Cycling After Death

[waterdrop]

I believe that very experienced aquarists, once they are quite familiar with how common ammonia and nitrite problems are, usually take action by performing a very large water change immediately upon suspecting either of or both of these might be the problem. About 20 min later they test for both poisons and if the level of either is above 0.25ppm, they perform another water change one hour after the first one and repeat until the goal is met.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I believe that very experienced aquarists, once they are quite familiar with how common ammonia and nitrite problems are, usually take action by performing a very large water change immediately upon suspecting either of or both of these might be the problem. About 20 min later they test for both poisons and if the level of either is above 0.25ppm, they perform another water change one hour after the first one and repeat until the goal is met.

not that i would call myself very experienced..... but if i suspect somethings up, i suck up a sample of water in a syringe, stick it on the shelf and immediatley do a large water change, when it's done i'll do a water test on the original sample, wait half an hr or so then do a test on the tank now.

obviously any further action depends on test results.