is my tank cycled?

[pcfriedrich]

forget time spans. just keep doing water tests (but not every day, its not gonna happen over night). water tests are the key.

wait till you see:

ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - elevated

lower nitate through water changes and add your new fish one at a time, spaced at least two days apart.

 

[pcfriedrich]

i would go buy 10-15 guppies put them in for about a week and test ur water again

adding feeders will speed the process.

just make sure you remove the dead immediately. and make sure you lower nitrates through water changes before you add your cichlids.

 

[andyjs]

From those readings, I'm guessing no ammonia source has been added. A tank will not cycle with no ammonia source. Cycling is not about waiting for some magic period of time, it's about establishing a colony of beneficial bacteria in the tank. For an ammonia source, you can either use some cheap, hardy fish (danios, healthy feeders), or my personal favorite, cleaning ammonia (types that only include ammonia and water, no detergents/surfactants). Using cleaning ammonia, you don't have to worry about the cycling fish dying or spreading disease to the permanent inhabitants and I think it's cheaper in the long run if you cycle many tanks (I have a bottle of ammonia that I've used for 4 years and I've used less than half of it). Now if you have a friend or other reliable source with a healthy tank, see if you can borrow some of their used filter media (that is currently colonized with bacteria) and this should speed up the cycle greatly.

 

[mrquad]

thanks for the information guys..