Cycling a Tank

[kgrehm]

First of all i want to say that i am new to this whole thing so my questions might be elementary to most of you, but I have a couple questions.

1) I read the articles about cycling a tank, but when do you know when it is done?

2) If some or all of my fish die because i didnt cycle the tank correctly do i have to start over again because they died or just take the fish out and continue the process till its ready

3) is there such thing of having to much NitrAtes?

sorry for all the questions but everyones says that this is a good forum to get my questions answered.

Thanks.

 

[FMZ]

1) I read the articles about cycling a tank, but when do you know when it is done

when ammonia = 0
nitrite=0
nitrate > 0

2) If some or all of my fish die because i didnt cycle the tank correctly do i have to start over again because they died or just take the fish out and continue the process till its ready

no, you continue with the cycle but i highly recommend fishless cycle

3) is there such thing of having to much NitrAtes?

depends on the fish species, usually over 20ppm is toxic to many species while some can handle upto 40ppm

 

[kgrehm]

thanks so much for the input. Makes a whole lot of sense now. Do you think that there is a possiblity my fish will live?

Just Checking.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

While nitrates are always best kept as low as possible, most fish can handle nitrates of up to 100 without any direct affect to their health. Nitrates won't harm the fish directly, but will have an affect on breeding, and long term exposure to these levels will obviously cause unnecessary stress on the fish.

It is impossible for us to know if your fish will live because we don't know what fish you are refferring to, or what size of a tank. We would also need to know your ammonia and nitrite levels. To increase the chances of survival to water changes as often as you need to in order to keep these toxins as low as possible, every day if you must.

 

[kgrehm]

Sorry haha I am referring to my 4 mollies in a 10 gal. tank.