Cycling.............again!!

[Fly258]

I have just been reading thro a few old posts on cycling or to be more precice "instant" cycling, and I have a couple of questions regarding my new setup.
I started a 120 litre tank using treated (Tetra Aquasafe) tapwater and about 20 litres of old water from my 60 litre tank plus the filter from the old tank. I have 6 fish in it, 2 bronze corys, 2 dalmation mollys and 2 guppys. The tank has been running for 4 days and the readings are identical to the old tank except for a slightly lower nitrate reading, and have been from the outset ...........
nitrate.......5.0 mg/l
nitrite.........0.0
KH..............6.0 'dH
Ammonia....0.0
ph...............8.0
My questions are............
Has it sarted to cycle, or has it finished and when will it be safe to put the rest of my fish in it?
Iv'e been going thro these testing strips like wildfire expecting somthing to rise dramatically but nothing yet, I'm a tad confused! Could it be there are not enough fish in for long enough to produce the ammonia to start the cycle?

Regards
Jim

 

[semper fi]

when i cycle a tank from the jumpstart i add 5 drops of ammonia to tap water only. that way you get a spike in the ammonia. the ammonia is then converted to nitrates. the ammonia will drop to zero and the nitrates will go up. when the nitrates reach zero and the ammonia is also zero i add the fish. takes about 10 days.

if you are using already established water from an existing tank, there is no need to do the jumpstart with ammonia. the filter has already been eatablished. you do want to get your nitrates lower though. how long have the fish been in the tank and what were the nitrates when you added the fish? have the fish increased the levels? try to do a water change of atleast 30 if not 50% and then test for the nitrates.

hth

maggie

 

[William]

By taking accross the filter you could well have prevented a cycle - nice work As maggy says do a water change and retest in two days. You may find you get a mini cycle as some of the bacteria may have died in the moveover, but from what you show it seems you won't.

 

[Fly258]

Hi Maggie,
I didn't take any readings for the first 2 days, I was too busy trying to find some ammonia to do a fishless cycle! My LFS suggested I do a cycle with half a dozen hardy fish (as I couldn't find any ammonia). The fish have only been in the tank 24 hrs but I added quite a large pinch of flake just after I filled the tank hopefully to decompose and produce ammonia??.
Regards
Jim

 

[semper fi]

if you were adding established water your lfs should of told you that you did not need to cycle the tank so to speak. cycling is only necessary if you are using fresh tap water, a new tank and equipment. using your established water to fill the tank atleast 50%, the more the better will transfer the bacteria needed. viola! a completely cycled tank. you also transferred the filter. as long as you did not let the filter set aside for a long period of time, moving the filter out of one tank and putting it immediately into the other, you should of not killed off any significant amount of bacteria. you can also use substrate out of established tanks.

you only really need to cycle a tank when you are starting out fresh. by using only 50% or more water you are only creating a water change so to speak in another tank. one trick i use is to place a nylon knee high, preferably barand new to catch any debris is you are sucking off the bottom of the tank. if you have a smaller tank like your 60 litre and are cycling a much larger tank use 50%. this will create a 75% water change in the larger tank. you can do a 75% change in tanks. it is kinda on the verge of being dangerous and crashing the tank.

as for the ammonia, i assume by the water measurement you are in the uk? here in the states you can find ammonia at any grocery store. one thing you do want to make sure is that it is pure ammonia. if you have questions as to whether it is or not, shake the bottle. if it bubbles or froths at all, it has additives. such as perfumes or dyes. do not use that. also when cycling a tank with the ammonia you do not want to put live fish in til the nitrates are down. when your nitrates go down, you may notice a slight spike in your nitrites. ammonia is broken down to nitrates and then converted to nitrites.

when the tank is cycled you may notice it getting white cloudy. this is normal. signifies the end of the cycle period. just filled a tank off of my 180 and got surprised when the tank went cloudy. this usually does not happen when i have started a tank this way.

what kind of media are you using in your filter? if not, think of adding some ammo-carb to it. i have found that this helps.

maggie

 

[cryosi]

what about when u use fresh RO water from lfs, i guess u still cycle for 7 days.... i gues its the same as starting new. althou i have put in new bio-nodes and charcoal in filter...

 

[Fly258]

RO water??

 

[cryosi]

reverse omosis!

 

[William]

its basically really pure water.

Cryosi you know that if you fill a tank up with RO water and add fish it won't cycle. You need the bacteria which are only present in tap or even better cause they are in higher concentrations in Old tank water!

Hence using water/filter from an old tank

 

[semper fi]

never have used ro water from the lfs, but i would think if it is water that the fish have been in, the filter would still be established. this may be a question for cichlidmaster or great lakes.

personally i would not use it. even when i get fish from the lfs i usually 99% of the time quarantine them. good thing too. just got some ruby greens from the lfs. looked fine but still quarantined them. after about 4 days they started to show signes of ich. would of exposed all of the fish in the tank that i was thinking of putting them into. i am not saying the lfs fish are contaminated. i just am very picky when it comes to my fish. i do not buy from tanks with dead fish in them, quarantine the fish and never feed feeder fish or worms out of the ground to them. too much chance of something going bad.

between waiting on customers, feeding fish, packaging fish and stocking they do have alot to do. i am sure that keeping an eye on the tanks to make sure that there are no dead ones can be inconvenient at times. combine that with the fact that half of the kids who work there are unknowledgeable about their livestock. had a kid selling a parrot fish and jack dempseys to a customer to go into the same tank. why not they were both listed as south americans. when the kid stepped away, i couldn't resist. should of been working for the lfs. the customer wqanted both fish so they bought another tank for the parrot. also told them the parrot was listed wrong it is a hybrid. another topic.

sorry got off the subject.

maggie

 

[cryosi]

well i was adding cycle to it, from a container i bought full of bacteria, the ro has minerals init, the cycle bottle said for new tank setup i have some of the old tank bionodes in the new filter for the tank which had some of the old tanks bacteria on it. umm if u got any of that it was worded rite

umm so a water change with old tank water then william!

just to clear up a question that may pop up - i was advised by a MA staff to use RO water for the fish first off as i would have to acliamatise the zebras to tap water? use the water they use to make the fish more comfortable for that speices of plec i was told

 

[William]

umm so a water change with old tank water then william!

No, reread my post I was refering to when you were starting a tank up. - when the tank has been cycled by all means use RO for water changes as the bacteria will be already established in the tank and so introducing pure water will have no effect

 

[semper fi]

i'm confused. are you talking about african zebras or a type of plecostomus? for the africans i have never had a problem with the tap water. some people do add trace elements to theirs. i never do. the only time i have a problem with the fish is when i get them from one certain lfs that i do not buy from too much that uses salt in their tanks. the fish seem kinda sluggish for the first few days.

maggie

 

[cryosi]

its a new 2ft tank for a pair of zebra plecs

 

[Andi]

doh!
just when I think I understand this cycling stuff - I hear another method! who said cycling was like riding a bike