Deckape
Aquarium Advice Addict
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2011
- Messages
- 1,567
eco23 said:Yeah, the bacteria can be sensitive little buggers. A few weeks ago I added a fish, replaced 3 fake plants with real ones and donated some filter media to a friend all over the course of a couple days. I had a fairly nasty mini-cycle for 3 days before the tank stabilized. (The tank has been established for quite some time, so this is not a reflection on the effectiveness of fishless cycling, lol)
A high temp will help, but I'm not sure it'll make a noticeable difference if you just need to bounce back from what is basically a fishless cycling mini-cycle (sounds silly, but technically that's what it is). Since you don't need to rebuild the entire bio-filter, I'd say bumping the ammo up to 2-3ppm is appropriate. I wouldn't imagine it taking more than a few days to be back to where it was.
That much lighting is asking for an algae problem IMO. I'd keep it at an 8 hour photo period. If you have a timer, lots of people also break up the lighting into two 4 hour periods which I've heard is beneficial to preventing algae outbreaks. The bacteria really doesn't care about the light, and the reason I mention leaving the light off during cycling is to help prevent any algae problems during the process. Algae tends to be very fond of the water conditions during a cycle.
Just keep the faith and you'll be right back into the game in no time
And thanks for the donation of said filter material. I am back on track.thanks to him. Anything he tells you is a fact. You'll be good and continue to be patient.