Cycling Help Please

[scvrs]

I have a Fluval Venezia 190 which has been set up for a week now. Last Sunday I put four good sized potted plants in there, which I split up into about 10 individual stems. I also put in a large piece of Mopani wood and couple of smaller bits. I am using 5kg of jbl aquabasis+ and a couple of inches of kiln dried sand on top. I was going to do a fishless cycle but i knocked my smaller tank which consquently started leaking, so in desperation i put the fish in the tank on Monday. The fish was 4 small neons a female guppy and a dwarf neon rainbow. The filter is a Fluval 204 and the setup is as follows: New sponge screen filters, bottom layer of Fluval Pre-filter which was soaked in old aquarium water, a middle layer of Evolution Aqua K1 with Aquaclear bacteria balls and a top layer of Fluval bio-max which was soaked in old aquarium water. The water is from a hose pipe with added tapsafe and 25 litres of RO with minerals. Since then I have done a 25 litre change with RO with minerals.

Right, now you know my set up, here is my issue! All week my Ammonia and Nitrite levels were at 0ppm. So in an attempt to get things going I added another 5 neons yesterday and this morning there is still nothing happening! Is it possible that the Bacteria balls I bought have REALLY got things going that fast? Do I need to add more fish? What are peoples suggestions please? I know people will think I am cruel/evil/mean for doing a cycle with fish, but I was sort of forced into it to be honest! So please don't just shout at me for that. Any suggestions would be gratefully recieved.

 

[waterdrop]

I am not seeing the sentence where you say you brought the mature media from the old tank over and transferred it in to the new filter. Am I just missing it in all the detail? Or did you do that? Hopefully you have not wasted your old media!

Any time you move fish, and move their filter media to a new filter, it is good practice to consider yourself to possibly be in a fish-in cycling situation. If you did not move a significant portion of the old filter media then you are definately in a fish-in cycling situation. (But probably you moved it and I'm just misunderstanding.)

Regardless, in all new tank with fish situations, you need to be using a good liquid-reagent based test kit (most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit) and watching for any traces of the two main poisons: ammonia(NH3) and nitrite(NO2) and also taking note of your nitrate(NO3) and pH levels.

If you are indeed fish-in cycling with no mature media (or very little) then having no ammonia or nitrite(NO2) show up right away may simply be a delay in you seeing it. And you do not need to be seeing any in order to have the bacteria be fed, in fact, that is better really. Significant numbers of plants will also absorb enough ammonia sometimes that your readings will be lower or non-existant (in a well-run planted tank the plants and bacteria are in competition to clean up the ammonia.)

Be aware that if you end up being in a fish-in cycling situation, the appearance of ammonia and/or nitrite may be sudden and you want to not have it go over 0.25ppm as a precautionary measure to ensure minimal permanent gill and nerve damage.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[scvrs]

I am not seeing the sentence where you say you brought the mature media from the old tank over and transferred it in to the new filter. Am I just missing it in all the detail? Or did you do that? Hopefully you have not wasted your old media!

Any time you move fish, and move their filter media to a new filter, it is good practice to consider yourself to possibly be in a fish-in cycling situation. If you did not move a significant portion of the old filter media then you are definately in a fish-in cycling situation. (But probably you moved it and I'm just misunderstanding.)

Regardless, in all new tank with fish situations, you need to be using a good liquid-reagent based test kit (most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit) and watching for any traces of the two main poisons: ammonia(NH3) and nitrite(NO2) and also taking note of your nitrate(NO3) and pH levels.

If you are indeed fish-in cycling with no mature media (or very little) then having no ammonia or nitrite(NO2) show up right away may simply be a delay in you seeing it. And you do not need to be seeing any in order to have the bacteria be fed, in fact, that is better really. Significant numbers of plants will also absorb enough ammonia sometimes that your readings will be lower or non-existant (in a well-run planted tank the plants and bacteria are in competition to clean up the ammonia.)

Be aware that if you end up being in a fish-in cycling situation, the appearance of ammonia and/or nitrite may be sudden and you want to not have it go over 0.25ppm as a precautionary measure to ensure minimal permanent gill and nerve damage.

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks for your advice. I would have loved to have had my old media but it was a fluval internal filter as it was a very small tank. The sponges were squeezed into the water, but not put into the new external filter. I have an API master test kit from a few years back and assuming they don't go out of date at all, then it is showing the correct results of No ammonia and No nitrite! I guess it is possible that the new media has seeded quickly as the bio-max is nice and orange in colour. Failing that then my LFS is selling miracle bacteria balls which we all should buy more of!

 

[waterdrop]

OK then, you have several reasons to keep a close eye on things. You may just actually be at the "pre" stage of a Fish-In Cycling situation and are not seeing any spikes yet. You have old kits and the zero ppm readings you are getting may be false (the way to keep an eye on that for now is to also be watching the fish behavior closely. If any of them don't seem healthy in any way then at some point you may want to get a fresh master kit.) On the other hand you may somehow have enough mature things that the water really is ok, but it's not at all clear that that's the case, so your watch needs to be careful. Good luck and let us all know how it's going from time to time.

~~waterdrop~~