Cycling my tank. Am I doing it right?

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nickzaver92

nickzaver92

Gambusia
MFK Member
May 30, 2014
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United States
So I just set up my 120 about 2 or so days ago. I spent hours on here reading how people have successfully cycled a tank in a week or less and put that into effect last night. I've been out of the hobby for about a year, so I decided to see what I can do here. 120 gallon tank, 20g long sump wet dry system with a Jebao DC 6000 pump running at 2/3 of full power. 500w Kessil heater turned up to 84 degrees. No substrate in the tank yet. I hooked up my buddies old filthy HOB filter to start running because it should have all the beneficial bacteria. Added Microbe Lift Special Blend twice now. Threw in 20 rosy reds and fed them.
Suggestions?
 
you're right track but the issue here is those rosy reds, If you bought them from LFS...now you have a whole setup on quarantine, unless your rosy reds are clean from parasites!
 
Yuki Rihwa said:
you're right track but the issue here is those rosy reds, If you bought them from LFS...now you have a whole setup on quarantine, unless your rosy reds are clean from parasites!
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The rosy reds are clean from parasites and quarantined before being sold at the LFS where I do business.
How long do you think it should take before it's ready for fish?
I tested the water maybe an hour after all of that was done, and it tested ammonia for 2.0 ppm.
 
You have to test water daily until 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite and some Nitrate, for faster result you will need to dose bacteria booster daily because the old HOB filter is good but it doesn't content enough BB (that's why you seeing ammonia present in your tank), depend on size and fish species you gonna keep after a week you can safely introduce new fish into your tank, best I would wait for at least 2 weeks.
 
Yuki Rihwa said:
You have to test water daily until 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite and some Nitrate, for faster result you will need to dose bacteria booster daily because the old HOB filter is good but it doesn't content enough BB (that's why you seeing ammonia present in your tank), depend on size and fish species you gonna keep after a week you can safely introduce new fish into your tank, best I would wait for at least 2 weeks.
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I dose with Microbe Lift Special Blend. I also have Nite Out. Should I add that every other day?
 
you are doing fine, if you dose with enough bottled bacteria you should be able to add fish within the week. I have never let a tank cycle, just add bacteria, fish, and monitor.
 
predatorkeeper87 said:
you are doing fine, if you dose with enough bottled bacteria you should be able to add fish within the week. I have never let a tank cycle, just add bacteria, fish, and monitor.
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Plain and simple, just the way things should be lol. Thanks a lot! So at this point, just get my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate down to 0, and I'm good?
 
that's it, except your nitrate shouldn't be 0, you should always register at least some nitrate. you dose more bacteria and that ammonia and nitrite will disappear quick.
 
nickzaver92 said:
The rosy reds are clean from parasites and quarantined before being sold at the LFS where I do business.
How long do you think it should take before it's ready for fish?
I tested the water maybe an hour after all of that was done, and it tested ammonia for 2.0 ppm.
Click to expand...

Even if your fish came to LFS clean, it probably picked something up there, I would still quarantine....2.0 ppm of ammonia will likely kill your fish IMO
 
Nitrate testing quite tricky if you are using API test kit, you WILL NEED TO SHAKE the bottle like no tomorrow for couple minutes then do the test and wait for color to form after 10 minutes.
 
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