When do I do my first H2o change?

[West1]

A week has passed (sunday will be exactly 1 week) by and my 300 is in the cycling process.

Nitrite is 1.0
Nitrate is 20
amonia is 1.0

I have about 30-40 2-3" comets in the tank right now

Looking at the API results when do I do the first H2o change and how much? If you can give me some feedback on Nitrite, nitrate and amonia #'s of when to change my water (only for cycling process)

Thank you

 

[Tigerfish908]

Isn't that kind of a lot of fish to cycle a tank with?

I would do a water change now. 50% per week. Or 25% every other day. IMO

 

[West1]

Isn't that kind of a lot of fish to cycle a tank with?

I would do a water change now. 50% per week. Or 25% every other day. IMO

I posted and was given the green light for 5DZ feeders??

Dont I need to get my amonia high or something like that?? One thing I know little about is starting a tank (the cycling process)

So do a 50% today even thou Im in the middle of my cycling?

 

[stevietennis]

I didn't do any water changes during my cycling process. My cycling finished in about a week and 2 days. My ammonia spiked to about 4-5ppm (fishless cycling so i dosed up to that number), after that my nitrite spiked off the chart, then my nitrate spiked to about 100ppm. When everything was zero (ammonia and nitrite) I dosed ammonia up to 5ppm again. Everything went back to zero after 24hour. I was cycled. Did a large large water change to get nitrate down to 10ppm.

I wouldn't do a water change for you yet since that would probably mess with the cycling process. Do the water change at the end. I assume you are gonna let those fish rough it out and die.

 

[frasertheking]

do not od a water change until you get high nitrate and zero ammonia and nitrite or you will stall the cycle, only do a water change if you have a lot of the feeders die.

 

[West1]

I didn't do any water changes during my cycling process. My cycling finished in about a week and 2 days. My ammonia spiked to about 4-5ppm (fishless cycling so i dosed up to that number), after that my nitrite spiked off the chart, then my nitrate spiked to about 100ppm. When everything was zero (ammonia and nitrite) I dosed ammonia up to 5ppm again. Everything went back to zero after 24hour. I was cycled. Did a large large water change to get nitrate down to 10ppm.

I wouldn't do a water change for you yet since that would probably mess with the cycling process. Do the water change at the end. I assume you are gonna let those fish rough it out and die.

Cool, thanks

do not od a water change until you get high nitrate and zero ammonia and nitrite or you will stall the cycle, only do a water change if you have a lot of the feeders die.

When I first added the feeders, they were dropping like flys (assuming cause the water was crap and maybe a bad batch of feeders). Since then, only M A Y B E 1 a day may pass. They are all eating like champs and swiming like crazy.

Thanks for the info guys. Dont know to much about starting a tank.
So I wont do a water change till Im good to go
So I just basically wait till my amonia/nitrite drops to zero then right?

 

[stevietennis]

Yes. Chances are all your feeders will die from all the poop they are gonna produce, which in turn will spike your ammonia. The higher your ammonia goes up the bigger your BB colony. Why didn't you just go fishless cycling?

 

[West1]

Yes. Chances are all your feeders will die from all the poop they are gonna produce, which in turn will spike your ammonia. The higher your ammonia goes up the bigger your BB colony. Why didn't you just go fishless cycling?

I was told that using fish would speed up the cycling process. Once I see my amonia and nitrate pretty high, Im ganna feed them to my Goliath. This way they wont suficate and will go to some use

I am using stress cyle (something like that??name??). I have to add some more on the 7th day of cycling

 

[frasertheking]

next time consider using a fishless cycle (google it ) as it is less messy and easier to control.

 

[ProblEmZ]

I was told that using fish would speed up the cycling process. Once I see my amonia and nitrate pretty high, Im ganna feed them to my Goliath. This way they wont suficate and will go to some use

I am using stress cyle (something like that??name??). I have to add some more on the 7th day of cycling

If you've got other tanks you should use some of the gravel or media from an established tank to help in the cycling.