Cycling Overcrowding

[HooDude]

) I had the bright idea that if I took a new 10gal tank and a AquaClear Mini, threw in 20 feeder comets and some cycle, I'd have a nitrate cycle done and over with in 2-3 weeks....

Its been 2-3 weeks and all I have is 22 dead feeders and high ammonia and nitrite levels. )

I thought I knew it all, but ignorance wrought my downfall. I looked through all the cycling stuff I could find here and didn't find much other than the recommendation not to overcrowd during the cycle. Does this provide too much ammonia for the nitrosomonas and end up killing them?

Whoops. lol.

Anyone know what I should do? Currently have 8 feeders out of 30 still in the tank.

HooDude

 

[Tanked]

for a ten gallon tank I'd remove all but 3 of the feeders to finish the cycle with. I like your theory, unfortunatly it does not work that way.

 

[Jamnog]

adding fish quickly was a shock to the cycling system in this case the bacteria could not have built up a defence against all that extra waste in less than a couple of weeks 30 is allot of fish in most size tanks. we live and learn. tho i make the same sort of mistakes sometimes.

 

[CFC]

1 small fish per 10 gallons is the normal load for cycling a tank but why do a cycle with fish at all?If i understand properly you aleady have established tanks up and running so all you need to do is transfer some filter media and a handful of gravel to the new tank and its ready to go,the bacteria will quickly spread into the new media and gravel so you are cutting the need for a full cycle altogther.Just remember to keep stocking light and only add fish a few at a time for the first six months and all will be fine.

 

[Jamnog]

im allmost infamouse for not being mr water change around such avid water change fans here on the fish forums but i would say this is one of the classic cases of water change bing temporarily benificial. if you do a 20% water change this week and then follow it up by further 20% water chages for 3 weeks it will help buffer the spikes i had a weird looking graph somewhere ... meh

edit : i drawed this picture

ok so its not a very good picture but who cares its supposed to represent the different levals of amonia nitrate and nitrtite tho im not shure which ones which... some one help me out as my memory is starting to flag again...

 

[HooDude]

Actually all seems to be well for the moment,

The ammonia dropped to nil last night, however nitrites are still quite high. I expect the nitrites to drop off soon and then it'll be done. I currently have 12 feeders in there. I did a water change after finding that the ammonia had dropped anyways. I had put in a tank divider just for the fun of it, but a scum built up on the surface on the non filtered side so I took it out and did a 20% water change. Didn't help nitrite, but didn't hurt. I also got some new cycle, I had been using outdated stuff, and put in 3 capfuls of that so I should be ok.

Thanks for all your input everyone!
HooDude