Python Bio Support

[MapleNeil]

I'm in a predicament, fish are coming in the mail, got the 20gallon tank set up, was planning to use the cycled power filter from my other tank in the new tank.

But one of my fish in the other tank has white spots. Been treating for ick and general parasites for 3 days and seems to be under control but no way will I move a filter from there to a new tank.

So, the tank is just cycling on its own with lots of bottom feeder pellets and flakes in there. I used a bit more than the recommended amount of Python Bio Support.

So far, I see ammonia levels consistently between 0.25 and 0.5, nitrites at zero, and nitrates steadily going up every day. Ammonia is down below 0.25ppm today and nitrates up to about 8ppm.

My question is, could it actually be cycled in 3 days? Or did the food produce the nitrates I'm seeing? The fish will be here soon and I don't really know what to do with them.

 

[Aiken Drum]

I dont think food could be producing nitrate through any process other than the nitrogen cycle.

As you are feeding the cycle with fish food rather than ammonia or ammonium chloride you have no way of knowing how much ammonia is being processed apart from making presumptions based on how much nitrate you are producing.

8ppm would result from about 2ppm ammonia, so based on that you are cycling out about 0.6ppm ammonia per day. But, the test kit won't be so accurate to know exactly how much nitrate you have. All you can really say is that you have a low to moderate level of nitrate production over 3 days.

Also the bio support you added went into the water column and will have acted on the ammonia from there and may or may not have established on your filter media. 3 days of nitrate production is not long enough to tell if the beneficial bacteria has established properly.

All you can really say is that you likely have some cycle, which is better than none. In your situation i would do a big water change prior to adding your fish, make sure you get out all the waste food you added, add some more bio-support, and proceed as you would with a fish on cycle.

 

[MapleNeil]

Thanks for the advice.

I forgot to mention the new tank has two medium sponge filters. The new fish are 8 small juvenile corydoras so they should have a pretty small bioload.