Nitrogen Cycle

[EllisGreen]

Hi all,
Very new to this hobby and I'm a bit confused.
Set up my 65 liter tank last week on Tuesday and I added starter bacteria in a bottle on that day. Today I used my master test kit to check for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and they're all at around 0. Does that mean my tank is ready for fish or does that mean the nitrogen cycle hasn't even started?

 

[Essjay]

Bacterial starters don't cycle a tank instantly depsite what the manufacturers say. And some of them don't work at all.

Your test kit says ammonia and nitrite are zero becasue you have not yet added anything to the tank - fish- to make them not zero. The risk is that if you get fish, you will see ammonia appearing.

There are two ways to go forward.

Do you now have or do you intend to have live plants in the tank? If you do, they will remove ammonia faster than bacteria can. With live plants in a tank, you just need to wait a couple of weeks until the plants have grown a bit more then add fish a few at a time.

But if you don't have live plants and don't intend to have any, test the tank with ammonia or ammonium chloride. Ammonia is getting difficult to find in the UK, and the ones for sale on Amazon and eBay don't make it clear whether or not they contain detergents (surfactants). But both those sites do sell Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride. If you get some of that and add 68 drops, then test for ammonia after 30 minutes to allow it to mix in, you should have a reading of around 3 ppm. Test again after 24 hours. If there is zero ammonia and zero nitrite, the tank is cycled. If either are not zero, the tank is not cycled and you need to follow the fishless cycling method on here.

Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!

Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Hi all,
Very new to this hobby and I'm a bit confused.
Set up my 65 liter tank last week on Tuesday and I added starter bacteria in a bottle on that day. Today I used my master test kit to check for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and they're all at around 0. Does that mean my tank is ready for fish or does that mean the nitrogen cycle hasn't even started?

Good question and no...zero readings do not mean that your tank is cycled.
What else is in the tank and what bottled bacteria are you using?
(Some come with the ammonia 'food' included in the bottle).

Whilst some might argue that the bottled bacteria gives instant results, therein can lie the Path to Misery...
The bacteria needs to have settled in and actually grown in the tank.
Personally, I'd be more reassured by seeing a little ammonia in the tank first, followed by a decrease in this and a subsequent increase in nitrates, followed by the zero readings we want, with some nitrate present.

All that said and depending upon the product used, you could add a few fish and keep testing.
If any ammonia shows, then your bacteria isn't yet processing it and you need to do water changes to reduce it. (Water changes won't compromise your bacteria and will save the fish from discomfort).

Perhaps you could check out my journal, describing my cycling of two tanks, one after the other.
NOTE my presence of plants.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Looks like @Byron just beat me to it.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

I tend to favour the plants in method.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Do you have a "food source" for the bacteria?

When you "cycle" a tank you have to first introduce a source of ammonia. The best way to do this is with a "fishless cycle" (see link below). Over time the bacteria that eat the ammonia grow and eventually when you add ammonia to the tank the ammonia level will rapidly drop as it is eaten by these bacteria.

The next part of the nitrogen cycle is Nitrite. This is the waste produced by the ammonia eating bacteria. Once your ammonia eating bacteria colony gets big enough to produce Nitirite you will see it starting to rise on your test kits. After awhile the Nitrite eating bacteria will start growing and you will see the Nitrite levels start going down.

Now the last part of the process is the Nitrate. This is the waste produce of the Nitrite eating bacteria. This is less harmful to fish and will normally be removed with water changes (or plants if you have them).

Once you get to the stage where you can add ammonia to the tank and shortly after ammonia and Nitrite are not detectable your tank is cycled. This process will typically take at least 4 weeks, during which time you will have to keep adding ammonia to the tank.

From what you have said at the moment you have no ammonia source so the cycle hasn't yet started.

Here is a much more detailed guide to cycling your tank:

Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!

Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...

www.fishforums.net

It is by far the most fiddly and boring bit of setting up a new aquarium but also the most important. Easily 90% of the problems people new to fishkeeping have are due to them not having cycled their tank properly.

 

[EllisGreen]

Thank you for your replies! I have read all your links and it has been very useful, I think I understand now much appreciated!