Cycling my Tank

hey guys.

Have begun cycling my new tank. This is day 3 of water and substrate being in the tank. I have two large pieces of wood in there and the air pump blasting away. Yesterday i threw in a bottle of safe start the small one onto filter pads and squeezed some appetizing juices from my 35 litre tanks filter pads onto the new filter foam.

I did a test tonight on the tanks water from my api kit.

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 5.0 ppm
pH - 7.8

So my question to you guys is what should i see my parameters do over the next few weeks? so i can record it and know im on the way to be cycled.

I have prime and polyfilter at the ready if that helps me for any reason?

Thanks

Gilly

Gilly wrote:

hey guys.

I have prime and polyfilter at the ready if that helps me for any reason?

Thanks

Gilly

Well you have the first aid kit ready. With all the good stuff you put in the filter you may not get the usual ammonia spike followed by nitrite spike if you are just feeding the tank. You could add some ammonia and then test until the ammonia and nitrite return to zero to be certain all is well

A more experienced second opinion will probably be along soon

Good luck
Dec

Gilly wrote:

...Yesterday i threw in a bottle of safe start the small one onto filter pads and squeezed some appetizing juices from my 35 litre tanks filter pads onto the new filter foam.

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 5.0 ppm
pH - 7.8

Looking Good Sean
How did You get the Ammonia out of the Water ? (I'm guessing with the Prime)

there is 2 main parts
1. Your Filter grows a culture of bacteria (to digest the Ammonia and convert it to Nitrite)
2. Your Filter grows a culture of bacteria (to digest the Nitrite and convert it to Nitrate)
that's pretty much it, exact times, haven't a clue.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to do small water changes during this time to avoid excessive amounts of Algae
maybe 10% every 3 days or so.
Peoples opinions vary greatly but I think I'd let it Cycle for at least 3 weeks, preferably longer...
throw a Prawn in there for a Day or 2 (untill it foams up) and then take it out.
I'm sure there are other suggestions out there but should get You by
hope it helps

Des

Yea des i think it was the capfull of prime tbh there is no way i could get my tapwaters .25ppm down to 0 buy just bacteria alone in 24 hours. so once the prime wares off im sure ill see that ammonia rise again. This waiting game is starting to frustrate me and my kerri danios, there looking across the room at their future home itching for the new space.

I hear Ya knocking Sean

it'd drive You Mad waiting
as Dec said just keep an Eye out for the 2 spikes in Your tests and wait until they're gone...
Your Kerri's will love You for it...
providing you are patient, it will pay huge dividends further down the line...


Des

The addition of prime will not reduce the ammonia reading in the test kit you have as the pH of the test kit will release the ammonia from the binding within the Prime and thus be detected by the test kit as "ammonia" even though you may have no free ammonia in the tank.

But.....you have 4 things added that will work to removed ammonia: the safe start, the squeezings from the other tank and Polyfilter.....and the heavy aeration. Of them, the Polyfilter will work very rapidly.

If you have no fish in the tank or anything else (eg decaying food) that can generate ammonia, then a good colony of bacteria would easily 'remove' the ammonia and nitrite in that time period.
But, with Polyfilter in the tank, you can't always be sure what is doing the main removal process.

I would not add ammonia solution to this tank to test the viability of the various bacteria: the reason is that ammonia is toxic to nitrifying bacteria (and if your safe start and seeding from your other tank has given you a colony of nitrifying bacteria, then the ammonia could kill them off and you'll have to start all over again).

Having said that, you could take a bucket full of the water, add an airstone and then add enough ammonia to make a concentration of, say, 0.025mg/l.........that is very dilute.....and then wait a day and see if the bacteria in the water column has reduced the ammonia. So long as you don't have Polyfilter in that test bucket, then you should see a reduction in ammonia and a small spike in nitrite (BUT.....your nitrite test kit is probably unlikely to have the sensitivity to detect nitrite as low as 0.025mg/l).

Now, going back to the Nitrite spike................
you have not noted a nitrite spike at all.
If your water was originally 0.25mg/l (and I calculated that is actually only about 0.025mg/l on another thread) then as no influx of ammonia is happening then the max concentration of nitrite is going to be very low. That very low concentration of nitrite is unlikely to be detected by a standard aquarium test kit.....hence it will read as zero.

Remind us of the new tanks size (is it 180 litres) and how many fish (and what size) are you planning on putting in it to start with? (you mention danios)

ian

I will insincerely apologise for the complexity of the chemistry and science behind all of this.

The reality is that it is complex, and it is a major reason for fish losses.
The other reality is that fish fully understand the chemistry.....they don't speak our language on it, they simply live, get very ill, or die.

ian

re reading this a few times to get arounds its complexity.... 180 litre tank...

Stocking intentions would be 8 kerri danio
6 neon tetra
zebra loach
a brittlenose loach i think its called...
and some other small fish total fish might add to about 20....

ill be watching ammonia over time and if it rises then ill be buying an external filter

Personally, what I would do as you have added safe start and you have filter squeezings and your test kit says zero ammonia (assuming that is correct)......is to add the few danios now and let the tank start to properly go towards maturing.
Introduce the danios the usual way (gradually acclimatising them to the temp and water etc etc).

Leave the polyfilter in for another week, then remove it to allow the tank to remove ammonia on its own.

Hold off for a while on adding new purchases though.

Keep the aeration good and strong. Feed sparingly and do more frequent partial water changes in the first few weeks after adding the danios.

Add new purchases a few at a time over the next few weeks. And keep checking the water.

No matter which way you start to 'cycle' a tank, it will never be mature enough without having fish in it.

Watch the behaviour of the danios, and keep a careful check on the shape of their gill covers.

If fish startle very easily, or make mad attempts to jump out of the water (if you had killies or arowana then they do that anyway ) or the fins become tattered then they are early signs of ammonia poisoning at a low level.

If the gill covers start curling outwards, then that could well indicate that nitrites and nitrates have spiked at even a brief period.

Of the other fish, I would add the loaches last.....when the tank is 'getting there'. Maybe the neons would be the ones to introduce after the danios.......although I would recommend another tetra species such as Emperor Tetras or Rummy Nose as they tend to be stronger fish in the shops (you don't half see some crap neons around....and the last thing you want is neons dropping dead).

All-in-all, it is not as if this is the first stank you have ever set-up, you've got the gist about methods to quick start a tank, there is the forum here for advise......so I recon you have a good chance of success with this new tank.
(of....anything can go wrong no matter what you do)


Best wishes.

ian

throw in a few zebra's, do 10 / 15% / 20% partial changes every day for a couple of weeks and test regularly .. bobs your uncle no ammonia / nitrite