Water Cycling and Conditioning

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rkc772 said:
wow! :screwy: so does that mean i need to empty my tank again
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I don't think so. Just add some biostarter (i.e. bottled bacteria) and get test kits for ammonia and nitrite. Record the values and follow the trends closely. Do not introduce fish until both values are consistently at zero. Make sure to add some flake food so that the bacteria have something to eat. Some plants will not hurt, either. A few snails, maybe (trumpet snails are actually good helpers in an aquarium).

No need to start all over again.

HarleyK
 
Read and understand how the tank cycling process works, then use ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kits to determine when the water is ready for fish. It is impossible to determine a time period for cycling a tank without doing any water testing, there are way too many variables. It could take a week(doubtful) or it could take 4 weeks+.

I'm cycling my 220g at the moment, I've poured a whole bottle of cycle into the tank over the last week and still have high ammonia readings. I thought this tank would have kick started straight away as I used a canister that had been running on an established tank for 2+ weeks, but alas it didnt work and I got an ammonia spike. If I had of followed your LFS's blind advice on my tank, fish would probably be dead :(
 
Good work ;) So this tank is brand new, just set-up today? If so I'd say your nitrate reading is what is in your tap water. Either that or your tank has already cycled but thats impossible if it was just set up today!

What you need to do is add a source of ammonia, you can try fishless cycling where you add pure ammonia to the tank water, or you can add a hardy/expendable fish which will produce ammonia(usually feeder gold fish or something). The beneficial bacteria wont grow and multiply without a food source(ammonia).

Your aim is to get an ammonia reading, following that a nitrite reading, then after that ammonia and nitrite should drop away to basically nothing and nitrates will slowly rise - when this happens your tank is cycled and you can slowly add more fish. :thumbsup:
 
rkc772 said:
okey ... amonia is ZERO, Nitrite is ZERO :headbang2 but Nitrate is 5.0 :(
at least i have two down one to go... :woot:
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Howdy,

Nitrate won't go down, it's the final product in this biological process and not harmful (in low conc). You can read up on the cycling in reputable aquarium books or websites (name brand aquarium product manufactuers, such as www.tetra-fish.com).

Add some flake food, possibly even snails, and test again tomorrow and the day after. You're on the right track :thumbsup:

HarleyK
 
it's a new set up... i poured in the water yesterday and added some conditioners. besided that... nothing right now. i'll go get some sturdy fish and put maybe 3-4 of them. and drop some flakes. :)
i'll keep updating the new feedbacks on this new cycling thing... honestly.. this is the first time i did cycling.... the first one, i didn't know (lucky me didn't loose any fish). for you guys :clap i'll keep it posted
 
Very lucky. Keeping fish in the tank when cycling can cause some major problems. If they dont die because of the ammonia and nitrite spikes, they can develope damage to their gills causing a long term problem.
 
Yeah a lot of people dont cycle because they arent aware of the process - if you dont cycle, you may lose fish or you may be lucky and get through it without losing any fish, but the fish will suffer regardless, and the only way to be sure your prized fish will survive and not have to deal with ammonia is to cycle the tank first!

Ideally you can do a fishless cycle where you can add pure ammonia to the tank without any fish and the bacteria will survive off this until the cycle is complete, no fish are harmed in this way. I think HarleyK might be hinting at this with his suggestion to just add some food. I havent done it this way but will try the fishless cycle thing next time I think, its a lot more humane. Before I got some feeders to help cycle my latest tank, I threw a small chunk of fish fillet in the tank to start rotting and get things moving. I still added a few feeder goldfish when I could though as I was in a hurry to get this one cycled so had no time for experimenting!

Its worthwhile reading a good detailed description of how the cycling process works and what the bacteria does. ;)
 
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