cycling a new 55 gallon.
- Thread starter mfgl
- Start date
I hate you so much right now. 
I'm on day 23 and my nitrite is > 100ppm.
Just a thought: you might want to give the tank a week or so to make sure it is fully cycled. The bacterial colonies seem to be a bit unstable at the end of the cycle so a lot of people will do a 'qualifying week' where they add their ammonia each day and keep testing for ammonia and nitrite to make sure they're dropping to 0 in 12 hours.
The danger of just throwing fish in now (I'd be tempted to do it too
) is that if your bacterial colony crashes, you get stuck doing a 'fish-in' cycle with your good fish.
I'm on day 23 and my nitrite is > 100ppm.Just a thought: you might want to give the tank a week or so to make sure it is fully cycled. The bacterial colonies seem to be a bit unstable at the end of the cycle so a lot of people will do a 'qualifying week' where they add their ammonia each day and keep testing for ammonia and nitrite to make sure they're dropping to 0 in 12 hours.
The danger of just throwing fish in now (I'd be tempted to do it too
) is that if your bacterial colony crashes, you get stuck doing a 'fish-in' cycle with your good fish.lol yeah, I m still puttin him in if the readings go goofy in the first week or so Ill just go buy a bottle of instant cycle then. I just did 30 gallon water change....unfortunately there is a big difference in PH for some reason. between tanks I mean. PH in holding tank is 6.6, new tank is like 7.4.
if the readings go goofy in the first week or so Ill just go buy a bottle of instant cycle then. I just did 30 gallon water change....unfortunately there is a big difference in PH for some reason. between tanks I mean. PH in holding tank is 6.6, new tank is like 7.4.The danger isn't just from a possibly increased bioload. If your bacteria are consuming 5ppm of ammonia in 12 hours and showing 0 ammonia and nitrite, you should be ok to fully stock the tank (although most people don't do this in most cases and that's fine).
The problem is that the bacteria can be unstable at the end of the cycle and crash for seemingly no reason. That's not always the case, so the qualifying week is more of a precaution than a necessity.
The problem is that the bacteria can be unstable at the end of the cycle and crash for seemingly no reason. That's not always the case, so the qualifying week is more of a precaution than a necessity.
I was pretty worried, last night for a couple of hours I had a lot of white crap growing everywhere. especially below the waterline that was left from my water change. No idea what it was, everything tested 0. Crystal clear now. need to clean the glass before I take pics. In the old tank I got just a few minutes ago 5 tetras, and a horse faced loach. They had a sun catfish, never seen one before looked pretty cool, going to look them up and think about it.
In your earlier post you have said that you were going to use gold fish to speed up the cycle. I have read in many post that this is a bad move. The best for you would be to buy a smaller ciclid. This will help speed the cycle and also not cause other damage to your water.
