Freshwater Cycling.......................?

Question

I went back and read alot of YA re: cycling a new tank, but I'd still like specific, clear (explain it to me like I'm two years old! LOL ) on what to do. I set up my new 10gal freshwater tank 7 days ago.. filter gravel etc. I treated the water and 1 day later added 1 zebra danio. I tested the water and everythng looks good. 5 days later I tested the water and added a 2nd zebra danio, its been 4 days and all looks well. Question, today is day #8, do I change my water now, and if i do and only change 10-20% of the water is it ok to "roughly" measure the water dechlorinater, because the first treatment was for a 10 gal tank, and i dont have a measure to only measure out for say, 1 gal. ( hope that made sense)......... and when I test the water, the results are all good, which kinda worries me, shouldnt it be a little off and work towards being good??

p.s. if i use bottled water, do i still have to treat it?

Answer 1

Sounds like everything is going fine, just off to a slow start, but that's ok. Slower menas safer when cycling a tank.

You are probably seeing good results on your tests because there is so little ammonia being produced in your tank so far. That will change with time.

I would suggest though that you take a sample of your water to a pet shop and have them test it too. It's always possible that your test kit isn't reading the ammonia levels correctly, I really would expect you to have some ammonia in the tank at this point.

With such a small fish load in the tank and because you are actually trying to get ammonia in the tank at this point, I would say skip the water change. Also, yes it's just fine to guess at the dechlorinator but go ahead and guess to include a bit more. It's better to add a little too much than not enough, extra will not hurt a thing.

A basic summary of cycling your tank: Ammonia will build up in the tank and bacteria will grow that will turn the ammonia into nitrite (less dangerous to the fish) and then another type of bacteria will grow to turn the nitrite into nitrate (even less dangerous). Without ammonia the first kind can't grow, ammonia is food for them. So when you cycle your tank you actually want ammonia in there, but only enough to feed the bacteria and not enough to kill the fish. That's why you need to watch the ammonia level so closely and why you will need to do water changes, to keep it from getting too high. Within a few weeks enough bacteria will grow in the tank to eat all the ammonia your fish make. Whenever you add new fish, they make more ammonia and it will take the bacteria a few days to mulitpy enough to eat this additional ammonia, but once there is a bunch in the tank that doesn't take long and is usually nothing you have to watch carefully but it's why you should add new fish slowly.

I would also recommend that you avoid any products designed to cycle the tank for you or assist in cycling the tank. The majority aren't worth the bottle they're in once they get to you.

Bottled water would require no treatment, but it's not really needed. Obviously your fish are doing fine in your treated tap water and bottled is so much more expensive I wouldn't change. As the old saying goes " If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

If you have other questions about cycling the tank, please feel free to email me.

MM

Answer 2

Everything is OK because nothing has had time to go wrong,and it will. Ammonia doesn't happen overnight. Keep testing the water,you probably won't detect any ammonia for about two weeks(unless you are overfeeding the fish),when this happens then the real cycle will start,and that will take 5 or 6 weeks. Also after the ammonia is on the way down the Nitrites will start to rise these are just as toxic as ammonia,and managed the same way(water changes.). As to your question about dechlorinator add it before you put the water in the tank(get a plastic pail) measure the amount of water(2 gallons = a 20% water change) and add the dechlorinator chemicals then. Let the water come to the same temperature as the aquarium and then add it to the tank. Chlorinated water in the tank or wide differences in temperature will slow or even stop the cycling process. Look up fishless cycling on the net,it's much more humane and easier to do.

Answer 3

MM has the best input or at least that I'd agree with and his explaination is what I would have said as well so I'd just like to suppliement a little on that.

Your ammonia readings will go up in time, and zebra danio's are not BIG fish but are very hardy fish and should be fine when the levels do rise. Fish respiration produces ammonia, as does their waste, and any plant leaves that may get picked at, and excess food. At the beginning of the cycle, and I've done three tanks of different sizes so far, I've found after tampering with the first tank, the best thing that worked for me was not touching that water and not adding fish once you start. Water changes, in my opinion should not be done in the cycle unless you are taking action to a reading on your ammonia going to 2.0 parts per million or higher. I've found this to be the best for getting stable results.

Using products to feed and suppliment your bacteria is very mixed at this point. I've tried both cycle and bio speria and cycle contains dormant bacteria to see, bio speria has active live, but I did not see anything significant in terms of speed, but it did help lower the levels SLIGHTLY, nothing extreme so I'd veer more towards MM on the products.

Time is what is needed here, and one key element is that your bacteria, regardless of strain in this case, for fish, takes 24 hours to double in colony size, nothing you add can get around that.

I am not an advocate of fishless cycling for the reasons:

1. You need to have a constant source of ammonia, and once your start up source is used, and the colony grown, nitrites begin forming. Then once that source is used up, though it takes longer for nitrite bacteria to stabilize, they are at significant risk of dying off becuase you have no continual source, which forces you to take constant measurements and then calculate how much more you need to seed.

2. If you were able to avoid your colony dying off, you still have to ramp up slowly in adding your stock. This is pretty common sense among established tank owners, but new commers don't often realize to populate, you must do slowly or you end up going into a mini cycle anyways. If you are using fish for your cycle, provided you use hardy fish like you have now, they adjust to the water chemistry, though they will be subjected to potential damage, they adapt somewhat to water conditions better then new fish being subjected to it.

I am not a proponent of any kind of cruelty to animals, but I believe using fish is the best natural way to establish a long term habitat for fish you want to keep stocked, and by all means if you see signs of distress in your cycle fish, take action to help them.

Answer 4

You can skip the cycling process altogether with a product called Bio Spira ( http://www.marineland.com/products/mllabs/ML_biospira.asp ). It is essentially the same bacteria that you would grow during the cycling process. Just dump it in the tank and add all your fish at once. It works great.

And, yes, you would need to treat bottled water.

Answer 5

it takes 30-45 days to truly cycle a tank, so day 8 might not be long enough to have gotten high ammonia levels that you are looking for...assuming that was what you were testing for, since you werent that specific.

if you were testing for nitrites for example, they wouldnt be there yet.

guess i need more info to get more specific.

Answer 6

as long as the fish don't die...........