Cycle not starting? More fish?

[kaosfere]

Hello! My wife and I are new aquarists. She's never done this before, I had a few fish I kept as a kid, but I wasn't very scientific about it.

We've both done some research, talked to folks at our independant fish shop, and last weekend picked up a 35 gallon hex tank, along with an AquaClear 50 and other required tidbits.

After filling it with conditioned water, we let it come up to temperature and stabilize for a day, then put in three zebra danios to begin cycling.

It has now been 5 days, and there are no apparent traces of ammonia. Per my test strips, the water is within recommended ranges for hardness and pH. There is 0 chlorine. Temperature is 78 degrees. Filter has been running at full capacity until I throttled it back last night. The tank is planted with 5 small plants -- I don't remember the names, but none is over 6" tall. They are being fed very sparingly twice a day.

Do I not have enough biomass in the tank to start an effective cycle? Or am I just being impatient? Most charts I've seen show that there should be a noticeable amount of ammonia by this point. Should we add a few more small fish, or wait it out a bit longer?

 

[papa_bear_21]

First things first, no more fish. I learned my lesson, and will only do fishless cycling from here on out. Second, I would invest in a liquid test kit, I use API's master test kit for freshwater. The paper strips have a high tendancy to be inaccurate. When we did our cycle in the tank with fish, it took almost 2 months, and many lost fishies. I had good success with Bio Spira, after adding some API aquarium salt to the tank (my community does best with aquarium salt). Pick up some of that and add it to the tank. But deffinately no more fish until after the cycle.

 

[Ferret_Friend]

First things first, no more fish. I learned my lesson, and will only do fishless cycling from here on out.

Same here.

 

[Zagz]

Agreed you shouldn't add anymore fish. If you don't already have a FW master test kit you should pick one up. Aquarium Pharmaceuticals sells a great one and very inexpensive. You will need to keep an eye on your parameters and keep your ammonia and nitrite below 1ppm for the sake of the fish. You will be in for extra water changes. If you can borrow some filter media from an established trusted tank, you will speed up your cycle.

Welcome to AA!

 

[7Enigma]

3rd on the test strips (trash them!). You very likely will not see a cycle right now since you have plants and a very low bioload (the 3 fish). The fish are producing very little waste and the plants are probably using all the ammonia being produced. I would also recommend not adding more fish for at least a week or 2. Then (with your new liquid test kit), you can begin to slowly add in fish and watch for an ammonia/nitrIte spike.

If done slowly and carefully monitored you might have a silent cycle where you never see ammonia or nitrIte in the tank. Your fish will love you for it.

Finally, with plants I would recommend weekly water changes of 20% or so minimum (go out and buy a gravel vacuum if you don't have one already, or a python). This is to replenish the nutrients that the plants are using to prevent deficiency and subsequent algae problems. Plants become unhealthy due to deficiency ----> ammonia levels rise ----> fish get harmed. During these water changes just suck out the water near the surface. Stay away from the substrate (sand/gravel/etc.) UNLESS you see visible food debris or fish poo. If you see those suck them up, otherwise leave the substrate alone, as it is key to your biological filtration.

Goodluck and congrats on getting back into the hobby.