Cycled Already?

[leah2296]

Hi all,
 
I am moving my African cichlids to a new tank in a new city. I have the new tank all set up and I brought one of the filters from the original tank and put it on the new tank. The rocks and substrate are all new though so I anticipated having to cycle the tank again from scratch.
 
I've been waiting for a new testing kit to arrive in the mail (my old one is expired) and it arrived today. Just tested the water:
ammonia - 0
nitrites - 0
nitrates - 30...? hard to tell from the chart.
ph - 7.5
 
I've only had the tank set up a week. Is it possible it's cycled already? I just bought some live colony to add to the tank but now that I've tested the water I'm not so sure I need to/should add it in.
 
I would like to have the tank all cycled and ready to go before I move the fish in!
 
Any advice would be appreciated! thanks,
 
Leah

 

[fluttermoth]

If you add all the media from the current filter into the new tank's filter, you won't need to cycle.
 
Unless you feed the bacteria in the new tank with ammonia, they will die off.

 

[leah2296]

I don't even have a new filter - I just brought the whole filter with me actually!
 
So, I guess it's cycled then!... problem is I can't seem to buy ammonia in Canada. All the hardware stores stopped selling pure ammonia for safety reasons. It will be another week or so before I can get my fish here.. Should I put in the live bacteria in there to keep the colony going? 
 
I could go buy one or two fish to put in there in the meantime but it's hard to find fully grown cichlids here and in my experience young cichlids do not do well with my big, old, mean guys and gals.

 

[fluttermoth]

Pop a some fish food in there (about the amount you would normally feed your fish). That'll break down and produce enough ammonia to keep the bacteria going until you get the fish in
 
You wont need to put food in every day; once or twice during the week will do to keep the colonies ticking over. Hope your fish are okay without their filter!

 

[daizeUK]

It sounds like your readings are zero because you did not add any ammonia or fish to the tank. If you didn't add ammonia then there is no reason to expect any reading.

If you can't get hold of pure ammonia then a piece of raw prawn/shrimp is the next best option for providing a source of ammonia. The living bacteria in your filter may not be in very good shape after a week without food so I would expect that you are not cycled and there's no guarantee that the tank will be in a fit state for your fish by the time they arrive. A week isn't really long enough to build up bacteria, it will take them at least that long just to recover from starvation.

I would save your live bacteria and add it to the tank after your fish are in. What brand bacteria is it?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

 
Using shrimp or fish food: One of the more popular fishless cycling methods is to buy a few dead shrimp at the grocery store, cut them up into chunks and add them to the aquarium. The shrimp decay, which produces ammonia to feed the nitrifying bacteria. There are a few drawbacks with this method, one being that the hobbyist really has no way to know how much ammonia is being produced by the decaying shrimp, and the aquarium does not look very good with dead shrimp laying on the bottom. Also, the organic material of the shrimp can cause bacteria blooms which turn the aquarium water cloudy. This method works but it takes time and patience and you will probably see a spike in ammonia and nitrite if you add a medium to heavy load of fish after the initial cycling. Note that some people use flake fish food instead of shrimp but this is not recommended because flake food does not have much organic material compared to shrimp and so does not add a lot of ammonia to the water, but you can use cut fish instead of shrimp.

from http/www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/how-to-start

 

[leah2296]

Oh I am quite sure the fish are fine - the tank they are in now was way overfiltered.. I had two filters running on the tank and I took only one and left one there and running. I prefer to overfilter a cichlid tank obviously, but they should be fine with one filter instead of two for a couple weeks!
 
I added a small bottle of "Cycle" because I had some on hand and there would have been some ammonia and nitrites in the filter media. I tried many times to get pure ammonia and no luck. My LFS sold me the live colony instead; it's called "ATM Colony Freshwater"
 
I can track down some shrimp and try that method - I'm a vegetarian so I never have fish or shrimp on hand

 
thanks.. I'll let you know.
 
Leah

addition: I don't have to bring the fish here in week - I was planning on waiting longer actually. It's just that that's the soonest I can get them here.

 

[leah2296]

I had some cubes of frozen shrimp for cichlids in the freezer so I threw in two of those cubes. Maybe that will kickstart the tank and give me a better idea of what's going on.
 
Thanks again for all your input.

 

[leah2296]

So I added the cubes of frozen shrimp but that only brought my ammonia up to 0.5
 
I went on a hunt again and finally found some "Old Country" pure ammonia.
 
I am not sure if I need to start the cycle all over again or if I am doing maintenance feedings or what.
 
I have brought the ammonia up to 3ppm but maybe I shouldn't be starting all over again with ammonia that high. Before I added the ammonia, my readings were ammonia - 0.5, nitrites - 0, nitrates - 10

 

[l_l_l]

I was in the same quest than you before and someone helped me, 
I'm quoting him from this thread: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/427560-cycling-my-46g-bowfront-weird-readings/
 

My best bet here is you added enough bacteria to pretty much cycle the tank. The ammonia reading is likely in error and probably due to the Prime. It can throw off ammonia test results if not taken right away. After that one needs to allow prime to clear the system before testing.
 
Here is what I would advise. Do a big water change to clear out ammonia and nitrite. Dose the prime and then test right away before the prime starts to affect results. You should see 0/0 by then. If not, change more water until you do. Then wait 36 hours for the prime to clear out and then add ammonia sufficient to produce 3 ppm in your tank. he wait 24 hours and test for ammonia and nitrite. Hopefully, you will get 0/0 and be cycled. if you do not get 0/0 then following the end of the cycle directions in the article for how to proceed.

After doing what he told me, I figured out I was cycled already.