Are You All Ready For....... Another Cycling Question?

[OldMan47]

Plants really don't help or hurt a cycle. Plants consume nitrogen for their growth so they can make your numbers a bit harder to interpret. If you have plants in a cycling tank just let people know so they won't be misled by your readings. The ammonia you add will be shared between what the plants can use and what the bacteria can convert. What happens will be a drop in ammonia without a rise in nitrites and that will confuse people if you don't tell them about the plants. It is really no big deal one way or the other as long as all the information is presented when you ask a question.

 

[blabay]

Ok, so my ammonia and nitrite are all processing to 0 levels in less than 12 hours from ammonia addition. Its been like that for nearly a week now. Again, I ask, why haven't my nitrate levels risen past 5 I did a 30% water change two days ago, but I would still expect the nitrates to be accumulating with all the nitrite being processed. What gives? I won't be able to add any fish until next weekend, so there's still time for things to happen.

Any thoughts

 

[hyperdeficit]

one thing you could do to help speed up the process is if you know someone freindly at a petstore ask them if you can get some of their gravel from a cycled tank,

less than a handful will do and put it in your tank or get like a meshbag (some stores have them for filters) and put it with the filter