ouch. i just wana cycle so bad got my ammo allredy to go lol. let the waiting game begin
If you want to start it so much then just get a 5g bucket and add some of your gravel and start growing nitrAtes in your filter. Get a head start on cycling your tank. Plus it gives your brain something constructive to do while your waiting.
Just set the bucket up like you would your tank, minus decorations and fish. Then cycle it like you planned on with your tank.
Since it is SW and I don't know what the best parameters are for SW I'll give you the FW parameters and hopefully you can convert them somehow. There are things with SW that I've never had to worry about.
But in
fresh water, the
bucket parameters need to be, Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrites 0ppm,
NitrAtes 80ppm & up, pH in the bucket isn't a concern. It's a bucket and it will never have any fish in it, I hope.
So what ever the parameters for SW are that's what the bucket should be, plus double the nitrAtes at least. Just to seed the tank when you switch over. The higher levels help it grow faster in a larger area.
I hope this makes some sense to you. It really helps to speed things up.
Our city water had a problem with something in it that wasn't supposed to be. Only for 1 day, but I just happened to do PWC in 2 of 4 tanks that day. It killed all the fish in the 10g QT and burned (badly) the 2 fish in the 55g tank ( a Pleco & an Angelfish).
I also have over 25gallons of water that's treated and just waiting in case of an emergency. So I removed everything including the gravel and filter form the 10g QT. I drained it, rinsed it out a couple of times, dried it out, then refilled it with the safe water. I put the 2 injured fish in the QT while I started on the 55g tank. Only I had to wait for the tap water to be safe, I don't have the room to store that much water.
The problem was the 10g was
way to small for either fish let alone both, so I was doing 90% PWC twice a day and the last thing they need was ammonia burns or toxicity.
Long story short, because of the extra filters in the bucket with very high nitrAtes, I cycled the 55g tank in 5 days.
This should work for you too.
