Cycling Confusion

[LionessN3cubs]

okay I am a little confused. I bought a 10 gallon tank for my boys and I've been reading up on how to have a successful home for fish. I understand the nitrogen cycle however I think Im missing the boat or I got bad information from the pet store. The tank has been set up for several days with no fish. I'm running the filter that came with the kit. Yesterday, after it had been set up for 2 days, I took some of the water in to be tested as per advice from the pet store guy. The water tested out fine and he said I could add fish.

This is where I am confused. I read all of this stuff on how hard it is to get a tank cycled and I didn't DO anything to this water. Just dumped it in and started the filter..and I did add the dechlorinator packet that came with the kit ..aquasafe with bioextract. The reason I took the water to be tested was to find out WHAT I could get in order to get the tank cycle started..yet they tell me its fine. Im thinking that the cycle I NEED to get started...didnt start that maybe all the levels are fine because I hadn't done anything? Is this right or is the aquasafe stuff I bought really all I needed to do? I did buy a testing kit for myself because I didnt trust the pet store. The levels today are (and water seems a tiny bit cloudy today for some reason): nh3 nh4 are at 0. PH took 3 drops to change from red to green, no2 was <.3. My water temperature is a little higher than I expected it to be ...80 this am before I turned the light on and the light heats it up to about 84 after no more than 2 hours.

 

[chrisn20]

Hi there, welcome to the forum. You have come to the right place, everyone here is friendly and helpful. I am a relative newcomer myself and had lots of questions too but I can happily say that I am now at the end of it and now ready for my fish.

First of all please dont get any fish yet. Your tank is not cycled. The water that you took to be tested will have come out at zero because you haven't done anything to it yet. You need to get the bacteria colony started on the filter before you add any fish to it. For that you will need to add amonia to the tank water. Please read the fishless cycle thread at the top of the page. It is very informative and should answer all of your questions.

If you are not sure about anything just ask. There are lots of experts on here to help, they helped me loads.

Good luck.

 

[Mikaila31]

You should do a fishless cycle! You are correct that the store gave you some bad advice, you tank cannot support fish with out cycling it. Fishless cycling is the quickest and easiest way. Also getting some mature filter media from a already cycled tank will speed things up and help the tank cycle a lot faster .

 

[twistedlink]

You have no nitrites because ammonia wasnt added.

The cycle goes

Ammonia-Nitrite-Nitrate.

If no Ammonia is present, no nitrite will be present, so its no surprise that nitrite readings are 0

As soon as you start adding fish however, the ammonia will go up, and therefore the nitrites, and the water levels will become toxic with them in.

Fish stores are terrible, they just want you to purchase there stuff, theyd most likely say to buy some hardy fish too, that way minimal die, they just live less long, and then they get a rep of being a "good fish shop" when in reality, they suck.

4% of UK fish stores give advice on fishless cycling, which takes 4-6 weeks.

USA no idea.

99% of products in a fishstore are useless because the cycle does most of what the products do lol.

If you put fish in now, and take daily readings, i guarantee your ammonia and nitrite will rocket up very fast.

Also, bioextract contain certain bacteria (maybe, most dont, and are useless, ive used 2 cheap little pots to see if my cycle will speed up, so far nothing, i knew it wouldnt work but they were only a couple of quid so i thought why not, on a lottery gamble it might work)

However they need ammonia and nitrite to survive, so if theres none there, theyre dying from lack of "food"


Read up on fishless cycling, your sons wont like the fact they have to wait 4-6 weeks for the fish, but the fish will be much healthier, and it will stop trips to the fish store to buy some more look-a-likes when theyre all dying off.

 

[LionessN3cubs]

thanks all for the answers! I knew something didnt sound kosher between what I'd read and what I was told. I'll buy some ammonia as soon as I get a chance and start the process. I wish I knew someone with an established tank but I dont and I certainly dont trust the local pet stores to be disease free.

The boys will be bummed with waiting but they'd be even more bummed to watch their fish die. Again thanks a bunch!

 

[OldMan47]

USA fish stores are no better than the UK ones when it comes to good advice. I have never heard a word about ammonia in an american store unless they were trying to sell me stuff for the filter to get rid of it. That would be OK until the first time you stumbled at all. Then lots of dead fish from ammonia. If you do a fishless cycle, you will need to add a smnall amount of pure ammonia and then monitor the water. As it starts to be converted to nitrites, you will need to add more to keep it going. When the nitrites finally start going to nitrates you will be close. At that point, a test application of some ammonia will tell you if the whole cycle is intact because the next day the ammonia and nitrite will be at zero if you are actaully finished and ready to add some fish.