Fishless Cycle Being Very Quick?

[monk]

Hi guys im relativly new to the hobby. I recently got a tank (30 Litre) and i have been doing lots of research. I found the articles on fishless cycling.

So i started out setup my tank added de-chlorinised water added all the gadgets set the heat to 29 C.

I have pure ammonia of about 35%. I added 5 drops which brought my ammonia up to 4ppm.

I also added a generous squeeze of another, established filter.

After a 4 or 5 days of taking the ammonia back up from 0 to 4-5, my tank is taking it back down to 0 in 12 hours(roughly) and theres also no nitrites, just nitrate.

Is it possibly my tank has cycled that quickly with the squeeze from the other tanks filter?

Thanks

John

 

[Miss Wiggle]

entirley possible. i would give it some time to be on the safe side, keep adding ammonia daily for the next few days, if it's still processing it that fast and you've got no nitrite then you are cycled.

 

[monk]

Thanks i shall keep it going for a bit longer, to be safe.

Also my friend who keeps lots of fish said that adding anything from another tank, ie filter medium or gravel is very bad. Is this true? As ont the forums i have read this will help.

I guess the arguament would be you would have to make sure the other tank is completely healthy?

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

correct

adding anything from another tank risks cross contamination, howver when cycling you have to weigh that risk against the benefit of adding some filter media

if you are confident of the health of the tank you've taken it from you#re probably ok. there is always a level of risk.

But there's a risk from just putting you hand in the tank (even soap on your hand can be bad for the tank) or from putting fish from the fish shop into your tank (they may be carrying disease) or from an ornament that's been sat on the shelf in the lfs (who knows what it's been in contact with)

just risk management

 

[monk]

Ok groovy thanks a lot

 

[rdd1952]

Has you nitrate gone up in the time you have been adding ammonia and not simply in your tap water? If so, then you are probably cycled. The media from another tank is the key. As Miss Wiggle mentioned, keep adding ammonia for a couple more days or until the day before you are ready to add fish.

As for items from another tank, I have no problem moving somethng from one of my tanks to another because I know they are safe and disease free but I would not do that from someone else's tank unless i was certain it was safe.

 

[monk]

Yeah my nitrates have increased. My concern was that i didnt see much of a nitrite spike as mention in these cycles it seems just to be turning into nitrate so i guess the cycle is there I shall keep it going for a bit longer while i look into what fish to get

Thanks

 

[rdd1952]

It was probably a matter of you getting some bacteria from the other filter and there was enough nitrite processing bacteria to handle all the nitrite a it was produced, thus never showing a reading.