My Tank Cycle

[jason26]

Doing a fishless cycle, i am on day 7 using the add and wait method. Have increased the temperature to 29 deg. C. and have also added oxygen to the tank through an airstone.

Ammonia finally went down to 1ppm today, nitrite levels dont match up to any colour its like a dark purple.

Have added more ammonia taking it up to around 4ppm.

Anyone have any idea how long cycling usually takes and am i doing things right.

 

[rabbut]

Sounds right so far Cycling usualy takes arround 21 days unless you are using mature media, or are lucky/unlucky. As a general rule it takes twice as long for nitrite the process than it does ammonia.

If you can get mature media, then that will speed things along greatly

HTH
Rabbut

 

[jason26]

Update 24 hours later, ammonia is now down to 0.25ppm, nitrite still a dark purple colour.

Must be doing something right, about to add more ammonia to bring it back up to 4.0ppm.

 

[doresy]

Sounds great so far.

Keep adding the ammonia as it drops to below 1 ppm.

The nitrite will (and is) spiking (ie, hit the roof!)

It's a long and seemingly never ending wait but one day your test will be sky-blue (API Kit) and you wont believe your eyes!

 

[nicnak]

Mine took over 5 weeks
just about to start another tank now

 

[OldMan47]

niknak, if you are starting on a second tank, save yourself some time and trouble and give it a kickstart from the one that's already cycled. Even if you don't put much media from the old tank into the new one, it will give you a starting colony of both the ammonia and nitrite convertering bacteria. You should be able to get through the whole process in a week.

 

[jason26]

niknak, if you are starting on a second tank, save yourself some time and trouble and give it a kickstart from the one that's already cycled. Even if you don't put much media from the old tank into the new one, it will give you a starting colony of both the ammonia and nitrite convertering bacteria. You should be able to get through the whole process in a week.

I also did this added some filter media from my other tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Mine took over 5 weeks
just about to start another tank now

Yea, I'm on day 47 and definately tired of dark purple! Am hoping dorsey is right and I will one day see the sky!

 

[jason26]

Update, day 9.

My filter is now processing 4ppm of ammonnia in approx. 12 hours, nitrite is now a dark pink colour, have also got nitrate 5ppm at the moment.

Finally feeling like i am getting somewere, hopefully not that much longer to go now.

 

[backtotropical]

Sounds like it's going well, Jason.

Soon, nitrate will begin to rise and nitrite will fall. Keep adding ammonia as Doresy said, and when you are processing 4ppm of ammonia and the resultant nitrite within 12 hours, you're done!

Cheers

BTT

 

[jason26]

Day 10

Nearly there i think, nitrite is now down to 0.50ppm waiting for the blue sky, lol

 

[rabbut]

waiting for the blue sky

Mebe a little wait in the UK m8 On-topic again though, looks like you are going well, nearly finished. You may be fish shopping this weekend. Any ideas what fish you want to keep?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[jason26]

waiting for the blue sky

Mebe a little wait in the UK m8 On-topic again though, looks like you are going well, nearly finished. You may be fish shopping this weekend. Any ideas what fish you want to keep?

All the best
Rabbut

There is actually blue sky in Birmingham at the moment,lol.

This is what i would like to keep, 8x black ruby barbs, 6x angels, 2x kribs, 2x flying fox or sae, 6x corys, also thinking about 2x clown loaches.

What do you think, do not want to overstock though(240 litre tank).

 

[rabbut]

Way too many sharks, and not enough loaches, but other than that, the stocking looks fine to me You want at least 4 clown loach, six beeing more preferable, and a max of 2 BRS, 1 beeing preferable.

The other fish look to be fine. Research you corries before purchase, as anything unusual (or sometimes usual for that matter) is often misslabled in shops, so their pricing may well be wrong. Suppliers often will intentionaly mislable fishes, to fetch higher prices for them and alot of shops will take their supplyer at their word, as to what they are.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[jason26]

Update, day 15.

I think my cycle was slowing down due to the ph, checked it yesterday and it was 6.0, brought some ph up yesterday raised it to about 7.6.

My nitrate reading was 10ppm yesterday, have just checked it again now and it is reading 160 (could even be more).

Just waiting for the ammonia i added this morning to go down to zero and see what my my nitrite reading is.