Help! Is my tank cycled?

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B

bluemandarin

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 13, 2010
37
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Singapore
Hi,

Started cycling my new 70 gallon tank about 3 weeks ago using the fishless method. I dosed ammonia to get a reading of 4mg/l to begin with. Took about a week and a half for the reading to finally get down to zero. In the meantime, Nitrites kept on creeping up. Spiked and then was stuck at about 1mg/l for about a week, until today, when I tested the water and surprisingly, it went from 1mg/l to 0mg/l overnight! (24 hrs ago it was 1mg/l) Didn't quite believe it and tested a second time and got a reading of 0mg/l again. Tested nitrates and got a reading of 10mg/l. Do you guys think my tank is cycled?

My two concerns
1. Nitrites suddenly falling so quickly
2. Having such a low nitrate reading. I would have thought the nitrate reading should be higher than 10mg/l

Appreciate the help. :)
 
You know you are supposed to keep adding ammonia to the water, right? I only asked, because you made it sounds as if you only added it in the beginning and let it zero out and never readded any. The bacteria that feeds on the ammonia can't survive long without food, so it's possible you might need to recycle the tank to get the bacteria growing properly.
 
Well I'd say it could very well be cycled then. The bacteria that processes the ammonia and nitrites is very efficient once it gets going. That's why you should have zero ammonia and nitrite readings in a healthy tank even though ammonia and nitrites are continually added to the tank. Continuing with your fishless cycle for another week or two and monitoring definitely won't hurt anything though.
 
aaronb said:
Well I'd say it could very well be cycled then. The bacteria that processes the ammonia and nitrites is very efficient once it gets going. That's why you should have zero ammonia and nitrite readings in a healthy tank even though ammonia and nitrites are continually added to the tank. Continuing with your fishless cycle for another week or two and monitoring definitely won't hurt anything though.
Click to expand...

Thanks for yr advice. I'll prob do as you say and monitor the levels for another week. It's been a longgggg process though ;)
 
i'd start adding fish now tbh, just don't add too many at once, not sure what you intend to keep but add the least aggressive and smaller of the fish first and every few days add another
 
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