Water parameters? Cycling? I dont know what's going on here.

[jcarson]

Not sure how you will fair in the hobby if you do not care about the welfare of the fish.

And how do we gauge "fair?"

If he watched the ammonia and nitrite spike to lethal, then fall back to 0 as he says, then his cycle is more or less complete.
Yes he cycled with fish in the tank... not the greatest method but he's new and is learning. I'm pretty sure every aquarist has either cycled with fish in a tank, or messed up their cycle with meds, or some other mistake that caused a cycle to break, and had fish in an uncycled tank.
My advice to the OP; take it in stride, get rid of those community fish If you want to do cichlids. Maybe add one more group of cichlids max, but in a 55 you don't have too much more room, with 12 cichlids already. If you don't give the community fish away I would add nothing.

Thank you, the other fish (non cichlid) are being arranged for very shortly and will be placed in a new 30 gallon tank this weekend.

 

[jcarson]

Not sure how you will fair in the hobby if you do not care about the welfare of the fish.

And how do we gauge "fair?"

If he watched the ammonia and nitrite spike to lethal, then fall back to 0 as he says, then his cycle is more or less complete.
Yes he cycled with fish in the tank... not the greatest method but he's new and is learning. I'm pretty sure every aquarist has either cycled with fish in a tank, or messed up their cycle with meds, or some other mistake that caused a cycle to break, and had fish in an uncycled tank.
My advice to the OP; take it in stride, get rid of those community fish If you want to do cichlids. Maybe add one more group of cichlids max, but in a 55 you don't have too much more room, with 12 cichlids already. If you don't give the community fish away I would add nothing.

Thank you, the other fish (non cichlid) are being arranged for very shortly and will be placed in a new 30 gallon tank this weekend.

 

[skjl47]

Not sure how you will fair in the hobby if you do not care about the welfare of the fish.

Hello; I think you took a slightly different meaning than I intended. I changed the word fair to do.

Not sure how you will do in the hobby if you do not care about the welfare of the fish? By this I mean the welfare of our fish is a fundamental part of the hobby. It is a lot of effort and expense we go to keeping our fish in these small artificial substitutes for a natural environment.

In the end we each get to run our tanks any way we wish.

My ammonia and nitrites I have watched go from zero to lethal.

If he watched the ammonia and nitrite spike to lethal, then fall back to 0 as he says, then his cycle is more or less complete.

Hello; I found the part about where the ammonia & nitrite went from 0 to lethal but did not find anything about the test results going back to zero for these two toxins. Also nothing about any nitrates. This is why I felt the cycle is not yet done.

And how do we gauge "fair?"

Hello;

 

[Gourami Swami]

Hello; I think you took a slightly different meaning than I intended. I changed the word fair to do.

Not sure how you will do in the hobby if you do not care about the welfare of the fish? By this I mean the welfare of our fish is a fundamental part of the hobby. It is a lot of effort and expense we go to keeping our fish in these small artificial substitutes for a natural environment.

In the end we each get to run our tanks any way we wish.




Hello; I found the part about where the ammonia & nitrite went from 0 to lethal but did not find anything about the test results going back to zero for these two toxins. Also nothing about any nitrates. This is why I felt the cycle is not yet done.


Hello;

Re read it, my dyslexia may have switched the words "lethal" and "zero" hah
Yeah I agree that if the levels are high, definitely do not add any more fish right now, that would be very careless. Will take a while still for the population of bacteria to build up and the tank to become stable

 

[jcarson]

Just to be clear...
I did know I was placing these fish in harms way.
I knew there was a possibility of losing these fish.
I did read about fishless cycle but after a couple week already into it.
I do care about the fish I had no intention on caring about.
Losing ANY fish because of ME isn't right or something I intend on happening.

Im pretty sure my tank is cycled.... still a young tank I get it.
I have watched ammonia and nitrite rise to lethal levels and over time my current ammonia and nitrite is at 0ppm my nitrate is also at 0ppm.

I value this forums advice and feedback.

 

[DOOB]

^^^ ha ha ha I like this guy. ur learning man keep going!!!

 

[skjl47]

Im pretty sure my tank is cycled

my current ammonia and nitrite is at 0ppm my nitrate is also at 0ppm.

hello; If cycled there should be some nitrates according to current standards when using test kit results.

 

[jcarson]

hello; If cycled there should be some nitrates according to current standards when using test kit results.

Agreed that there "usually" some nitrates at various levels and those ranges are dependant on a few things..... but it is possible to test very low for nitrate.
Especially if your on top of your water changes and when you test in correlation with a wc.

Perfect example below, while I dont see this as absolute "ZERO" because its not.
Lets call it 2ppm Nitrate heck, you can call it what you want to call it. I call it low.

Where are your nitrate levels?

^^^ ha ha ha I like this guy. ur learning man keep going!!!

Thank you Mike.

 

[jcarson]

Can’t edit last post, but after doing some research I have found corospondence from api and another api user and api said sometimes the liquid solutions can solidify or separate. So let me give my bottles a good shake and see what happens.

 

[skjl47]

Agreed that there "usually" some nitrates at various levels and those ranges are dependant on a few things..... but it is possible to test very low for nitrate.
Especially if your on top of your water changes and when you test in correlation with a wc.

Perfect example below, while I dont see this as absolute "ZERO" because its not.
Lets call it 2ppm Nitrate heck, you can call it what you want to call it. I call it low.

Where are your nitrate levels?

Thank you Mike.

Hello; Not sure what you are about. Seems you have posted the same picture from a few days ago. This does not make sense.

Perhaps the best is you go on with running your tanks how ever you wish. No point in my continuing with this thread. You have been given at least two links to decent articles about cycling. My only suggestion is that you give them a good read.