Help with fish in cycling

[jennandjuicetm]

My tank has been established for over a month. This past week has been crazy at work and I had a special needs foster dog for a few days. This pulled me away from the tank for a bit and I didn't have time to do any water changes, though I did add Prime every 4i hours. Wednesday my ammonia was over 2ppm and normally when I do water changes I have to do several small ones to get back down to zero. In lieu of wasting time doing several small changes I did a 100% change. I made sure to keep all of the filter media and decorations floating in the old tank water. I vacuumed the gravel really well. I added some Betta Safe water conditioner (my tap has no ammonia) And a whole bottle of safe start. Peviously I added another whole bottle about 14 days before I added this one. Since my change I'm already up to a little under 0.25 ppm ammonia and my nitrates remained at less than 5ppm where they have been since I added the first bottle of SS. I haven't ever seen any nitrites. Where do I go from here?

 

[Mebbid]

It can take up to 2 months to cycle a tank. I would just keep up with water changes. Instead of a 100% change which can be stressful on fish I'd look at 50% changes multiple times in 1 day instead.

 

[jennandjuicetm]

So I should just keep on keeping on? I am having to do about a 25% wc every three days or so, is that too much?

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[cfosgate]

There's no such thing as too many water changes. Fresh is always good although keep it to 50% or less to reduce fish stress.

 

[jennandjuicetm]

Ok awesome! I thought too many wc would mess up my cycle.

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[BBradbury]

Fish In Tank Cycling

Hello jenn...

Here's the nitrogen cycle briefly: You add a few small fish and feed them a little every couple of days. Their wastes combined with oxygen starts the cycle. You run the tank for a couple of days and start testing the water for traces of ammonia and nitrite. If you have a positive test, you remove 25 percent of the water and replace it with pure, treated tap water. Don't remove more water, you need to leave some of the toxins in to support the good bacteria. If you keep the tank water too clean, the good bacteria have no food, so there's no reproduction and no cycle.

Just test the water every day and change 25 percent when needed. At the end of a month or so, when several daily tests show no traces of ammonia or nitrite, the tank is cycled. From that time on, you change half the tank water every week or so to maintain safe water conditions.

B