New Tank Cycling - Am I Getting Anywhere?

[tjckrueger]

Hi folks! Looking for you opinions on how my fish tank cycling is going. I have a 23g. We've been putting in media and water changes from 2 established 2.5g tanks. Below are test results recorded from an API Fresh Water Master Kit:

3/21/09
Ammonia = 0.50 ppm
Nitrite = 0.00 ppm
Nitrate = 5.0 ppm

3/28/09

Ammonia = 0.50 ppm
Nitrite = 0.00 ppm
Nitrate = 5.00 ppm

4/7/09
Ammonia = 0.25 ppm
Nitrite = 0.00 ppm
Nitrate = 10 ppm

So I gues it's good that I'm seeing ammonia go down and the Nitrates up, but I never saw a Nitrite spike. I never did find 100% ammonia so we are going with this route instead of using fish. Do we keep going like this for a few more weeks? Thanks in advance!

 

[FirstTimeFreshie]

i think (forgive me if i'm mistaken) that if you dont add the ammonia, you wont have a spike with out fish, therefore when you add the fish, the ammonia will spike (because not enough bacteria will have built up) and potentially kill the fish, I think thats why you have to add the ammonia.... am i mistaken?

 

[unwritten law]

you need to add soem sort or source of ammonia to cycle your tank.

 

[Lotus]

If you can't find ammonia, you can use some fish food. You will need a source of ammonia to get the cycle going, and fish food will provide that ammonia.

 

[tjckrueger]

We are taking the gravel cleanings/water changes from the 2 2.5 g tanks and putting them into the 23g. Thinking the gunk from cleaning the rocks from the small tanks would be our source of ammonia. I was thinking it could work, only it would take longer. We've also moved some media from the small tanks to the big tanks as well to hopefully establish the bacteria growth.

 

[iexiak]

if you have filter media from old tanks you shouldnt need to cycle. just put the old filter in with a couple of fish, then add fish slowly...

my 110g immediately cycled, and i used filter media from a 30g....idk if proportionally its the same but i think you know what im getting at.

 

[BlueStraggler]

I believe your tank is cycled judging by the results you posted and it is ok to add fish now.

 

[unwritten law]

he wasn't adding ammonia so the cycle never started.. that test results are pretty much from water he added from one tank to another...

 

[BlueStraggler]

he wasn't adding ammonia so the cycle never started.. that test results are pretty much from water he added from one tank to another...

fish waste and uneaten food in the gravel=ammonia
ammonia reading of .50 ppm=ammonia
there is ammonia
nitrates are there ...now I can't say for 100% sure why there is no nitrite spike before the ammonia decline, but I am willing to bet that it is because this tank required no "new" cycle thanks to all that media and old water. *thumbsups
I wouldn't recommend fish if I thought they were going to die

unwritten brings up a good point about the method of testing? How are you testing, after adding the old water? I doubt that.
Hopefully someone else will offer a suggestion?

 

[unwritten law]

cant there be ammonia in the water that he is adding?

 

[BlueStraggler]

all I'm saying is that if seeding a tank did not have the benefit of getting to add fish quicker, why would anyone ever do it?

In this case he is 2 weeks, no over two weeks in with this. A few more weeks would be like cycling the tank from...scratch.

However if you are adding the less "hardier" species, I'd recommend getting a few more opinions before taking my advice.
Good luck with the process whichever you decide : )

 

[radmobile]

I would try to get the ammonia up higher to start to create more bacteria. It will drop fast because you are using cycled media.
What happened with my tank was I cycled with barely any ammonia and when a few fish were added they were too much of a load on the tanks biomass causing another cycle. If there is not much ammonia in the tank to begin with bacteria population will be low because thats all that is needed to take care of the ammonia and so on.
cheers.

 

[tjckrueger]

unwritten brings up a good point about the method of testing? How are you testing, after adding the old water? I doubt that.

All testing was done before we added the water from the other tanks each time.

 

[unwritten law]

Well once you think it is done just add fish slowly at first and monitor it just like you would do normally to make sure it is completely cycled. Don't want to stock it right away and find out there is still another spike is in store for you.