Do you do water changes while cycling?

[despreauxb]

I've read mixed things on if you're supposed to do water changes or not during cycling. My ammonia level is about 8ppm nitrite I would say is between 0 and .25ppm and no Nitrate is id about 20 ppm. I have 2 live plants in there if that helps. And im supposed to be doing anything to my tank or just let it run? Aslo after it cycles how big of a water change do I need before adding fish?

 

[Fishmanic]

What type of cycling are you doing..fish or fishless? What size is your tank and what type of filtration do you have?

 

[Fishmanic]

If you are doing a fishless cycling, i would do a 60 percent water change to bring the ammonia down to 3ppm. Then let the cycling complete with no further water changes until the end. Once cycling is completed, do a 100% water change before adding any fish.

 

[despreauxb]

What type of cycling are you doing..fish or fishless? What size is your tank and what type of filtration do you have?

I have a 20 gallon high with a peguin 10 filter I think, its fishless. Will the bacteria or whatever I need for the fish stay in tank with a 100% water change?

 

[Fishmanic]

Once you are fully cycled and ammonia and nitrites are at 0 , you should run a final test by adding 3ppm ammonia. If the ammonia reading goes to 0 within 24 hours, then you are fully cycled. You can then do a 100% WC. It will not affect the BB but will remove the excess nitrates that occur during cycling.

 

[Ichthys]

I have a 20 gallon high with a peguin 10 filter I think, its fishless. Will the bacteria or whatever I need for the fish stay in tank with a 100% water change?

The bacteria aren’t in the water so you can change some whenever you like. A water change is often required during cycling, either to replenish KH in very soft water or to bring ammonia or nitrite or nitrate down if they get very high. 8 ammonia is a little high so I’d change some.
Add the end of the cycle you change the water to bring the nitrates down as much as possible, but you can do a water change during a cycle whenever you feel like it. It won’t do any harm and it usually speeds the cycle up a bit.

 

[Fishmanic]

Water changes during cycling are usually not needed as long as you start cycling with 3ppm ammonia...no more, no less. If you start with too much ammonia, that could stall the cycle .

 

[despreauxb]

Water changes during cycling are usually not needed as long as you start cycling with 3ppm ammonia...no more, no less. If you start with too much ammonia, that could stall the cycle .

I dont know what I started with, so I should I do a change anyways? I started it the 1st

 

[Fishmanic]

You are still in the early stage of cycling. You should change out 60% of the water so you can bring down the ammonia to 3PPM. Completing cycling could take 5 weeks or longer.

 

[Essjay]

Nitrite stalls the cycle at around 15 ppm. Each 1 ppm ammonia is turned into 2.7 ppm nitrite so it doesn't take much ammonia to get nitrite to stall point. This is one of the reasons for using 3 ppm ammonia; the other is that a sensibly stocked tank of fish makes less than 3 ppm ammonia in 24 hours so even using 3 ppm grows more bacteria than needed.

The other thing to be wary of is adding too much ammonia as ammonia starts to fall. Older methods said to add ammonia every time it dropped to zero, but all that does is make so much nitrite the cycle stalls. That's why the method on here was written. That says to add ammonia only when certain targets have been reached so nitrite cannot get high enough to stall the cycle.
Are you using this method?

Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!

Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...

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As Ichthys mentioned, with soft water, the pH can drop as KH gets used up. If you have soft water, it is advisable to test pH when you do the other tests.


Have you tested your tap water nitrate? You may well find it's the same as the tank level is at the moment.
As nitrite appears in the water, nitrate becomes meaningless. That's simply because the nitrate tester turns nitrate into nitrite then measures that nitrite. When there's already nitrite in the water, that gets measured as well giving a false nitrate reading.