How much Ammonia
- Thread starter ziggy2
- Start date
ziggy2;1240399; said:
That won't help anything, except remove the food source for the bacteria you are colonizing. You just have to be patient. The nitrite-consuming bacteria seem to take longer to colonize. It took us 28 days to cycle our tank. Once the nitrites start dropping, they will drop fast. To do a water change and remove nitrites doesn't cycle your tank--it will only hinder the cycling process. The end result will be less beneficial bacteria to handle the bioload of your fish. When your tank is properly fishless cycled, you should be able to add ammonia at 4 ppm and in 8 to 12 hours, have 0 ammonia, and never have a nitrite reading. Your discus need pristine water conditions, so you just need to be patient
this thread is teaching me almost everything i wanted to know about fishless cycling lol.
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ziggy2;1240654; said:
As newbie fish rescuers, we knew nothing about the nitrogen cycle. We went to WalMart and bought a second 55 gallon tank, hooked the filters up, filled the tank with dechlorinated water and moved the two pacu from the crowded tank to their new clean home. The fish suffered for five days as their water got cloudier and cloudier even with water changes. On Thanksgiving Day, we changed out probably 200% of the water ten gallons at a time, until the water was no longer cloudy. When we came home 8 hours later, there was a terrible odor throughout the whole house, which was coming from the tank. It was very obvious that our pacu were going to die. We had no choice but to put them back in the crowded tank which they had grown up in with the six other large fish still living there.
RESCUED FISH
After learning about the nitrogen cycle and about beneficial bacteria, there was no way we were going to move fish to another tank without KNOWING that the tank was properly cycled. While the new tank was cycling, we asked cycling questions on forums. Most people were appalled at our overstocking and advised us to move the fish immediately to the bigger tank and put the old filters on the new tank. We couldn't keep the small tank cycled with the two HOBS, and had to do daily 80% - 100% water changes and gravel vacuuming to keep the water parameters safe for our fish. Not only did we not have enough beneficial bacteria in the HOBs, we had no way to put the HOBs on the new tank. We continued with the daily 100% water changes on the 55 gallon tank until the big tank was completely cycled. Believe me, we were desperate to get the big tank cycled and the fish moved, but after our disasterous experience, there was no way our fish were moving until that tank was cycled!
I did get a little bonus last night. When I did my test on the water, The old Nitrite was turning red. That's good in my kit. It has a little ways to go before it truely spikes, but it's getting close. My Discus are growing and getting more aggresive towards each other. I know which ones are the meanest now. Funny how they are all so different.
Anyway, I ended up having to cancel my original plant order. I was told yesterday that most of the stuff I wanted was back ordered. I went on the plant thread and found a site that people here seemed to like. I ended up giving them a heck of an order. I needed plants for another 75 I just picked up. I guess I'll get to do this again real soon.
Anyway, I ended up having to cancel my original plant order. I was told yesterday that most of the stuff I wanted was back ordered. I went on the plant thread and found a site that people here seemed to like. I ended up giving them a heck of an order. I needed plants for another 75 I just picked up. I guess I'll get to do this again real soon.
