Is my tank cycled?

[Andrew waterson]

Hi all,

I've had my new tank setup for 2 weeks now (after some great advice from this site)
I decided to go for a fish in cycle as it's a moderately planted and I've got filter media from a established tank (ceramic rings), also I'm probably a bit impatient!

I've got 4 guppies in a 160 litre tank as my cycle fish

All going well.
ammonia very slight increase (prob never much over 0.25) given existing filter and doing 25% water changes every few days.
Then getting a reading on nitrite a few days later steadily increasing (prob up to just over 0.5)
After a few days I added Tetra safe start (impatient!) and had been told it's good for quickly building up nitrate eating bacteria which can be slow

A few days later ammonia and nitrite is reading clear 0, I've even upped feeding to push it a bit and still 0 after testing every day

Nitrate is a bit of a challenge as I have approx 30ppm out of the tap and I find near impossible to tell the difference on the API master kit between 20 and 80 (seriously orange to light red!!!)
I would say I have nitrate a tiny bit higher than the tap

So (after a wall of text!) would you say the tank it suitably cycled (I know it takes years to really be established) to add more fish?

I'm hoping to add 6 dwarf neon rainbows, and a few more fish (tbc) in a few weeks once the bio load settles

Thanks for the help!

 

[Colin_T]

If you are feeding 2 times per day and getting 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite and the nitrate is going up, then you should be fine to add more fish in a couple of weeks. You can even add another feed per day and see if the ammonia and nitrite change. If they don't then you're good to go.

 

[Byron]

Agree. From what you've posted, you should not see ammonia or nitrite above zero. The plants will be taking most of it up anyway, depending what they are; fast growing plants like floating will definitely use up any ammonia you add, unless it is enough to kill them (and the bacteria).

 

[Andrew waterson]

Thanks both, you've been a great and very knowledgeable help on this and several other of my question threads!!

I'll keep on with the more generous feeding and keep testing every day.
If the ammonia and nitrite stay at 0 I'll add a few more fish in the coming weeks!