Established Media

[Kaybear11]

I picked up the sponge filter from a local fish keeper on Thursday. I think it's a 20 gallon sponge filter. I cut it in half and put a piece in each HOB. It had plenty of "gunk" in it, my tank looked pretty bad after putting them in but cleared by the morning.

My question is approximately how long will it be before I should start seeing a drop in nitrite? I know there's no exact number since we have no idea how much bacteria is in there. A date or amount of time will give me something to look forward to lol. I think it's helped some with the A bacs because it's hitting 0 in 24 hours at 3 ppm and that's only happened in the past couple of days. Before it would still be at .25-.50 at 24 hours.

 

[marieukxx]

It varies, mine took about a week to fully cycle

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You should see a drop soon. Depending on how high the levels are, how long it will take to drop all the way. I would test it every 12 hours.

 

[london_kev]

It would take about a week from experience. But I didn't add ammonia to test as when I tried this before it messed up my whole whole mature media. Wait a week intro some hardy fish and you'll be good

 

[Kaybear11]

Thanks!