Cycling+Ammonia Questions

[eaglesaquarium]

I didn't know that you were going for crayfish!  
 
I'm not sure that there is a fish that would be ok with a crayfish.  But I'm far from a crayfish expert.

 

[the_lock_man]

Rule of thumb is that fins and claws don't mix.
 
I was once in a LFS who had put a lovely halfmoon Siamese Fighter in with an electric blue lobster (a type of crayfish). The Fighter had lost 3/4 of its tail. I went back to the same LFS the next day, and the Fighter was no longer there. I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.....

 

[karlnina]

our 50gallon tank sprung a leak so we had to put our three discus in a 20 gallon tank last week , now large tank is repaired and started the cycle yesterday, our lfs have said if we do our next water change on the smaller tank and just transport the water to the larger tank the fish will be ok to go back into the 50 gallon tank , hope this makes sense? is it true?

 

[fluttermoth]

No, it's not true.
 
Cycling is all about the bacteria in the filter; there is hardly any in the water, certainly not enough to cycle a tank. Hopefully, you moved the filter, or the media in it, from the big tank when it sprang the leak and put it in the small one; move it back and you'd be fine to move the fish back as well.

 

[karlnina]

no i didnt put filter from large tank into small tank as it already has a matured filter so we just put it in a plastic bag , how long then do we need to cycle the larg tank?

 

[fluttermoth]

No way of knowing without dosing some ammonia.
 
I would add some until you've got 2 or 3ppm, then add your filter and test after twelve hours. If the ammonia is all gone, and there's zero nitrite as well, then your filter bacteria have survived and you can add the fish back in.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

How long was the big filter in the bag?
 
 
The longer it was in there, the longer it will take to bounce back.  You may be surprised how quickly it is ready to go.

 

[alexvpaq]

Rule of thumb is that fins and claws don't mix.
 
I was once in a LFS who had put a lovely halfmoon Siamese Fighter in with an electric blue lobster (a type of crayfish). The Fighter had lost 3/4 of its tail. I went back to the same LFS the next day, and the Fighter was no longer there. I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.....

Yeah that's what I heard of too so far.It must not be a fish that sleep  or stays at the bottom / needs to be a non-agressive fish ( when the cray molts it is at risk), It needs to be quick and agile to stay away easily from the crayfish and similar water settings.

There's a lot to look for

The whole crayfish thing sprouted in my head after a few months of wanting a fishtank but no real idea what fish I wanted. So my parents were having lobsters for diner (lol Yeah...)  and I wondered if it was possible to keep some in a fishtank and when I found out yes (different species though lol) That was the signal in my head, a cool little creature like that would be perfect for me! 
I still hope I'll find a blue Clarkii since they keep a relatively small size for a crayfish compared to the Alleni or other species that can reach 30-40cm long but they're hard to find. Otherwise I'll go for a white one, they're really nice too and will look awesome in my tank.  
 

 

[karlnina]

done a water test yesterday ph 7.2 nitrate 0, nitrite 1 ppm shall i leave it longer before returning fish??

 

[the_lock_man]

 

Rule of thumb is that fins and claws don't mix.
 
I was once in a LFS who had put a lovely halfmoon Siamese Fighter in with an electric blue lobster (a type of crayfish). The Fighter had lost 3/4 of its tail. I went back to the same LFS the next day, and the Fighter was no longer there. I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.....

Yeah that's what I heard of too so far.It must not be a fish that sleep  or stays at the bottom / needs to be a non-agressive fish ( when the cray molts it is at risk), It needs to be quick and agile to stay away easily from the crayfish and similar water settings.

There's a lot to look for

The whole crayfish thing sprouted in my head after a few months of wanting a fishtank but no real idea what fish I wanted. So my parents were having lobsters for diner (lol Yeah...)  and I wondered if it was possible to keep some in a fishtank and when I found out yes (different species though lol) That was the signal in my head, a cool little creature like that would be perfect for me! 
I still hope I'll find a blue Clarkii since they keep a relatively small size for a crayfish compared to the Alleni or other species that can reach 30-40cm long but they're hard to find. Otherwise I'll go for a white one, they're really nice too and will look awesome in my tank.  
 
 

 
Whilst some fish a known as top-level fish, in practice, most fish go all over the tank - in the wild, their lakes/rivers are much deeper than our aquaria - so for instance, my dwarf gourami, known to be a surface dweller actually goes all over the place. Corydoras, known as being bottom dwellers, also flit up to the surface to take in air.
 
My point is that if you want crayfish, you can't (in my opinion) have any fish at all.

 

[alexvpaq]

My patience is really suffering these days. I'm considering getting a heater just for the cycling part to maybe raise the speed of it happening. 

I have still to top up my ammonia once. I'm at around 2.5ppm still. 
nitrites are low  around .1mg/L, but it has been higher than that like...  .3mg/L
Nitrate however is slowly (cue word) going up around 5-10 mg/L 
I'm easily on my fifth week. Did 2 water changes and switched filter media to sponge at around week 3 I think. 

I know I sort of posted that earlier but someone hijacked the thread and we ended up talking crayfish. (which is cool too, the crayfish talk) 

But right now, I'm wondering if anything is every going to come out of that or if I'm going to wait till 2014 to see some results. 

 

[alexvpaq]

Here's another update for anyone interested. Ammonia finally went down, I added some, nitrite and nitrate are still low but slowly increasing. My water got extremely cloudy it's impressive and there is a white thing growing on the branch in my fishtank and I have absolutely no clue what it is.  

BUT, ammonia went down, I'm pretty sure the tank had to restart the cycle when I switched filters.