Fishless Cycle In Less Than Two Weeks?

[stackem evs]

Hi,

When setting up my tank, rinsed out media from my (large) goldfish tank, and some water from neighbours tank. Also put in Cycle bottle that came with it (although people here say pointless), and chilled bottle my lfs recommended (not cheap), comes in tablets which drain off and insert between the filter pads. Low 80's on heater, filter running slightly fast with air pipe through it.

Put too much ammonia first day, went upto about 8ppm, now dropped down to .5ppm. Nitrite was off scale monday and tuesday, now down to about 4ppm. Just put large plants (hygrophila polysperma, amazon sword and straight valis) at back along with bogwood.

Can I say cycle is almost complete in that timespan, or would we expect or need something else to happen, or more time to mature/finish.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

nope, the media from the goldfish tank will have kick started it, quite possible it'll be complete, if you've seen a definate ammonia spike and fall followed by a ntirite spike and fall and you can now add ammonia and see it be turned completely to nitrate in 24hrs then your done cycling

it's loads quicker with a decent amount of media there in the first place

 

[stackem evs]

nope, the media from the goldfish tank will have kick started it, quite possible it'll be complete, if you've seen a definate ammonia spike and fall followed by a ntirite spike and fall and you can now add ammonia and see it be turned completely to nitrate in 24hrs then your done cycling

it's loads quicker with a decent amount of media there in the first place

Seen a definate spike by both, although not fully back to zero either. If tank is planted is it still safe to add ammonia? Last night bit dubious, so put some fish food in and plant food (which probably not required due to level of nitrate in).

If had the spikes, but got trace amounts, should be ok to do large water change (50-75%) and looking at adding first hunting pack (believe ruby barbs are a good start).

Will add fish slowly. Then can be new kid in the sweet shop and go down weekly to get (even if have drawn up my wish list)......

 

[Miss Wiggle]

leave it until they both drop to 0, but your perfectly safe to add ammonia with plants in

 

[stackem evs]

leave it until they both drop to 0, but your perfectly safe to add ammonia with plants in

Read somewhere that if Ammonia stays at zero (think for 12hr+), you would have to restart the cycle. Does this sound correct or rubbish?

 

[dizzied]

Cycles don't take long from my experience. I've never had one that took more than 12 or so days, even if I started bare.

The ammonia should stay at zero, because the bacteria is constantly turning it into nitrite and nitrate. But if there's no ammonia for it to feed on, they'll die off.

 

[Irf]

Read somewhere that if Ammonia stays at zero (think for 12hr+), you would have to restart the cycle. Does this sound correct or rubbish?

This is probably referring to te bacteria dying off when they have no ammonia to feed on. I think this happens at around 24hrs with no ammonia added.

Irf.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Read somewhere that if Ammonia stays at zero (think for 12hr+), you would have to restart the cycle. Does this sound correct or rubbish?

This is probably referring to te bacteria dying off when they have no ammonia to feed on. I think this happens at around 24hrs with no ammonia added.

Irf.

yeah if there's no ammonia added and you just keep the filter (for example) in a bucket of tank water, you'd find the bacteria would start to die off after 12 hrs (don't know how long it takes to finish!) and you'd need to at least do a mini cycle.

however if ammona is added to the tank and converted to 0 that's absolutely fine