings.

 

[Macrosill]

When testing with the AP Master Freshwater Test Kit be sure to follow the instructions for each test. I find waiting the 3-5 minutes to read the test in neceaary, based on the individual test. Also the most important IMO in the shaking done during the NitrAte test. 10 drops of bottle 1. Shake bottle 2 for 30 sec. 10 drops of bottle 2. Shake testube for a FULL minute. Wait and read the test.

Without the shaking you will not get an accurate reading.

Brian

 

[bosk1]

On Saturday I put some additive in my tank (don't recall the name now) to boost the bacteria growth but I'm still registering 0 on nitrites and nitrates and very low amonia as well ( < 0.25 ). SHould I be doing something else to get the cycle started?

A couple of things:

1. On the cycle itself, others have explained it, but here is the really simple version. Fish produce ammonia. Ammonia kills your fish. Therefore, you need to grow bacteria that will "eat" the ammonia and convert it to something less toxic. On its own, your tank will begin to develop these bacteria, which convert ammonia to nitrite. If you are detecting any ammonia, that means you do not have enough bacteria to process it as fast as your fish produce it. If the ammonia gets close to 1.0, you need to immediately do a pwc to remove the excess ammonia (bacteria live in your filter, on the substrate, etc., so water changes will not get rid of your bacteria). But until your bacteria grow, you need small amounts of ammonia to be present so the bacteria will in fact grow. In short, you should see ammonia start to climb, and then fall off and go back to zero. it takes a while.

Stage 2: Nitrites will begin to accumulate as your stage 1 bacteria grow and convert ammonia to nitrite. You need to grow a second type of bacteria to convert nitrites to less toxic nitrates. Again, if you get close to 1.0, do a big water change to help your bacteria out. These guys grow slower than your stage 1 bacteria, so it takes longer. When nitrites go back to zero and you are measuring nitrates, you are done.

Note: you will only have as much live, active bacteria in your tank for a given time as can live off of the amount of ammonia and nitrite being produced. Therefore, you can trigger a "mini-cycle" by introducing too many fish at once because you only have enough bacteria to process the ammonia and nitrites produced by your current fish. (Excess bacteria will essentiallly "starve" and die, or go dormant, because it doesn't have anything to feed on)

Read the article Tom linked you to for more info.


2. Regarding adding stuff: Since you have fish, you can't add ammonia. Most products that claim to take care of your cycle do not do so. Some of these products can actually be harmful. The exception is live bacteria cultures. If you add bacteria, you don't have to grow it. There is a product called Bio-Spira that works well, as long as it is kept refrigerated and you carefully follow the instructions. There are a couple of off-brand products that are the same. But if it isn't Bio-Spira, be skeptical and do your research to make sure it will do what you need it to do. For your tank, if you go this route, you can use the 1 oz. size, which should costs about ten bucks.

3. Closing notes: you have a pretty light bioload in your tank, so you should be fine by just watching your levels closely. Do your weekly pwc's, and do some more frequent ones temporarily if your parameters get out of whack. Your cycle will just take a long time, but you should be able to get through it no problem.

 

[Macrosill]

Why would the cycle seem to stall in the nitrite production? I am currently cycling one of my 55's. I started on 01/27 with two med raw shrimp. It is now about 3 weeks into it. After the 3rd day I started to see a rise in ammonia. It seems to have peaked at 1ppm 3 days after that. Now it has been at 1ppm for over 2 weeks with zero nitrites. Any ideas?
Tnx,
Brian

P.S. Not trying to hijack this thread, just asking a similar situation. May help both of us.