Am I Cycled?/high Tap Ph

[trianglekitty]

Hello, I'm setting up a new twenty gallon tank. I was able to get used media from a friend and also used dirty water from her tank. Things have been too busy for me to add fish in, and the tank has been running for about a week.

Today's levels-

PH- 7.4 (I tested out of the tap as well and it's the same)
Ammonia- .25
Nitrate- 0
Nitrate- 0

The water looks a little cloudy and is foaming where the filter pours in, so I'm little surprised by these numbers. I guess I'm not sure if I'm done cycling, or if using the used media didn't work for some reason. Also, I'm worried about the PH- my tap at work is neutral, so that's going to be a jump in PH for the fish when I move them. Should I be treating the water?

I'm used the API master kit to test

 

[Alasse]

To me that isnt cycled, cycled stalled, or hasnt really started even

Have you been feeding the tank during the week to keep the ammonia levels up for the bacteria to feed on? If its cloudy chances are you are either having a bacterial bloom (in which you should be seeing some nitrites now/soon) or the substrate, specially if it was sand, wasnt fully washed.

Levels should read

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5-20ppm

 

[trianglekitty]

To me that isnt cycled, cycled stalled, or hasnt really started even

Have you been feeding the tank during the week to keep the ammonia levels up for the bacteria to feed on? If its cloudy chances are you are either having a bacterial bloom (in which you should be seeing some nitrites now/soon) or the substrate, specially if it was sand, wasnt fully washed.

Levels should read

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5-20ppm

I wasn't feeding it because I thought the dirty water would be enough (her tank has not been cleaned in some time, and the water was quite dirty). I guess I'll start dosing it with ammonia now and see if I can't get things started. I wish I tested it at the start of the week (again, I was just very busy and things didn't go as planned), but I'm betting the ammonia would have been much higher. I think what might have happened is I forget to plug in the tank heater for two days- I'm wondering if the bacteria didn't die from that.

I do have a used filter and water from my 5 gallon at work- could I pop that in and put in the fish from work safely, since the bioload would be the same? I'm so new to all this, but I have a limited amount of time to get these fish moved- basically they need to get into the 20 gallon at home by mid-Jan, which is why I tried to jump start the cycle with used media.

 

[OldMan47]

The dirty water will have done nothing for the cycle. The mature media may well have helped if you do not let the bacteria that came with it die due to a lack of "food". The bacteria that we breed in our filters require a supply of the right chemicals to keep them alive and growing. You need some source of ammonia and a source of nitrites to keep things going. Your minor trace of ammonia in the tap water is a hopeful sign since it means that even your tap water has enough to at least begin to keep your bacteria alive. Please read through the fishless cycle thread that we have here on TFF. With a decent sample of used media, you can follow the advice there and can often get a filter fully cycled in about a week. I have a link to that thread in my signature area. You will find that most of us are more familiar with the add and wait approach than the add daily approach although both work about equally well.

 

[Alasse]

The bacteria wont die from cold, they just slow down. After all goldie tanks have no heaters but still cycle

If you can run a old filter with the new one, turn the heater on and up a bit, give it a bit and check the tank stats to see if anything is happening, remember though if you have no fish in there you need to drop in some fish food to keep the ammonia level up for the bacteria to feed on.. Water holds very little if any beneficial bacteria, most are on the decor/substrate/filter

You can put fish in a cycling tank, i cycle with fish all the time, just dont dose with ammonia at the same time of course. You do need to be vigilent in testing and do small water changes to keep the fish safe. But it defiantely can be done.

 

[trianglekitty]

The dirty water will have done nothing for the cycle. The mature media may well have helped if you do not let the bacteria that came with it die due to a lack of "food". The bacteria that we breed in our filters require a supply of the right chemicals to keep them alive and growing. You need some source of ammonia and a source of nitrites to keep things going. Your minor trace of ammonia in the tap water is a hopeful sign since it means that even your tap water has enough to at least begin to keep your bacteria alive. Please read through the fishless cycle thread that we have here on TFF. With a decent sample of used media, you can follow the advice there and can often get a filter fully cycled in about a week. I have a link to that thread in my signature area. You will find that most of us are more familiar with the add and wait approach than the add daily approach although both work about equally well.

I was thinking that the dirty water would supply the bacteria in the used filter with the ammonia and nitrites they needed because of the fish waste/fish food it contained. I guess I don't see why that wouldn't be so? Would the bacteria use up that supply so quickly and then die off?

I did read the cycling guides, but they seem to assume you don't have used media to start with. I guess I'll just treat the tank as if I didn't have the media, start adding ammonia, and test daily until I see the nitrates level go up.

 

[OldMan47]

The bacteria that are needed to establish a functioning filter do not live as free swimming organisms in the water. They live attached to surfaces such as the ones in our filter media. That is why a water sample really does not help much.
The cycling threads do indeed assume that you do not have a source of bacteria other than minute traces that come in with your tap water. If you use the same techniques, your cycle will proceed much faster if you have an initial seeding of the correct bacteria. Where I would expect a typical fishless cycle to take about 3 weeks to start processing ammonia well and another 5 or 6 weeks to begin processing nitrites well and get past the nitrite spike, I would expect a fishless cycle boosted with some mature media to be all done in about a week with no nitrite spike. It really does not change the technique but it speeds things up enormously.

 

[Alasse]

I had an extremely mature canister filter (been running for years) & put it on a newly setup tank, along with some substrate from a smaller cycled tank, all decor from another cycled tank, live plants. Yet this tank still took many weeks to become safe....it did have a huge ammonia hit at the start though (long story), extremely toxic for any fish to be used to cycle.

Please dont assume that just because you are putting mature media or such into a tank that it will always be an 'instant' cycle....it is not always the case. Best to go by tank stats definately *L* (i have the stats from this tank if anyone is interested, i could post a thread on it)

 

[OldMan47]

No cycle should be based on assumptions Alasse. Always measure to ensure that things are going as expected.

 

[Alasse]

i understood you and many would know that fact, but i see it on many forums that to use mature media etc instantly gives a full cycle, and this is stated as fact. many read this and think that is always the case, when infact it just may not be..

Just pointing out to those that may not know, to please check tank stats first with proper testing

 

[OldMan47]

Thanks for that Alsasse. Any tank's present status should indeed be checked using chemical testing and not based on assumptions. Many forums do not insist on the degree of rigor that we demand here. I take great pride in the fact that we do not blindly assume that things are fine simply because someone has followed this or that regime. We are not experts in terms of providing absolutes that people can simply follow. Instead we understand the principles involved and we work to help others reach a situation where they can trust the chemical results that they measure. As such, we give advice more often based on results than on methods. I am firmly in favor of just such an approach and am glad to have my fellow MODs in agreement with that concept. There is no such thing as the perfect cycling approach but there is such a thing as a final confirmation when a cycle has been effective. Many of us here are very comfortable, instead, with recognizing when we have finished a cycle.

 

[trianglekitty]

The bacteria that are needed to establish a functioning filter do not live as free swimming organisms in the water. They live attached to surfaces such as the ones in our filter media. That is why a water sample really does not help much.
The cycling threads do indeed assume that you do not have a source of bacteria other than minute traces that come in with your tap water. If you use the same techniques, your cycle will proceed much faster if you have an initial seeding of the correct bacteria. Where I would expect a typical fishless cycle to take about 3 weeks to start processing ammonia well and another 5 or 6 weeks to begin processing nitrites well and get past the nitrite spike, I would expect a fishless cycle boosted with some mature media to be all done in about a week with no nitrite spike. It really does not change the technique but it speeds things up enormously.

No, I get that the bacteria live on the filter media. I thought that by having both the used filter and the water, I would be hitting both requirements to start the cycle. The filter would have the bacteria, and the water would have the fish waste to feed that bacteria. Does that make sense? Again, I'm new to this, and I've clearly gotten something wrong because the tank hasn't started to cycle after a week.

But based on what you've said, I think I know what happened. When I was filling the tank, I didn't have the filter set up and let my chunk of used media float in the water. When I was pouring in new water, I realized I had "rinsed" the media and that it didn't look dirty like it had. It actually looked pristine, and it had been pretty dark. Is it possible I rinsed out the bacteria, and since they don't live as free swimming organisms I managed to kill them, or at least vastly reduce the number?

I'm already doing water changes every day on the tank at work, so I think I'll take a bit of media from that and see if I can't seed the 20 gallon's filter again. My one concern there is I just finished treating that tank for ich. But I figure if I raise the tank temp and leave it empty for another week, the ich should be killed off because it won't have fish to attach to.

Again, I may be totally off base here- I got into this because there was a neglected fish at work, but I'm learning as fast as I can and trying to do the best I can.

 

[OldMan47]

You are doing fine as a newbie trianglekitty.

Each of us must learn what we need to do based on the starting point that we are faced with.

I would try squeezing out the used material in my new tank in your situation. What that should do is result in some minor amount of the correct bacteria being released into your tank. Media floating in the water would do more good if it were squeezed out to provide a bit of mature bacteria to the new filter media.

Ich treatment is best done using the method that you can reach using the Ich Info link in my signature area. The essence of that method is to maintain proper temperature and salt concentration until you have completed a full ich treatment. While you are doing that ich treatment, remember to maintain your water chemistry to kill off all ich and to support a fishless cycle. That may mean that you need to do more than a typical cycle would require to maintain adequate bacterial levels. Any maintenance of ammonia and nitrite levels should be greeted as supporting your cycle. It is a tough situation, but you can do it, to maintain both the ammonia / nitrite values in spec while maintaining the salt levels / temperature in spec. The combination means that the chemical requirement to control salt concentration needs to be met and then the requirements of ammonia, and nitrite need to be addressed. In the end, the resulting chemistry results do not conflict.

 

[Alasse]

Ich cannot survive without a host...so 48 hours left fishless ich will die...so moving the media over form the ich tank to yours will be no probs, just dont put any fish in it for a couple of days

 

[trianglekitty]

You are doing fine as a newbie trianglekitty.

Each of us must learn what we need to do based on the starting point that we are faced with.

I would try squeezing out the used material in my new tank in your situation. What that should do is result in some minor amount of the correct bacteria being released into your tank. Media floating in the water would do more good if it were squeezed out to provide a bit of mature bacteria to the new filter media.

Ich treatment is best done using the method that you can reach using the Ich Info link in my signature area. The essence of that method is to maintain proper temperature and salt concentration until you have completed a full ich treatment. While you are doing that ich treatment, remember to maintain your water chemistry to kill off all ich and to support a fishless cycle. That may mean that you need to do more than a typical cycle would require to maintain adequate bacterial levels. Any maintenance of ammonia and nitrite levels should be greeted as supporting your cycle. It is a tough situation, but you can do it, to maintain both the ammonia / nitrite values in spec while maintaining the salt levels / temperature in spec. The combination means that the chemical requirement to control salt concentration needs to be met and then the requirements of ammonia, and nitrite need to be addressed. In the end, the resulting chemistry results do not conflict.

That makes sense. I cured my ich with the method in your link- I had tried the store medications, but my fish just kept getting worse. The salt/raised temp cleared it up in twenty four hours. I've continued the treatment and it's now the third day.

One last question- if my ammonia level and nitrites are low in my 20 gallon, why is my water foaming? I would have expected my levels to be higher - the foaming is very evident, and even my 5 gallon at work that I know has higher ammonia doesn't do that.