Another cycling question

[msn711]

My 20 gallon long is on day 6 and already the ammonia tests at .01 and nitrites at 0. I'm using AmQuel+ to treat the water and biozyme for cycling along with 3 zebra danios. Is it possible that the tank could really be cycling this fast, or am I missing something? The AmQuel+ is supposed to remove ammonia, nitrites, and nnitrates, and the biozyme is obviously supposed to help speed up cycling, but I still didn't expect it to go this fast. Any thoughts, or are these just really good products?

 

[Sky042]

First and foremost STOP using amquel. If you read the pinned topic of avoiding new tank syndrome products like amquel could interfere with the natural buildup of bacteria. It is very unlikely that your water has cycled that fast unless you had a really good bacteria culture to start with. How often do you feed? I'd guess the 3 danios may take a bit of time to really produce enough bioload to get the levels up. But definetly stop adding the amquel you're shooting your cycle in the foot.

 

[Teelie]

Never use any products to cycle a tank unless it's BioSpira, pure ammonia or something that will decay and increase the ammonia. To get a tank cycling, you do not want to stop the ammonia from building up, in fact you want it to increase which I assume the cycling thread pinned above discuses in detail.

 

[msn711]

Perhaps I should clarify...

1. The ammonia did go up and then rapidly came back down.
2. Biozyme doesn't suppress the ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates. I've always seen very good reviews of the product, often equating it to BioSpira.
3. If I stop using the AmQuel what would I treat my tap water with? I can't just add tapwater to the tank...chlorine and all.
4. I feed the danios twice a day.
5. If the water parameters continue to come back all clear, should I add more fish (obviously continuing daily testing to watch for ammonioa/nitrite/nitrate spikes)?

 

[Sky042]

Perhaps I should clarify...

1. The ammonia did go up and then rapidly came back down.
2. Biozyme doesn't suppress the ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates. I've always seen very good reviews of the product, often equating it to BioSpira.
3. If I stop using the AmQuel what would I treat my tap water with? I can't just add tapwater to the tank...chlorine and all.
4. I feed the danios twice a day.
5. If the water parameters continue to come back all clear, should I add more fish (obviously continuing daily testing to watch for ammonioa/nitrite/nitrate spikes)?

instead of using Amquel use a product that just declorinates. There is another thread here where there are dozen's of products that do that for you but don't affect ammonia levels.

If your levels continue to drop to zero and stabilize there you could add fish. Slowly though.