Is My Tank Cycled/ready Yet?

[Ruskull]

I filled my 36 gallon bow front with conditioned water yesterday and added an old filter cartridge from my son's 20 gallon tank last night along with the new one. I put in a bunch of plants & a single big decoration in last night.

It's been running like that better than 24 hours.

I tested the ammonia and nitrite level and they were at zero, the nitrates are very low at less than 5 ppm.

Is it ready for fish? Specifically a very nice, but very aggressive Gold Gourami that's bullying my Sailfin Molly?

 

[orandas]

hi,

can you test your tap water and see if there's any nitrate in there.

otherwise you could be. how old's your son's filter?

can't help with the fish choice.

 

[Ruskull]

hi,

can you test your tap water and see if there's any nitrate in there.

otherwise you could be. how old's your son's filter?

can't help with the fish choice.

Hello, and thanks for the reply.

I will test the tap water tomorrow since it's 2:29 am here in NC. My son's filter is a few month's old and it has some nice disgusting looking stuff that's brownish. It was so full I had to remove it from his anyway because it was so dense it stopped the biowheel from spinning. AS soon as I took it out the wheel went back to work. I assume that's good media since his tank is overstocked and still reads good after a week or more.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Hmm, there is a good chance that your new tank will be okay, but you need to feed it an ammonia source until you stock the tank (fish food, etc) otherwise the bacteria will die. You say you removed it from your sons tank? Does his tank have media still in it? Or is it fully running off the bacteria in the biowheel? If that is the case, I would be concerned about the ammonia/nitrite spike you may encounter after removing the entire filter cartridge from that tank. As for your new tank, you should be able to stock as the media is mature.

 

[Ruskull]

Update:

I bought 3 medium Albino Corys and 5 small Tiger Barbs. I re homed my Gold Gourami male later that same day. I also added a female Gold & a female Opaline (Cosby) to the tank today. I'm checking the levels now......................

 

[Ruskull]

Hmm, there is a good chance that your new tank will be okay, but you need to feed it an ammonia source until you stock the tank (fish food, etc) otherwise the bacteria will die. You say you removed it from your sons tank? Does his tank have media still in it? Or is it fully running off the bacteria in the biowheel? If that is the case, I would be concerned about the ammonia/nitrite spike you may encounter after removing the entire filter cartridge from that tank. As for your new tank, you should be able to stock as the media is mature.

I had 2 filter cartridges in my son's tank plus the bio wheel, so I took the nastier looking older one out. It was so clogged it was stopping the bio wheel from spinning.

I tested his and it's okay.

I tested the ammonia in the new tank & it was .25 ppm so I did a 50% water change & it's zero now. The nitrites are zero too.

 

[HayzH]

i dunno..something doesnt sound right to me...dunno what?
I suppose the Nitrates may be low because you have halved the media..your stocking sounds alot for a half cycled filter to cope with IMO

 

[orandas]

Hmm, there is a good chance that your new tank will be okay, but you need to feed it an ammonia source until you stock the tank (fish food, etc) otherwise the bacteria will die. You say you removed it from your sons tank? Does his tank have media still in it? Or is it fully running off the bacteria in the biowheel? If that is the case, I would be concerned about the ammonia/nitrite spike you may encounter after removing the entire filter cartridge from that tank. As for your new tank, you should be able to stock as the media is mature.

I had 2 filter cartridges in my son's tank plus the bio wheel, so I took the nastier looking older one out. It was so clogged it was stopping the bio wheel from spinning.

I tested his and it's okay.

I tested the ammonia in the new tank & it was .25 ppm so I did a 50% water change & it's zero now. The nitrites are zero too.

i'm surprised by that result '0.25', given how much brown gunky thick bacteria you got. But re-reading above, if it stopped the wheel churning - how did it remain wet, and no churning means no oxygen for the bacteria. its all theory, but ure test result indicates something is off.

i would not feed for 24hrs and retest in ure next 12 & 24hr slot and go from there.If it sticks at 0.25, you ave ure answer to ure original question, and u know lots of daily water change are called for.

 

[Ruskull]

i dunno..something doesnt sound right to me...dunno what?
I suppose the Nitrates may be low because you have halved the media..your stocking sounds alot for a half cycled filter to cope with IMO

That's possible, that the nitrates are so low because it's been "halved" from a smaller tank.

The stocking is too much & too fast but that's what I get for taking my 10 year old son with me to the fish store..................

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Just make sure you keep testing your water and doing changes as needed. With the mature media, you may experience a mini cycle due to fast stocking, but it should clear up pretty quick. Just MONITOR MONITOR MONITOR the water and you will be good (In both tanks....I have had nitrite spikes from taking filter media to see cycling tanks)

 

[Ruskull]

Hmm, there is a good chance that your new tank will be okay, but you need to feed it an ammonia source until you stock the tank (fish food, etc) otherwise the bacteria will die. You say you removed it from your sons tank? Does his tank have media still in it? Or is it fully running off the bacteria in the biowheel? If that is the case, I would be concerned about the ammonia/nitrite spike you may encounter after removing the entire filter cartridge from that tank. As for your new tank, you should be able to stock as the media is mature.

I had 2 filter cartridges in my son's tank plus the bio wheel, so I took the nastier looking older one out. It was so clogged it was stopping the bio wheel from spinning.

I tested his and it's okay.

I tested the ammonia in the new tank & it was .25 ppm so I did a 50% water change & it's zero now. The nitrites are zero too.

i'm surprised by that result '0.25', given how much brown gunky thick bacteria you got. But re-reading above, if it stopped the wheel churning - how did it remain wet, and no churning means no oxygen for the bacteria. its all theory, but ure test result indicates something is off.

i would not feed for 24hrs and retest in ure next 12 & 24hr slot and go from there.If it sticks at 0.25, you ave ure answer to ure original question, and u know lots of daily water change are called for.

Just because the bio-wheel stopped turning doesn't mean the water wasn't going past it. The water still over flows past the cartridges & the bio wheel. This is the second time that's happened with that particular filter, probably due to the large quantity of fish in that tank. The latest one had brine shrimp all stuck in it. No matter how fast the fish ate the shrimp, the filter sucked up a bit of it.

I'm at work now but I'm checking both tanks tonight for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate. I'll post back the results.

Meanwhile, the original male Gold Gourami is occasionally chasing the Opaline & the other Gold around the tank. I'm fairly sure the new ones are female but at 2.5 inches long it's really hard to tell. What would you consider too much aggression? Should I wait for actual fin nipping? I can return both of the new fish within 14 days if I have to, not that I want to.................

 

[Dieses Madchen]

My fish chase each other all the time with no fin nipping, but I know some gouramis can be overly aggressive. I cannot advise you on what you should do( i know nothing about gouramis), but definitely keep an eye out for nipped fins, as aggressive fish can potentially kill others. I have a Jewel Cichlid (extremely extremely aggresive fish) that is in a 55g tank by herself because he nipped half the tail off one of my severums and almost killed a green terror. i returned the green terror, after quarantine and healing his tail. It is really a matter of preference. I still have the jewel because even though she is a pain in my tuckus, she is facinating. If you really like your gouramis, you may just need to separate them to different tanks.

 

[Ruskull]

Just make sure you keep testing your water and doing changes as needed. With the mature media, you may experience a mini cycle due to fast stocking, but it should clear up pretty quick. Just MONITOR MONITOR MONITOR the water and you will be good (In both tanks....I have had nitrite spikes from taking filter media to see cycling tanks)

Hey, thanks again for the advice.

I'm planning to do a weekly water change of roughly 1/3 on the 20 gallon tonight regardless of the reading. Should I just do the change & then the reading or should I test before & after?

 

[Ruskull]

My fish chase each other all the time with no fin nipping, but I know some gouramis can be overly aggressive. I cannot advise you on what you should do( i know nothing about gouramis), but definitely keep an eye out for nipped fins, as aggressive fish can potentially kill others. I have a Jewel Cichlid (extremely extremely aggresive fish) that is in a 55g tank by herself because he nipped half the tail off one of my severums and almost killed a green terror. i returned the green terror, after quarantine and healing his tail. It is really a matter of preference. I still have the jewel because even though she is a pain in my tuckus, she is facinating. If you really like your gouramis, you may just need to separate them to different tanks.

I absolutely have to limit my tanks to one 20 gallon & one 36 gallon, for now anyway. My wife wouldn't have it any other way


The hard part is I think I could keep the 2 new ones without many problems but the original male is by far my favorite. He is ridiculously aggressive sometimes. This morning though, when I first put the light on, the Gold & the Opaline were actually swimming to the big male! It was like suicide! You'd think they'd steer clear if they were really worried about him...........maybe that's a sure sign they are female? Since they're attention whoring?

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Just make sure you keep testing your water and doing changes as needed. With the mature media, you may experience a mini cycle due to fast stocking, but it should clear up pretty quick. Just MONITOR MONITOR MONITOR the water and you will be good (In both tanks....I have had nitrite spikes from taking filter media to see cycling tanks)

Hey, thanks again for the advice.

I'm planning to do a weekly water change of roughly 1/3 on the 20 gallon tonight regardless of the reading. Should I just do the change & then the reading or should I test before & after?

I usually test before and after my weekly water change. I test before to give me an idea of how large the change should be to get the nitrate reading i want. I test after because I have ammonia in my water and I need to make sure that i didn't do to large of a water change and spike the ammonia level in the tank. Weekly water changes for you are just fine, but for the next week i would test daily as you are removing media from one abnd cycling it in another. It took two days for a nitrite spike to show when i removed media from my 40g.