Am I Cycled Already?

[darklight]

Hi my name is Simon & I'm new to keeping tropical fish, and new here too

I've got loads of questions, but my first & most mportant one is - is my tank already cycled?

I just got a 2nd hand 40 gallon tank + fish & equipment from a freind of a friend. It all happened very fast, I didnt have time to prepare at all. I had to transport the tank for a couple of hours, with the filter not kept in any water, and with hardly any of the original tank water.

When I got to my house, I washed the tank & gravel with normal tap water (ok, stupid on hindsight, but didnt have any chemicals at the time). I also scrunched the filter sponge in some original tank water to remove any debris. I then set up the tank with my tapwater, added dechlorinator, bought the ph down to the orginal tanks level, and added some Cycle.

I've been testing the water every day since, with these results:

Ammonia Nitrite Nitrate
Day 1 0.15 0.25 10
Day 2 0.15 0 10
Day 3 0.00 0 10

Tank looks good & clear, fish (swordtails & 1 pleco, 2 kuhli loaches + 2 randoms) look very lively, all in all I've got no complaints - but I'm worried I'm jumping the gun - am I cycled already?

And what level of nitrate should I wait for before a water change? Or should it be strictly weekly / bi-weekly?

 

[oscars r ace]

yeah probably nearly cycled, i don't think too much bacteria will of died off in a cpl of hours. nitrate should be kept below 50, however regular water changes should still be made as the lower the better. i normally do a 20% change every week.

Tom

 

[paulbr1]

You could be lucky and the bacs have survived, keep checking the stats everyday and post them here.

If your Ammo or Nitrite get near 0.25ppm or your NitrAtes get to 30-50ppm then do a water change of say 50% and post here for more info.

Looks like they went to sleep (only joking), but only time will tell.

Good luck and post any issues.

Paul.

 

[JenCliBee]

As long as the media was kept wet/damp very little bacteria would have died within a 2 hour time span, the ammonia and nitrite showing on day 1 and 2 are probaly the tiny amount of bacteria that did die but by day 3 the bacteria has recouped, so to answer your question yes the tank does seem to be cycled .

Monitor it for a further 1- 2 weeks and if ammonia and nitrite stay at 0 then you could saftly say the tank is fully cycled.

Water chnges should be made weekly/twice weekly, you state you have a plec, what species?, beens you have a possible comon/gibbicep plec and dependant on size of it.... water changes would be larger than if you had much smaller fish(non plec fish).

Nitrate realistically should be kept below 20ppm, however if your tap water is coming out at 40ppm then that will probably never be possible, as long as its kept below 50ppm you should be fine.

Hope that helped lol

jen

 

[darklight]

Thanks everyone for the fast replies! Great news, but of course I'll keep monitoring daily, for a couple of weeks.

Jen - I believe it is a common plec, but I could be wrong. He's really nice, looks like he has a proper sparkle in his eye, and spots like a jaguar or something. He's about 5 inches long. I hope he doesnt get much bigger, but I guess he will?

 

[JenCliBee]

Thanks everyone for the fast replies! Great news, but of course I'll keep monitoring daily, for a couple of weeks.

Jen - I believe it is a common plec, but I could be wrong. He's really nice, looks like he has a proper sparkle in his eye, and spots like a jaguar or something. He's about 5 inches long. I hope he doesnt get much bigger, but I guess he will?

Commons can and usually exceed 14 inches. What size tank is it? (dimensions).

Usually a 40 gallon tank isnt enough for common plecs and recommended minimum tank size is usually 4x2x2 with 5x2x2 beeen far better, at the moment at 5 inch he will be fine but it will need rehoming eventually

jen

 

[darklight]

Thanks everyone for the fast replies! Great news, but of course I'll keep monitoring daily, for a couple of weeks.

Jen - I believe it is a common plec, but I could be wrong. He's really nice, looks like he has a proper sparkle in his eye, and spots like a jaguar or something. He's about 5 inches long. I hope he doesnt get much bigger, but I guess he will?

Commons can and usually exceed 14 inches. What size tank is it? (dimensions).

Usually a 40 gallon tank isnt enough for common plecs and recommended minimum tank size is usually 4x2x2 with 5x2x2 beeen far better, at the moment at 5 inch he will be fine but it will need rehoming eventually

jen

Its 3ft x 18in (height) x 15in (depth). Yeah, I didnt think I'd be able to keep him forever Thing is I had to take everything that was in the tank, so had no choice about him. Ah well. I want a planted tank one day anyway. How big should I let him get before I think about having him re-housed?

 

[JenCliBee]

Its 3ft x 18in (height) x 15in (depth). Yeah, I didnt think I'd be able to keep him forever Thing is I had to take everything that was in the tank, so had no choice about him. Ah well. I want a planted tank one day anyway. How big should I let him get before I think about having him re-housed?

I would personally try to rehome now, the larger they get the harder they are for people to be able to accomodate.

You could try your LFS and maybe see if you could swap for a bristlenose or even for store credit etc etc, Always worth a try.

jen