I Never Cycled My Tank...

[dillowpillow]

I never cycled my fish tank, and it has been 9 months since I have had my tank. The first night my fish were in there three out of the five neon tetras I had died. We took them back to petsmart and got them replaced, and put them in the aquarium. All of these fish are still alive, and then we added two guppies a week after we replaced the tetra which was 3 days after we got the aquarium. About one month later the female guppie died, so we replaced it with a male guppie. Then a month later that one died, and we replaced it with two sunburst platies. So now I have five neon tetra, one guppy and two platies, and it's been nine months. Did I put the fish through a cycle? The reason that I am asking is because I am considering buying a second tank soon, and maybe I could move the bio media from my other tank to the new one to give it a jump start. I have already replaced this media before because it was moldy, and nothing bad happened to the fish. So I guess my question is would moving the bio media to a new tank help that tank cycle?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

test your water, if you have 0 ammonia and nitrite then it is cycled. if it's cycled then moving media will help.

it should be cycled after 9 months but all sorts of things could go wrong so you need to test the water to confirm it

 

[dillowpillow]

Funny thing is that I don't have a test kit.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

take some water to the lfs for testing then

we've no way of being sure without test results

 

[dillowpillow]

Ok, thats a good idea. And that also reminds me of when I took a sample to Petsmart, and they said the water was OK, but im guessing that she was one of their employees that doesn't really know what she is talking about.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

don't just ask them if it's ok, get a reading for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and write them down, then post them for us and we'll tell you if there's any problems