Need help with cycling please

[Layci]

Live plants are good to add during cycling you aquarium.

Cool... I was actually considering that. Thanks

 

[mcordelia]

if your ammonia is going down, and your nitrates are going up, then it seems like you will be done cycling soon! Did you end up adding another 3ppm dose a couple of days ago or not?

 

[Essjay]

You know the cycle is finished when you add enough ammonia to get a reading of 3 ppm and 24 hours later there is zero ammonia and zero nitrite. There is no way to know where you are in the cycle from just a couple of readings without knowing how much ammonia you added and when. Ammonia that's dropping could just be the end of the first stage or it could be the end of the cycle. It would be helpful if you could tell us when you added each dose of ammonia, and what your ammonia and nitrite readings have been.

Getting lots of fast growing live plants (floating plants and stem plants) is another way to cycle a tank. Plants take up ammonia as fertiliser and they don't turn it into nitrite or nitrate. A tank can be cycled just using plants if there are enough of them. The tank is planted, and when they show signs of active growth fish can then be added a few at a time, monitoring ammonia and nitrite levels daily afterwards to make sure.



Planting the tank while doing a fishless cycle can result in damaged plants as some plants can't cope with 3 ppm ammonia in the water. When there are fish in the tank they excrete ammonia in tiny amounts 24 hours a day. The bacteria or plants remove this ammonia (and the nitrite made from it) as soon as it is made so the ammonia level in the water is always too small to be detected. During cycling, an entire day's worth of ammonia is added all at once so it takes some hours for the ammonia level to drop to zero. Where only a few slow growing plants are intended, it is safer to do a fishless cycle then add the plants.

 

[Layci]

if your ammonia is going down, and your nitrates are going up, then it seems like you will be done cycling soon! Did you end up adding another 3ppm dose a couple of days ago or not?

I didn’t, but...
These are my water levels as of tonight:
pH - 7.6 +
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 30.0
Throughout this 8 week, 2 day process my Nitrate level has never gone above 5.0
Can I celebrate now?
If yes... what do I do now?

 

[mcordelia]

so if you still have ammonia left over, this is what I would do if I were you:
1) do a water change to get the nitrates down (this won't really change much other than save you headache of having to do many water changes before adding fish)
2) add up to 3ppm ammonia
3) wait 30 min, test. you should read ~3ppm ammonia, and some nitrates
4) test 24h later. you should read 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and more nitrates than previously.

If at step 4 you read as above, then do at least a 75% water change, test for nitrates, then do as many more 75% water changes as are needed to get your nitrates down (0 is ideal, 10 is probably ok), and then you can go get fish!!!!

You are so close! this is the part you have been waiting for!!!

 

[Essjay]

It's the "add 3ppm ammonia and test 24 hours later" which will tell you if you are cycled or not.Having zero ammonia and zero nitrite without having added ammonia 24 hours ago is not an indicator of a cycled tank, merely one which has enough bacteria to clear all the ammonia since it was last added which could have been days ago.

 

[porl66]

I didn’t, but...
These are my water levels as of tonight:
pH - 7.6 +
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 30.0
Throughout this 8 week, 2 day process my Nitrate level has never gone above 5.0
Can I celebrate now?
If yes... what do I do now?

When did you last add ammonia? How much did you ad to get it to 3ppm? Was it 24 hours before this lot of tests??