Cycling Help Needed

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motoracer110

motoracer110

Exodon
MFK Member
Jun 4, 2010
83
12
23
Colorado
Thank you for your help in advanced. I have a 135 gallon up and going for about two and a half weeks. I used nothing but RO/DI water and my tank has been milky cloudy for about 2 weeks (bacteria bloom not sure if good or bad bacteria). I thought that it would go away by now and it still hasnt. This was my first time reusing old sand from one of my old tanks and i washed it very well before i put it in the tank. My thoughts are that the sand still has waste in it causing a bacteria spike that is clouding up the water. My question is should i just let everything go or should i replace all the water in the aquarium to get rid of some of the organics? My RO only makes 75 gallons a day so it would be 2 days to fill back up.

(the tank is currently in a fishless cycle with all of my readings very low)

Just wondering what you would do?
 
Are you using clear Ammonia to do the fishless cycle?

What are your current water readings?

Also, is there a reason you are only using RO/DI water?
 
It normally takes up to 5 weeks to cycle a tank, unless you are using seeded substrate or filters.
Why use RO, it is generally not good for most fish unless you mix it with tap. RO doesn 't have any buffering capacity and can cause osmotic shock, in most fish except those from the softest waters.
 
duanes said:
It normally takes up to 5 weeks to cycle a tank, unless you are using seeded substrate or filters.
Why use RO, it is generally not good for most fish unless you mix it with tap. RO doesn 't have any buffering capacity and can cause osmotic shock, in most fish except those from the softest waters.
Click to expand...
+1 I would be doing 50% tap 50% RO.
 
Cool thank you, Reason i use RO is i have very hard water here using a TDS meter im at over 350 PPM and my water source is very high in chloramine. I was hoping to get piranhas in there and have herd they like the soft water. so should i take out my ro membrane and just use the Chloramine and sediment prefilters?
 
awesome thank u all for the impute. so i just drained the tank and added 50% tap and 50% ro water i added prime to the tap water, after 15 min added fresh bacteria for new aquariums, My ammonia is at 3.0 so i added a some bottled ammonia (clear) to bring up to 5.0 for a fishless cycle. Im running a FX5 filter and have the water just a little low so that there is a lot of aeration and surface disturbance from the spray nozzle. hopefully I am on the right track.
 
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