Beginning to cycle..questions

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No bb will be fine don't add any until you get nitrites down. At least you can read it now thats good if you can suck out as much wster as posdible on this wc you should be down to .5
 
I have a 20 gallon tank I let it sit up for a week I have put 5 red eye tetra in to help with the cycling process. the pet store told me not to change the water and to let the ammonia build up. I thought I was supposed to change water weekly about 25 percent, also how often should I check levels. Please help new to aquarium confused
 
With a fish in cycle you need to check your levels daily if not twice. Ammo building up over. 25ppm for fish is bad. Same with the nitrites which is more toxic to fish. Fish in cycles require daily water changes sometimes 2 size of the wc depends on the build up of toxins in the water. Its like math with the ammo. Test water you have .5ppm do 50% water change your get .25ppm. Nitrites are difderwnt they dont go away the same thats why its good to test maybe twice a day. Theres a good thread on here for fish in cycles good info but thats the basics there .25 or less on ammo and nitrites ok. .25 or more bad. Daily twsts and water changes a must. Always add your prime after every water change.
 
I checked levels this morning and they were 1.0pm ammonia and 0 nitrates. should I check it again after I feed them this evening. my question is when should I do a water change what are bad ammonia and nitrate levels
 
twiggy135 said:
I checked levels this morning and they were 1.0pm ammonia and 0 nitrates. should I check it again after I feed them this evening. my question is when should I do a water change what are bad ammonia and nitrate levels
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I do a wc right after testing the water. As stated above if I do a WT and get ammonia reading of 0.5 I do a wc; similarly if you get a nitrite reading of 0.5 and above and similarly if you get a nitrate reading of +50.
 
That's one of the down falls off cycling period only big thing are the daily water changes you'll have to do. It's fish less guys we do a couple in the middle of the cycle and 1 at the end once you get the dosage figured testing becomes just the nitrite test and checking ph once in awhile. Some chose to go fish in much more labor involved because you have fish that need attention.
 
That right up is called the guide to fish in cycling or something like that. Not much to know really except for about 6 weeks you'll be testing and changing water every day hopefully your using prime because it'll last the whole time with 1 bottle because its very concentrated. If you have more questions I'd suggest opening s new thread that way you can get more answers from more people with more experience with fish in cycles I did it once and couldn't stand wasting all that water plus it seemed stressful to the fish but I'm more than happy to help you if I can that was just a suggestion.
 
Hbbambislayer said:
No bb will be fine don't add any until you get nitrites down. At least you can read it now thats good if you can suck out as much wster as posdible on this wc you should be down to .5
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ok so i checked nitrite this morning and it actually went down to about .75ppm.

think ill do just a small pwc.
 
The bigger the better the lower they are to start the babying of the bacteria for nitrite conversion the better they are slow devolopers if you over whelm them they grow well or at all this is a very important part of the cycle and an easy time to create a steal and have to go back and do all those wc again
 
Hbbambislayer said:
The bigger the better the lower they are to start the babying of the bacteria for nitrite conversion the better they are slow devolopers if you over whelm them they grow well or at all this is a very important part of the cycle and an easy time to create a steal and have to go back and do all those wc again
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yeah i just did 50%+

so wait how would i overwhelm them?
 
Hbbambislayer said:
The bigger the better the lower they are to start the babying of the bacteria for nitrite conversion the better they are slow devolopers if you over whelm them they grow well or at all this is a very important part of the cycle and an easy time to create a steal and have to go back and do all those wc again
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alright!!! nitrites less than .25ppm now!

whats next, 1ppm ammo?
 
First yes 1ppm ammo no more than. Second think of the BB for nitrite conversion as a baby that you are feeding. If you put to much food in its mouth it spits it out well same thing for BB it can only handle very little right now and the rest will just stay in the tank so buy slowly gradually increasing the amount of nitrites produced in the tank you won't get that build up again and be doing those back to back to back WC the BB will be able to maintain the level as it grows and slowly handle more and more for my 55 and the last 3 people I helped out on here from this point it was 8-10 days b4 4ppm ammo was added again and converted to 0 in 24hrs 2 days in a row
 
That was a miss type on the post about overwhelming them sorry should have said "if you overwhelm them they don't grow" it's not that they don't it just requires doing the WC again because they can't keep up
 
Hbbambislayer said:
That was a miss type on the post about overwhelming them sorry should have said "if you overwhelm them they don't grow" it's not that they don't it just requires doing the WC again because they can't keep up
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ohhhh i see. thanks i understand now. awesome!

guess ill just update tomorrow. thanks!
 
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