tank cycling

[liamoi]

how do i know when my new tank is ready for fish to be added? how long on average does it take (i have some old filter media in there to speed things up)

 

[rallysman]

you should see the amonia go up, then nitrite, and when you see amonia and nitrite at 0 and your nitrates rising you're ready to go. Just dont add too many fish at once.

 

[davo]

when fish stop dying?

yea what rallysman said. keep testing, looking out for those things, then put in a couple of inexpensive fish to "test" the water. or expensive, depends how rich you are.

 

[moxxommox]

just throw in some feeders/golds or something, if they die, no harm, if they live, they help speed up the process. =)

G'luck!

 

[Burtess]

Assuming you are doing a fishless cycle and adding ammonia every day you have to wait for the ammonia and nitrite spikes to happen and for them to consistenly drop to 0ppm, just like rallysman said.
If you are adding enough ammonia to keep it around 5ppm initially, you should have enough bacteria grown after the cycle completes, that you can fully stock your tank right away. No need to add fish slowly since you already have the full load of bacteria there.

Burt

 

[Hakon]

I agree with rallysman and Burtess.