Once Cycled......

[Ludwig Venter]

Apart from the 40 odd tanks I have in the garage,.... I also have one "showtank" in the house.... This afternoon, I did a 95% water change in this tank, and also took out everything in the Eheim thermal and washed that, put new substrate in and the likes and refilled the tank.....

Have I now destroyed any "pre" cycling that was done??? or will my fish show affect/effects of this manouvre??

 

[Davo86]

Hi
how did you wash the filter media?
if it was with tap water then yes you've pressed the reset button,
if it was tank water then you may go through a mini cycle, in which case you will need to keep an eye on the levels for the next few days, whilst the bacteria numbers recover.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Unlike you guys that seem to pick up these testing kits for next to nothing, it is unaffordable down here to do a full water test.... (so I've never done it in my life)..... I cleaned with tap water, and very little of it was put back & it was replaced with "new" media.... The gravel was not washed however.

 

[Davo86]

Unlike you guys that seem to pick up these testing kits for next to nothing, it is unaffordable down here to do a full water test.... (so I've never done it in my life)..... I cleaned with tap water, and very little of it was put back & it was replaced with "new" media.... The gravel was not washed however.

How well stocked is the tank? and what size is it?

can you not take out a small amount of media from each of your other tanks to seed the filter again?
this will at least give the tank some bacteria to break down the waste products that will start to rise.
but will still mean daily water changes will be needed at least for a week or so

 

[Ludwig Venter]

I have in there.... (4ft x 18" x 24" high) 6 x Discus..... 5 x Adult Angels.... 4 x Kissers......1 x Bronze Cory.... 1 x Krib.......6 x Albino Rios..... 1 x Betta......1 x Pleco (13")..... 4 x Zebra Danio..... 1 x Black Neon.... 3 by Golden mystery snails......They all look fairly happy, & the change was made about 1 Hour ago......

 

[Davo86]

obviously without a test kit its hard to say if there will be a a spike, but i'd say with all the media being washed/changed there is a very high chance it will,
note, this may take upto 24 hours for signs to show, and the Discus are likely to be the first to show signs, (and to say they won't do well in a spike is an understatement)

if the tank goes cloudy then you have a problem,