Cycled Tank In 11 Days!

[fatheadminnow]

ok but nitrate is not that important...only for the plants...and if nitrite is 0 that means ammonia must be 0...nitrite is always higher than nitrit...and the guy in the lfs said that i needed nitrite and ph only...although from previous research i knew i also needed ammonia testers although i never bought it as he said i didnt need them...next time when i go to the lfs i will buy it...

Not true.

Nitrate can tell us A LOT about how a tank is doing.

Nitrate is a very good indicator to whether or not a tank is cycled, and nitrate is also toxic to fish if it is high enough.

So if you don't know your nitrate reading, then your fish could be potentially in harms way.

and if nitrite is 0 that means ammonia must be 0

Not so true either. It takes time for ammonia to turn in nitrite during a cycle. If your nitrite is zero, your ammonia could still be way high? You just don't know until you test for it.

nitrite is always higher than nitrit

Do you mean nitrAte? If so, this is not true either, as for every 1 ppm of nitrite, it turns into about 2.7 ppm of nitrAte.

You need to test for Ammonia and Nitrate as well.

-FHM

 

[dave_oddballs]

no, it may affect your ph, but what it ends up as depends on what it started at (ph)

 

[aly_starh]

yeah but my ph is 7....ph would be high if there was ammonia present

never heard of that being the case, did you re-test the water?

Betta_246

 

[fatheadminnow]

yeah but my ph is 7....ph would be high if there was ammonia present

Ammonia is acidic, and if there is excess amounts of ammonia, then that would more than likely drive your pH down.

That is why pH crashes are so common during cycling tanks.

But how much you pH can jump up an down also depends on what your KH reading is. (Hardness) of you water.

-FHM

 

[Schmill]

Erm, you REALLY REALLY need to test your ammonia mate...

What size is your tank?

Using your theory I could claim to cycle my tank in 1 day!

Whether you add ammonia from a bottle to 'fishless-cycle', or you put fish in and allow their 'waste' to produce ammonia it makes little difference, (ignoring for a moment the extra work, and potential fish-risks of fish-in cycling).

There is then a biological process that takes place, (the Nitrogen Cycle).
Ammonia is converted by a type of bacteria, (lets call them ABacs), into NitrIte.
NitrIte is then converted by a type of bacteria, (lets call them NBacs), into NitrAte.

All 3 of the above can be used in varying degrees by the plants, but unless you are heavily planted don't rely on it, (the effect of your 10 plants is likely to be negligble).

On Day 1 of a fishless cycle I would add 5ppm of ammonia to start the cycle off.

Using your tests you would test NitrIte and get 0 or close to it, and class the tank cycled ??

You have to give the ABacs colony time to grow, and all that time your ammonia levels will be rising, and your NitrIte levels are likely to be negligable.
Once the ABacs have grown then each 1 ppm of Ammonia in the water will be getting converted into 2.7ppm of NitrIte.
It is at THIS point that your NitrIte levels will sky rocket, as by now your ABacs are almost 'mature', but you have little or no NBacs.
It seems that it takes the NBacs longer to mature, (whether this is because they are slower to grow, or whether you simply need more of them I didn't know), but this NitrIte peak has a habit of hanging around.
Finally you will reach a point where you NBacs bring the NitrIte back down to 0, and your ABacs & NBacs will fall into balance, such that the ABacs can deal with the ammonia your fish (or bottle) is producing, and the NBacs are able to deal with the NitrIte that the ABacs are producing.
Then your only concern is keeping the NitrAte levels in check with regular water changes & maintenance.

On Day11 (without seeding your filter from another mature filter), I would guess that you are probably in the ammonia spike stage. Of course if you are regularly changing your water to keep the NitrIte low, then this will be helping with the Ammonia levels too, but PLEASE don't assume that your tank is cycled just because one of the parameters is where it is supposed to be.

Do an ammonia test, along with nitrIte and NitrAte tests, and then post the results here, along with when you last did a water change on the tank, what % you changed, and also the size of the tank would be useful.

Brilliant if the tank has cycled in that time, but I doubt it

 

[tez2k007]

You need to be testing your ammonia before saying yo have cycled. Not sure where you have got you info about nitrite always higher than ammonia but thats not entirely true. Go get the full testing kit and check.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have not tested both ammonia and nitrite, you have no idea where your tank is. Arbitrarily deciding that it is cycled will only lead you to do something stupid like adding fish. Please give the tank's water a proper test using a liquid type test kit and get back to us. pH depends more on the buffering capacity of the tank's water than the measure of ammonia present in minute quantities like fractions of 1 part per million. Ammonium hydroxide, the most commonly found dissolved form of ammonia, is a base and will raise pH, not lower it. If you can force the pH down, some of the ammonia hydroxide converts to ammonia merely dissolved in the water but that is the result of external forces, not the natural course that ammonia follows when dissolved.

 

[shane87]

i used jbl denitrol when i was cycling my tank and with in the first 2-3weeks i never seen any sort of ammonia or nitrite and had the brown algae stuff all ova the glass i thought it was cycled till i added in about 4 more fish then there was a huge ammonia spike, but iv neva seen any nitrite whilst usin denitrol, tanks been runnin for 3month now and ammonia 0 nitrite 0 and nitrate at 10

 

[three-fingers]

i used jbl denitrol when i was cycling my tank and with in the first 2-3weeks i never seen any sort of ammonia or nitrite and had the brown algae stuff all ova the glass i thought it was cycled till i added in about 4 more fish then there was a huge ammonia spike, but iv neva seen any nitrite whilst usin denitrol, tanks been runnin for 3month now and ammonia 0 nitrite 0 and nitrate at 10

Did you add any ammonia?

Because if not, then the tank wouldn't have been cycling beforehand.

 

[Elrohirthehasty]

yeah but my ph is 7....ph would be high if there was ammonia present

never heard of that being the case, did you re-test the water?

Betta_246

ummmm........
chem 101(duh-chemistry) says ammonia is basic and the pH will be higher as a result.
It's also in equilibrium with ammonium, which is dependant on the pH...

NH4+ + OH- ↔ NH3 + H2O

 

[ellena]

Yes, but as someone pointed out, we are talking minute levels of ammonia in chemistry terms (although enough to harm fish) and his water could have been lower than pH7 anyway.

 

[shane87]

i used jbl denitrol when i was cycling my tank and with in the first 2-3weeks i never seen any sort of ammonia or nitrite and had the brown algae stuff all ova the glass i thought it was cycled till i added in about 4 more fish then there was a huge ammonia spike, but iv neva seen any nitrite whilst usin denitrol, tanks been runnin for 3month now and ammonia 0 nitrite 0 and nitrate at 10

Did you add any ammonia?

Because if not, then the tank wouldn't have been cycling beforehand.

it sounded liike i did a fishles cycle but i did it with neons in

 

[Lawrence]

WOOHOO!!! My tank is fine now...no fish died and everything is fine besides I have algae in my tank

 

[Lawrence]

Ok i edited this comment. Fish did die but tht was in this past month or two and not in the first few months that I had my tank. Yes Fish Crazy you are right...now my tank is not good

 

[Always Learning]

WOOHOO!!! My tank is fine now...no fish died and everything is fine besides I have algae in my tank

Yet in your other thread, yoyur fish are dying and fins rotting?

Sounds like someone has a screw loose to me.