I Am Not Happy

stickyemu · Jan 21, 2009

my tank was nearly cycled my water was full of bit floting about so i did a 50% water chagen gravel vac
rinsed 1 peice of my filter media in tank water to help clean the bits out of the water filled back up with water treated
with aquasafe no my water stats seem back to square one 2 MONTHS i'v been wateing

fish in cycle for me at the week end now :sick:

minxfishy · Jan 21, 2009

I (and others) have done 90% water changes during fishless cycles, usually to get the ph back to normal after a crash or to help reduce way over the top nitrItes and providing the water was dechlorinated prior to re-filling and ammonia topped back to where it should be during the cycle, Ive never found it made a difference to the cycle, in some cases its actually moved it along.

How much media to clean and did you overdo it on the cleaning. Top the ammonia back up to 5ppm and wait, it should providing you didnt wipe out all the bacteria process relatively quickly and at most knock it back a few days.

stickyemu · Jan 21, 2009

i must of rinsed my media to hard it was just the carbon one with floos on top cos my ammonia would drop in 10 hours now it looks like it int moved i'm gutted

minxfishy · Jan 21, 2009

Doesnt sound like that would have caused a major set back, you can do without the carbon anyway as its fairly useless for anything but removing medication from the water. It would have had some bacteria on it, but not all of it and the floss needs regular changing anyway as it gets gunked up, unlike the other media.

How long ago was this? If its only just happened, give it time, the bacteria will multiply fairly quickly and it may only set you back a day or so.

Truck · Jan 21, 2009

once the carbon is exhausted, it will act as bio media

Honeythorn · Jan 21, 2009

Better yet, do you know anyone else with an established aquarium?( at least 6 months old I mean)

If you do, then ask if you can take a smallish bit of their media, and put it in your filter. It will speed up the process of the cycle, as the borrowed media will have a good colony of bacteria on it which will spread onto your own media.

This is known as seeding.

Alternatively you could simply park your filter in their tank for just over a month to cycle it, and then transfer the cycled filter to your own tank and add fish at once.

I wholeheartedly agree with fishless cycling. But personally I think the whole process is horribly technical and complicated. As long as I have at least one established tank I know I'll never do it. I always seed filters, or if the filter is small, I either clone it by completely filling the compartments with established media, or sitting the filter in an established tank to mature as described above.

stickyemu · Jan 21, 2009

minxfishy said:
Doesnt sound like that would have caused a major set back, you can do without the carbon anyway as its fairly useless for anything but removing medication from the water. It would have had some bacteria on it, but not all of it and the floss needs regular changing anyway as it gets gunked up, unlike the other media.

How long ago was this? If its only just happened, give it time, the bacteria will multiply fairly quickly and it may only set you back a day or so.

it was yesterday i did the water change