Cycling..

[tamara]

I was cycling with a few of my guppies [i was over run, but once one died i had to put them back into my other tank]
and so i had a few guppies in the 10 gall tank [purchased 1½ weeks ago]
it started to get really green this past weekend [normal?]
and i just put all the guppies back into my other already cycled tank because i didn;t want them to die anymore
anyways, if i don't have the money to buy that pure ammonia stuff
what do i do? just wait until it does a huge nitrie&ammonia strike then goes to 0?
&do i just do daily water changes?
thank you
btw; yes i have read the other links but couldn't quite answer my questions..

 

[Christine1014]

Without a source of ammonia, you won't get the ammonia & nitrite spike. If you can't get pure ammonia, you can drop in some flakes of fish food every day. As it breaks down in will release ammonia. It will take your tank longer to cycle that way, I think, but you did the right thing by taking out your guppies.

The ohter thing you could do since you already have a cycled tank is to take some of your filter media from that filter and put it in the filter for the tank you're cycling. That will dramatically speed up your process. Or hook your new filter to your old tank (run your new and old filters on the same tank). This will get the new filter cycled, then you can move it over into the new tank and presto, a cycled tank!

 

[tamara]

Well the readings are strange..there's absolutly zero ammonia but there's 5.0 nitrItes...

Does that mean the nitrite strike has started already?

 

[Christine1014]

ehhh... Let's keep our fingers crossed that someone else comes along soon and helps me out, but I'll hazard a guess...

How big is your new tank? A couple of guppies won't provide much ammonia, I don't think. And when you removed them, you removed what little ammonia was being released into the tank. The ammonia that remained in the water was processed -- thus your nitrite reading. But if you don't get more ammonia in your tank soon, what little beneficial bacteria you've got is going to die off and you'll be back to square one. I'd add some fish food every day and keep checking your levels, but yes, it sounds like you're on the way... you probably have a few more weeks, but be patient and you'll get there!

 

[tamara]

Alright, well it's a 10 gallon, there was--errh 15 fry, 4 female guppies [they were continusly harassed that's why i got the secnod tank for them] and there was also three cories [peppered] and a pleco because i know the pleco produces alot of garbage. There is quite a bit of algea in the tank already, and bit of food on the bottom, and since i went away for the weekend [to go see my dad] my mom looked after my tank, and then i found my older guppy dead--mostly decomposed cept his skeleton pretty much, so that must have added quite a bit of garbage as well [i took out the body aswell but it ciould have been in there for up to 3 days]

 

[Christine1014]

oh, okay, so you did have a decent amount of ammonia in there. (are all the fish out of the cycling tank now? You mentioned removing the guppies, but what about the cories and the plec?). Assuming there's nothing in the tank, then just keep adding flakes and things should move right along... if the plec and cories are still in there.... they're producing waste and cycling your tank, but if they live through the experience they'll most certainly face some negative effects from all the nitrite and ammonia.

 

[tamara]

I definitly took all the fish out of there a couple hours ago.
this may be far fetched...but should i rinse my filter cartilidge [i think that's what its called] in my new tank ?
would that maybe help give it some bacteria or would that be totally off?

 

[Christine1014]

Good; glad to hear hte fish are out of there.
As for the filter -- that's actually a pretty common misconception. Beneficial bateria have to live "on" something. They can't just float around in the water (this is why most of the stuff you buy at the pet shop - the bottles of stuff that are supposed to contain beneficial bacteria to cycle your tank -- is mostly useless). Anyway, if you want to try speeding things along and your old media cartridge is gunky, maybe you can rub some of the gunk onto the cartridge in the new filter? OR -- this is kinda gross, but works, I hear: gravel vac your established tank, collecting the water in a bucket. Let it all settle for a few minutes, carefully dump some of the water, and then pour the "gunk" at the bottom of the bucket onto your new cartridge. Tat gunk (I think it's called "mulm" will contain lots of beneficial bacteria - So I hear... (and I think if you search the forum for "mulm" you'll get a bunch of hits and posts on what other people have done.)

 

[tamara]

Alright sounds awesome! Thank you very much!
Do you know about how long it may take? as i've already started to get a nitrIte strike...?
+if i do, do rub the old filter stuff into the new tank and so on.

 

[Christine1014]

I wish I could tell you how long it will take, but there seems to no set rule... I've heard some people say two or three weeks, others are more like seven weeks... it all depends on stuff like tank size, water temp, tap water parameters, etc. Just keep testing ammonia, nitrite and nitrate... when you start getting nitrates, you know you're getting there. Good luck!

 

[tamara]

Okay thank you very much

 

[Christine1014]

you're welcome!