Tstone's Cycle Log

[eaglesaquarium]

No need for water change.

 

[Tstone]

?Will it affect it? I'd like to get some practice at it if you guys say i'll be able to have fish within days once I get mature media..

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Then go ahead and do a complete water change. Put the mature media in, than dose 19mL of ammonia. Check it in 12 hours... check ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Don't dose more often than every 24 hours. And don't dose until all the ammonia has cleared. Post your results here and we can tweak things as needed.

 

[Tstone]

I can't do a complete water change because my tank gets completely mucky with the sand.. i'll just get the mature media... put it in and check it in 12 hours and add to my cycle log.. and then you'll come in

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Well, do as big as you can if you need to practice. You'll want to practice adding water without it getting murky. Do you have a large stone you can pour the water onto? If not, buy a new plate (no soap having been used on it) and just pour the water onto that.

 

[Tstone]

Liiiiiiiike... put a stone in my tank with just the stone and sand after I empty it and pour the water onto the stone?

 

[cynic]

Yep, whatever works. Everybody's tank is different. I have several big bits of slate in my tank (biggest is like 30lb) so i use that.

 

[Tstone]

My ammonia dropped to 1 and my nitrite is still at 0... if that means anything.. Some stuff happened and I couldn't get the new media yesterday so i'm going to try to get it today.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

If your nitrate increased, then good things are happening. If ammonia merely dropped, then it probably just gassed off a bit, and not enough has processed to show up on the test kit for the others.


Once you get the media, things will start to move rapidly.

 

[Tstone]

The guy said he was busy again today )): and i'll go check my nitrAte .. brb

&&&&&&&& it's still at zero...........

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Not surprising... patience is the key to a fishless cycle.

 

[Tstone]

Oh my godddddddddddddd

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Welcome to the club.

Yup, the fishless cycle is a "hurry up and wait" operation. Stay strong and fight the urge to give up. It will be worth it in the long run.

 

[Tstone]

When I do my weekly water changes when I have fish, should I put dechlorinator in it? I have yet to put any in my tank.... should I put some in?

 

[cynic]

If you never remove the chlorine from the water you will never have any filter bacteria as the chlorine will do its job and kill em stone dead.

Whenever you add water to the tank you MUST add the dechlorinator to either the water your adding or re dose the tank adding enough for the TOTAL water volume, so if you add 50L of water to a 100L tank you would need to dose 100Litres worth of seachem prime. It's a popular/good one as it is concentrated a 500ml bottle will do 5000 litres of water.