Cycling

[ukgoffer]

so I'm 4 weeks into cycling my new 250. Finally! Right now I have an eheim 1200xl (aka 2262 I think) running with K1 media in it. All new. A DYI fluidized bed filter with purigen (trying to get tannins out) and a supplemental 2215 eheim unit with old media in it. I ran it for a week empty. Added a dozen tin foil barbs and zebra danios and ran that for a week. Then I added 2 small Dats and a geophagus. And at the beginning of this week I moved a big fork bar Dat in (a little sooner than I was planning but an impeller broke on an old tank). For the last two weeks straight I have seen a steady 0.25 ammonia reading and a pale 5 reading on nitrates. Nil reading on Nitrites. I have to calibrate my PH meter to be sure but my tap is currently 6.12 and the tank is reading 5.74. The only other stuff in the tank is pool filter sand and 4 large pieces of driftwood, 3 of which have been in other tanks for 5 years+.
Thoughts? I expected to get some variation in the readings but they've been steady for two weeks at least. The fish don't appear stressed at all, are eating well and no sign of gill irritation (no scraping the bottom etc.).
I have a continuous drip set up but not turned on yet.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

Well you probably added to many fish to quickly. That tank didn't have enough time to catch up with the tinfoil bioload let alone the rest of the fish added but up your water changes until that ammonia comes down. If you are reading nitrates then your cycle is almost there. Try adding some safestart or stability to help the bacteria colonize faster. The ph difference is more than likely from that new piece of driftwood having a lot of tannins leaching into the water, it should stabilize with your tap once most of the tannins have dispersed.