Hello! My wife and I are new aquarists. She's never done this before, I had a few fish I kept as a kid, but I wasn't very scientific about it.
We've both done some research, talked to folks at our independant fish shop, and last weekend picked up a 35 gallon hex tank, along with an AquaClear 50 and other required tidbits.
After filling it with conditioned water, we let it come up to temperature and stabilize for a day, then put in three zebra danios to begin cycling.
It has now been 5 days, and there are no apparent traces of ammonia. Per my test strips, the water is within recommended ranges for hardness and pH. There is 0 chlorine. Temperature is 78 degrees. Filter has been running at full capacity until I throttled it back last night. The tank is planted with 5 small plants -- I don't remember the names, but none is over 6" tall. They are being fed very sparingly twice a day.
Do I not have enough biomass in the tank to start an effective cycle? Or am I just being impatient? Most charts I've seen show that there should be a noticeable amount of ammonia by this point. Should we add a few more small fish, or wait it out a bit longer?
We've both done some research, talked to folks at our independant fish shop, and last weekend picked up a 35 gallon hex tank, along with an AquaClear 50 and other required tidbits.
After filling it with conditioned water, we let it come up to temperature and stabilize for a day, then put in three zebra danios to begin cycling.
It has now been 5 days, and there are no apparent traces of ammonia. Per my test strips, the water is within recommended ranges for hardness and pH. There is 0 chlorine. Temperature is 78 degrees. Filter has been running at full capacity until I throttled it back last night. The tank is planted with 5 small plants -- I don't remember the names, but none is over 6" tall. They are being fed very sparingly twice a day.
Do I not have enough biomass in the tank to start an effective cycle? Or am I just being impatient? Most charts I've seen show that there should be a noticeable amount of ammonia by this point. Should we add a few more small fish, or wait it out a bit longer?