Cycling Question?

[Helen Louise]

I have a 36in tank, I added my first few fish on Sunday (cichlid Juveniles) PH is 8.2
I started testing the water for ammonia on monday using the Nutrafin (Hagen) test kits,
on Monday it was 1.2mg/L (ppm) so I did a water change which brought it down to 0, Tuesday it was back to 1.2 again so another water change, yesterday Wed (day 3) 1.2 again but I did NOT do a water change, today (day 4) it is still 1.2 so I did a test for Nitrite which is 1.6ppm, I will be doing a water change in the next couple of hours, Is my tank cycling properly? does nitrite only appear when the ammonia level is falling or not?

Helen

 

[Bloo]

This article with FAQ's on the Nitrogen cycle, will probably answer your questions quicker and better than I can.

Hope that helps

 

[Helen Louise]

Thanks
So am I right in assuming that once I have a Nitrate reading cycling is complete? & can I then add more fish?

Helen

 

[Bloo]

Almost but not quite only once the ammonia AND NitrIte readings are consistently zero (over say 3 days) wil your cycle complete.

 

[rdd1952]

Almost but not quite only once the ammonia AND NitrIte readings are consistently zero (over say 3 days) wil your cycle complete.

I will add one thing to this. You will be cycled for the fish in the tank only. Once you add more fish, you will get a mini cycle again but it should be as bad as the original spikes since you have bacteria already and they will multiply pretty quickly. So once the ammonia and nitrite drop this time, just add a 3 or 4 more fish and wait on the ammonia and nitrite to zero out again.