cycle time

[tarajo]

Does anyone have a general guestimate what the length of cycle should be on a 10g tank with 3 danios? i also have 2 live plants.
I am really confused as i have a 0 ammonia reading, a 0 nitrite reading and a 20 nitrate reading, but the tank has only been up since last sunday(fish added Tues). there was ammonia on thur & i did a pwc but since then the readings have been as above. I don't know if this is all correct, or if i am misreading something. thanks for any help

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Test your tap water, does it show Nitrates?

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Generally, a cycle lasts 6-8 weeks, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. It's just something you can't give an exact timing on. Just a rough idea.

 

[Tiffi]

But never in a million years it has cycled since last Sunday!

So keep on checking your water parameters and make some pwc when neccessary.

 

[tarajo]

my tap water doesn't seem to have any measurable nitrates, and i was 99.9999% sure that it couldn't possibly have cycled so soon, but wanted to get some expert opinions i will keep checking the levels and do pwc when needed.. thanks for the follow up

 

[Lonewolfblue]

But never in a million years it has cycled since last Sunday!

So keep on checking your water parameters and make some pwc when neccessary.

The only possible way it can cycle that quickly is if you used gravel from a cycled tank as well as install an already cycled filter.

 

[tarajo]

nope it is a brand new tank, thanks for the info though

 

[Zagz]

Depending on the brand of test, your nitrate reading may be a false reading. AP's test requires you to shake the test tube in each step, it is quite easy to either not shake long enough or not shake at all and get false readings. Good luck with your cycle. With fish I would expect close to 6 weeks as mentioned above.

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Live plants make it harder to find a true cycle as they keep on gobbling up any nitrogen, whether in the form of ammonia, nitrite or nitrate.

 

[TomK2]

Wow, even with a fully colonized bio-filter, 3 danios aren't going to make enough ammonia to be converted into 20 ppm of nitrate in a week! Something is amiss here. I suspect the test is wrong, or you have nitrates in your tap water. I can see no other explanation.

BTW- I have read that plants will preferentially absorb ammonia over nitrate, so perhaps that is why you don't see any ammonia yet? 3 Danios in a 10 gal would normally show at least some low level ammonia at about a week.

Otherwise, I would expect your cycle to take a minimum of 2 weeks, maximum of 8 weeks, excluding the effect of plants on a cycle. I would not add any more fish for at least a few more weeks, since I think that if you increase the bio-load you will see ammonia and nitrite.

 

[tarajo]

I am definitely going to err on the side of caution, I will leave things as is with pwcs and testing (maybe i can get a new test kit as well, i am using the dip strips now, but i am not comfortable with their accuracy) I am going to wait at least 6 weeks before adding any new fish, or until i can see an actual cycle completion... Thanks for the advice, everyone.

 

[TomK2]

Ahh! now we know why there are readings hard to explain! its the test strips! Test strips are notorious for providing hard to explain readings. You would be much better served by buying a liquid reagent kit, like the one Aquarium Pharmacueticals makes.