Do I Need To Re-cycle?

[dee dee]

I had an algae bloom, removed fish, put black refuse bags over for four days,
nothing changed.

I took out all the water, left the filter with water in it. Left the gravel.

Waited a couple days, refilled the tank, do I need to put it through cycling?

The water is very hard, very alkaline and has a ph of 8. Of course, no ammonia, no
nitrite, trace nitrate.

Thank you for your input.

 

[ihasanzongi]

have you read the pinned articals at the top?

 

[dee dee]

have you read the pinned articals at the top?

Yes I read several of them...

I think I am ok to go because I have a mature filter and gravel, right?

I also added BioSpira.

 

[crazie.eddie]

If the mature filter was only left not running for a few hours, you should be ok. I just hope you added dechlorinator to the tank with new water. If there happens to be chlorine in your water supply, you would have killed off the bacteria when you started the filter. Unfortunately, the substrate also contains allot of the beneficial bacteria. If you left this dry up, then you probably lost majority of the bacteria left to support the tank inhabitants. Therefore, when you add fish, it may go through a mini-cycle. I would be cautious and treat the tank as a newly cycled tank and add fish slowly every week

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if the bacteria had no food source, even if the filter was left runnign in the original tank water, for 12hrs or more then the bacteria will have started to die off. If your going to use that method to treat algae then you need to feed the filter with ammonia or fish food while there's no fish in it.

Your tank will cycle again when you add fish, however it may be quicker than the original cycle.