Cycling a tank

[Magdelaine]

I am currently on day 12 of cycling a new 10 gallon tank. Most of what I went through with my goldfish is here: http://www.fishforums.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2164.

Well on Sunday morning I noticed Elmo had died having gotten stuck to the filter intake. He was looking lethargic the day before, probably from too many nitrites, and I think that was what made it possible for him to get stuck. I had found an article on the web that talked about doing fishless cycling using fish food instead of ammonia: http://www.geocities.com/shtinkythefish/basic.htm so I've been "feeding" my tank once or twice a day the last two days.

Today I finally received my testing kit and when I tested both ammonia and nitrites it said they are at 0! I didn't expect that. I can't yet test for nitrates, but this must mean that my bio filter is working to some degree, as it has cleaned up after Elmo, right?

So, do I need to get another fish or do I continue to feed the tank for another week or two? I don't have access to the ammonia needed for chemical cycling...

I just didn't expect to see NO ammonia or nitrites, so I'm kind of confused.

[cameraman_2]

To me it sounds like you are done as long as everything stays at zero. I put the pleco in mine a few days before I added a few more fish and then I put a filter from my turtle tank onto my 55 gallon and the very next day everything was at zero and has stayed that way for a while.

[flynngriff]

It is generally not possible possible to cycle a tank in 12 days. I am surprised that you have no ammonia, because I would expect some left over from your goldfish.

How are you "feeding" your tank? I would recommend adding a few drops of pure ammonia to your tank, and making sure it shows up on your ammonia test. Then look for nitrites, and finally nitrates. When you see your nitrite levels rise, and then fall, leaving only nitrates in your tank, you know your tank is cycled. The chances of it being cycled now are slim to none.

Good luck!

[Magdelaine]

I am adding fish food as would if there were several fish, thinking that decomposition of the food would provide the ammonia a fish would.

Like I said, I don't really have ammonia I can add. It's either fishy or fish food...

[flynngriff]

Well, I'm not an expert on fishless cycling, but I have heard from others on this forum that I've grown to trust that fish food does not convert into ammonia very well. You're better off using an uncooked shrimp from a grocery store. That is a much better ammonia source than fish food.

Fish food might work, though, so keep testing for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. If it were my tank, I'd go get a shrimp, though...

Good luck!

[Magdelaine]

Ok, I found a jug of something in my cupboard that claims to be "pure ammonia, no detergent". ****Can I use it? I remember seeing somewhere that there are different chemical compostitions of ammonia and one is not good to use, but they don't have a convenient exact chemical label on the bottle.

And one more thing: I have some bulbs I got at Walmart (Aponotegon sp?) in the water where they have been since day one. I noticed the day fishy died that they looked like they were growing algae, and sure enough they are. They are also growing themselves, now, where they weren't before. Even though I can't test for nitrates, this must be "proof" they are there, right?

[ron v]

As flynngriff said, I doubt that your tank is cycled and I don't see where the bulb would indicate that nitrates are present. The ammonia that you described sounds like the right stuff. So you have no fish in the tank now, right? Add enough of your ammonia to get a reading of about 3ppm. Tomorrow, test for ammonia again. If the ammonia is gone, you are cycled. If not, you are not cycled. Simple as that.

[Magdelaine]

Sounds like a plan. I'm not planning on adding fish for another week+ regardless as I have some plants and driftwood coming in and I want to plant the tank before I add fish.

We'll know tomorrow as to my tank's status.

Elaine

[MyraVan]

Sorry to hear about Elmo. As I wrote in the other thread, our goldfish, that we bought out of ignorance when we started up our tank, also died during the nitrite spike. Luckily we'd got a couple of zebra danios as well, and they lived on to finish the cycle (and are alive now, with 4 more zebra danio friends).

The find of the ammonia in your cupboard was really lucky! Now you have what you need to do a proper fishless cycle. What fish will you add when it's done?

[Magdelaine]

I have a dream to recreate the community I had when I was young, although it contained a lot of mismatched fish...

So my compromise will be to do livebearers (guppies and swords), a school of neons, a pleco, a gourami, and a few ghost shrimp. It may be overstocked to begin with but as it will be a planted tank that is located right next to the kitchen sink for lots of water changes if necessary, I think it will work.

That's my dream!! I also want a red-tailed shark like the one I had but I've red 10 gallons is just too small for them, so I'm just going to have to wait on that one. It sounds like you are just starting a tank too? Maybe you could get one instead.

[flynngriff]

It's entirely your call on how you want to stock your tank, but that's an awful lot of fish for a ten gallon! You know common plecos will grow to two feet long, right?

Even with a heavily planted tank that's way too many fish. If you dropped the swords and pleco you could be ok, but it depends on how many guppies and neons you're talking about.

[MyraVan]

I think it's a good policy never to buy a fish for a tank that the fish will be too big for when it's an adult. You tell yourself that when the fish gets bigger, you'll get a bigger tank, but the problem is that while it's in the smaller tank there's a very good chance that the reason it's not getting bigger is precisely because the smaller tank is stunting its growth. This leads to ill health and an early death for the fish.

A pleco, the ordinay kind, is too big for a 10 galklon tank. Even the smaller plecos (like bristlenose)are too big for a 10 gallon. If you want algae eaters, otos are (I'm told, I don't have any) very entertaining fish for a mature tank -- you need to wait for your tank to stabilize for awhile before you put them in. And the shrimps that you like are also good algae eaters too.

The red-tailed sharks look very pretty, but I think that even our 20 gallon tank is too small for one! Also they are quite aggressive fish, and I'm not sure how well they would get along with the fish that we have.

I was recently thinking that if I had a spare 10 gallon tank, I would try to make it as colorful as possible, say with 2 female bettas (our local fish shop has several female bettas in a tank and they look very pretty) and a school of some colorful small fish, like neon tetras or cherry barbs. Add a few algae-eating snails or shrimp, and the setup is complete...

You say it will be a planted tank. Have you got plants so far? Sorry, I don't remember from your other thread if you did or not. What substrate are you using? How much light? If you haven't got a good substrate for plants, now is the time to put it in, before you have any fish, since it's alot easier to change substrate if you don't have fish to worry about.

[Magdelaine]

Well, I plan on adding fish slowly, to prevent shock and disease, so I think I will be able to see when enough is enough. When I was a kid I had a pleco and a shark and they both seemed ok in my 10 gallon, but I didn't have the tank longer than 2 years (the red tail was very docile).

As far as planting goes, I have a plain gravel substrate and 1.7 w/g lighting, so I'm sticking to easy plants like java moss and java ferns, and maybe a potted crypt and watersprite.

[MyraVan]

It may be overstocked to begin with but as it will be a planted tank that is located right next to the kitchen sink for lots of water changes if necessary, I think it will work.

If you want the plants to help you with keeping the water clean, you need to have them very densely planted, and you need to have lots of fast-growing plants (to absorb lots of ammonia or nitrate). The of the plants the you want to keep, only the watersprite is a fast-growing plant. And it's not guaranteed to grow, it's slowly dying in my tank, but maybe I'm just unlucky. So I don't think that the planting level you have in mind will allow for any overstocking....

Well, I plan on adding fish slowly, to prevent shock and disease, so I think I will be able to see when enough is enough.

Adding fish slowly isn't sufficient to prevent disease. If your fish has a disease that it picked up from the fish shop, it will spread it to your other fish anyway. The best way to prevent disease is to quarantine your fish in a separate tank. I must admit that I don't do that (I only have two tanks, a 20 gallon at home and a 5 gallon at work). What I do instead is that I only buy fish from two shops among the dozen or so fish shops within 15 miles of my house. These two shops take very good care of their fish, and they never have dead fish in their tanks. NEVER buy fish from a shop that has dead fish in ANY of its tanks. Also watch out for sick or fish that look like they're acting strange, not just in the tank that you want to buy fish from, but from any tank. If the shop doesn't know how to take care iof its fish in any tank, there's a good chance that the fish you buy will be weak of diseased.

And how will you know when enough is enough? The problem is that often the pictures of fish that we see are of tanks that are overcrowded. The tanks in shops generally are a bit overcrowded. They can get away with this because the fish are in there only a short time, and then they expect that you will put them in a tank where they will have more room to swim and grow. And pictures that manufacturers provide of their tanks generally show them overcrouwded as well.

As for us, we've gradually, over 7 months, built up the stock in our 20 gallon tank to 11 small to medium sized fish (the biggest ones are rosy barbs which are about 3 inches long). I think it's almost full. Up until we added the last 2 fish, it looked a little bit bare, but now there are enough fish in there that there's always something moving around out in the open, and it's a real pleasure to watch. I think we'll add just 2 more (adding more of the things we already have) and we'll call that quits. That will give us a healthy tank which will look really good. I'll continue to fiddle around with the plant selection, though, until I find just the right arrangement of plants that will look nice, grow well without any help from me, but also not grow too fast, cause I don't want to be continually trimming them!

[Magdelaine]

I ended up adding enough ammonia (1 cc) to get a reading between 1.5 and 3 mg/l, but I didn't add any more than that for fear of overspiking and damaging the bacteria. Should I wait a full 24 hours to test again?

And, yes, I know the kind of pictures you are talking about... 20 fish of different types in a 20 gallon tank, looking like a rainbow. But not a good environment for the fish, unfortunately

Yes, I admit that is what I have in mind sometimes. It's too bad I have to start with 10 gallons, but it's what I could handle given how much time it's been since the last time I had a tank. I'm going to start with a school of six neons and 3 ghost shrimp. From there I don't know. I'm sure I will make mistakes!

BTW, everything I've heard about Java moss is that it is a fast grower, even in low light. But I have yet to see any of it in action.

[ron v]

3mg/l is perfect. Over that could damage bacteria. Wait 24 hrs. Maybe less. If your tank is cycled, the ammonia will be consumed quickly. Keep us posted.

[Magdelaine]

I just retested, about 22 hours after spiking with the ammonia. My ammonia is reading 1.5mg/l and nitrites at .3 mg/l. Obviously I'm on my way but I'm not done yet!!

So should I just keep adding the same amount as yesterday (1cc) every day until both tests read 0 after 24 hours?

On another question, in my little town there are two places to buy fish: Walmart and the LFS. Both places I have seen dead fish, although more at Walmart. The next nearest place to buy fish is 2 hours away. So, how do you quarantine if you have only one tank?

[ron v]

When you first added ammonia, it was at 1.5 - 3. Is it less now? The fact that you have SOME nitrites means you are on the way. The fact that you still have ammonia means you are not done yet. Yes you still need to add enough ammonia to get back to 3mg/l every day. Don't add the same amount. Only enough to get bact to 3. Do you get any nitrates? That would be really good.
You need a tank to quarantine. Can you buy everthing you want at one time?

[Magdelaine]

Yes, it's definitely less than yesterday, it just that yesterday it wasn't quite a 3. I just added another 1 cc and that brought it to a solid 3. We'll see what's happening tommorrow. I don't have a test for nitrates yet, but the reason I mentioned the algae growth before is that I thought it couldn't occur without nitrates...

Unfortunately, I have been peicing what I have so far over the last several months, and I have to budget for everything (including a test for nitrates ) so I can't get everything at once. What do you recommend, however? I'm curious...

[MyraVan]

I'm going to start with a school of six neons and 3 ghost shrimp.

That sounds perfect! You'll be able to add a bit more later, but this sounds like a super beginning.

BTW, everything I've heard about Java moss is that it is a fast grower, even in low light.

I don't have Java moss, but I have found that a very reliable sourch of information on aquatic plants is the Tropica website, http://www.tropica.com/default.asp
Go there and click on Vesicularia dubyana (scientific name for Java moss) from the menu at the right, and you'll see that they say it grows slowly.

Hmmmm, I just read what they said about Ceratopteris thalictroides, aka water sprite. It's supposed to be a really good plant that grows in just about any tank, but it's dying in mine. The Tropica website says that its light requiremenets are "high-very high" which I definitely don't have with 30W over a 20gal tank. Maybe that's why its dying. Here again, Tropica seems to be more accurate than other things I've heard.