Beezer11 said:
HOW DO I PROPERLY CYCLE MY 55 GALLON AQUARIUM??????????? I WILL BE USING A USED SYSTEM BUT REPLACING THE FILTERS,THE "BIO-WHEELS" HAVE BEEN USED FOR A COUPLE YEARS. I HAVE NOTHING IN MY 55 GALLON TANK BUT AIR. lET'S PRETEND I DON'T HAVE A 10 GALLAN TANK PLEASE????????
ummm. You should of expected comments on the 10gl tank sheesh. You even stated "Here's the deal, I got a 10 G tank and killed a bunch of fish. Now it's "stable". Ph 7, Ammo .50ppm, nitrIte 0ppm, nitrAte 0ppm, and still a small Angel died today!?!?!?"
Well of course someone is going to comment, you had question marks there. Ammonia is in the tank and a fish died. The tank is NOT stable with .5 ammonia. You shouldnt have ammonia at all in there. If you do something is wrong. There should be some NitrIte if you have good bacteria in there doing its job as the ammonia is turned into NitrIte and once the NitrIte is processed turned into NitrAte. That is why The same thing can and will happen in the 55gl.
My point is. Instead of appearing annoyed someone commented on a obvious problem, learn from it because your 55gl can and will have the same problems. That 10gl is a learning tool. I had a 10gl "tank of death" as I called it. I couldnt keep anything alive in it. I got the 55gl and have had great success so far. I learned a lot from that 10gl tank of death and learned not to repeat the same mistakes in my 55gl. Now I have a betta in my 10gl that is doing great. I have a healthy 55gl stocked with fish.
It appears you are going to go through the process of using ammonia to cycle your tank. The dried filters are worthless as far as helping to cycle which has already been addressed.
There is another easy way with less work. Throw 2-3 cocktail shrimp from the grocery store in the tank and let it rot and cycle it. That is what I pretty much did for my 55gl. I also added biospira after a few days of the shrimp rotting because I wanted it to cycle faster. I sat with an empty tank and let it do its thing.
Once you see NitrIte and NitrAte peak in your 10gl and drop to 0 again (cycle will be complete) squeeze the filters in the 55gl to get the good bacteria.
It depends on what works best for you. Good luck. Hope you enjoy your 55gl as much as I have.[/b]