Fishless Cycle..is it too fast?

[guppy grandma]

Hi, I started my 1st fishless cycle on evening of 20th Sept. Tank settup with everything but fish, seeded with stuff from existing tank, added food and ammonia and we had a 4ppm!!!!

Morning of 21st had reading of 2ppm and in the evening of 21st had ammonia reading of < 1. This am (22nd) the reading is > 0 < .25, so decided to check Nitrite and its > 0 < .25.

Is this ok, or is it too fast (2.5 days)? Or should I add more ammonia...help please

 

[librarygirl]

Hi, I started my 1st fishless cycle on evening of 20th Sept. Tank settup with everything but fish, seeded with stuff from existing tank, added food and ammonia and we had a 4ppm!!!!

Morning of 21st had reading of 2ppm and in the evening of 21st had ammonia reading of < 1. This am (22nd) the reading is > 0 < .25, so decided to check Nitrite and its > 0 < .25.

Is this ok, or is it too fast (2.5 days)? Or should I add more ammonia...help please

The seeded material is helping a lot! That's good!

You definitely want to redose ammonia now; whenever it gets to .5 or less, redose it up to 4. As the cycle progresses ammonia will go from 4 to 0 in 24 hours, so just redose every day (only redose once in 24 hours though even if you check it twice). Nitrite should start to rise too. This is a good start, definitely.

 

[guppy grandma]

Phew, relief, thank you. Will do as you advised, complicated this fish stuff!

 

[jeffp]

how much stuff did you take to use to seed? and if your ammonia dropped that much and your nitrites are that low, i would test nitrates to make sure they are going up and nothing weird is happening

 

[LyndaB]

I've used seeded media in all my tanks after the first one. I never added ammonia and had an instant cycle.

 

[steez]

I put one of my 55g filters into my 10g tank to seed it and after only 5ish days now it has already went from the ammonia phase and spiked my nitrites. now im just watching the nitrites drop and my nitrates fly up. so fast!

 

[guppy grandma]

Hi jeffp, I took some ceramic noodles and filter material from an established tank, I'm very surprised at the drop in ammonia as I thought it would be about a week.

However, I now have another problem, one of my oranders has started sitting at the bottom of the tank and only shows interest when food is about, then he whizzes all over the tank and seems quite normal, when the food has gone he sits at the bottom again. Absolutely no sign of anything wrong, he looks ok, any ideas?