Cycling... how long does it take?

[David]

How long does a cycle generally take for a new tank (with no filter media from another established tank, and no old gravel, everything new)? Because my 46 seemed to be cycled about 2 weeks ago, so I got 2 clown loaches. They were fine, and still are. A week later, when the water params where perfect again, I purchased a discus and another clown loach. In another week I got a school of cardinals and 3 otos. Then, all of a sudden, I get a HUGE nitrite spike! How did that happen? All of my cardinals, and my biggets clown loach, have died.
Why did this happen? My nitrites spiked up and went down slowly several weeks ago. It seems my tanks cycle is all outta whack! I'm going crazy!

 

[kevin007]

are u serios?

well acually i thought discus were very sensitive but he lasted?

anyways i thought hagen's cycle reduce ammonia??? (not sure)

well anyways, i cycled my tank in 6 days and got all the fish i wanted in 1 week and now everything is still fine my fish is healthy, etc

but i used old media...sorry i wasn;t much help tho

 

[David]

That's cool you're one of the lucky ones. The thing is I moved from Canada to California and I gave away my odl ten gallon (I brought my 5 gallon). I didn't have any filter media I could use to help the cycle along. And surprisingly, Discus aree incredibly hardy as far as I can tell. My little buddy made it through all the stuff those cardinals and clown loach couldn't take... an ich infestation, which ironically was brought in by my first 2 clowns, who are still alive go figure, and an immense nitrite spike. I'm wondering how long it'll take for my nitrite do drop and i can add more fish. My platies made it through everything, (although I had 3 and one died of a net related injury) and my betta, the first fish I got for this tank. He has been in there for almost 4 weeks and I love him the most. Anyway when will my tank fully cycle (finally) so I can add more fish, and what kind should I add (NOT cardinals), and I don't want any more clowns. Too traumatized.

 

[GoldfishGoddess]

Cycling the tank means that evrything is going to up/rise and slowly go back to normal. But you really should have a filter, otherwise this might not happen, it takes about 2 weeks - 1 month.

 

[Da_Oz]

Ok this is a planted tank. I really don't think it ever cycled in the first place. A planted tank cycles a lot different than a no planted tank. Most planted tank never so cycle cause they can’t ever get enough nitrogen and nitrates to do it with. So I am thinking that the adding the new fish might have thrown something off.

 

[kevin007]

That's cool you're one of the lucky ones. The thing is I moved from Canada to California and I gave away my odl ten gallon (I brought my 5 gallon). I didn't have any filter media I could use to help the cycle along. And surprisingly, Discus aree incredibly hardy as far as I can tell. My little buddy made it through all the stuff those cardinals and clown loach couldn't take... an ich infestation, which ironically was brought in by my first 2 clowns, who are still alive go figure, and an immense nitrite spike. I'm wondering how long it'll take for my nitrite do drop and i can add more fish. My platies made it through everything, (although I had 3 and one died of a net related injury) and my betta, the first fish I got for this tank. He has been in there for almost 4 weeks and I love him the most. Anyway when will my tank fully cycle (finally) so I can add more fish, and what kind should I add (NOT cardinals), and I don't want any more clowns. Too traumatized.

c'mon dav, i mean don't give up so easily, try clowns again maybe not tetras but clowns fo sho' i mean they are one of my fav fish right now!

 

[David]

Well yeah but they get big and I dunno if I will have enough room for them in the future. I still have my two little ones. Love those guys. Hope they make it. So Da_Oz basically you're saying my tank will never cycle?!

 

[Da_Oz]

What I am telling you is. In a well planted tank that the stuff that is needed to run a normal cycle is used up by the plants befor it can be used for the cycle.

The nitrogen cycle is this

1. Fish and rotting matter produce ammonia

2. Bacteria oxidize ammonia into nitrite

3. Another bacteria oxidize nitrite into nitrate

4. Nitrate is then removed from the aquarium with weekly small water changes.

5. Live , healthy and quickly growing plants can bypass the bacteria filter completely in any stage of the 1st four steps

Plants use all these things is growing. It is not that it will never cycle but will do it a little different. You check the cycle by testing for these things in a tank. But because the plants use them that can make them hard to for.

 

[fraservet]

sounds to me like you put in too many fish too quickly
especially since one was a discus which will produce a lot of waste
cardinals really need a mature tank to so well

I would try again, but add fish more slowly

 

[Da_Oz]

Ok I found a story that maybe you can understand better than what I was saying.



""Traditionally, when setting up a new tank, the tank must be "cycled". Cycling is the process of allowing the nitrifying bacteria to build up in the tank, and in the filter. These bacteria convert the harmful ammonia and nitrite into nitrates. This cycling takes approximately 6 weeks. The amount of bacteria that grow is determined by how much ammonia and nitrite are being produced by the fish.

Consider this: The Bio-filter bacteria convert ammonia and nitrites into nitrates. Plants can use all three of those as their source for nitrogen. In fact, ammonia is the preferred nitrogen source for plants. If you add plants to a tank with an established bio-filter, the plants will actually use up some of the ammonia before the bacteria can convert it. That means that there will be less ammonia for the bacteria, so the bacteria colony will decrease in size. And since less ammonia is now being converted to nitrite, there will be less nitrite than before, so some of those bacteria will die off too.

So, a logical question would be: Why go thru the trouble to build up a large bio-filter bacteria colony, when it will just shrink when you later add plants? And the logical answer is: Don't!

I recommend starting out with the plants doing the job of removing harmful ammonia. In order for this to work, you must ensure that the plants are growing and thriving before adding the fish. ""


Used without permision from Chuck's Planted Aquarium Pages

 

[Crystal]

I am sorry to hear about your loss David. I hope everything fixes itself.

 

[David]

What I am telling you is. In a well planted tank that the stuff that is needed to run a normal cycle is used up by the plants befor it can be used for the cycle.

The nitrogen cycle is this

1. Fish and rotting matter produce ammonia

2. Bacteria oxidize ammonia into nitrite

3. Another bacteria oxidize nitrite into nitrate

4. Nitrate is then removed from the aquarium with weekly small water changes.

5. Live , healthy and quickly growing plants can bypass the bacteria filter completely in any stage of the 1st four steps

Plants use all these things is growing. It is not that it will never cycle but will do it a little different. You check the cycle by testing for these things in a tank. But because the plants use them that can make them hard to for.

Lol I know how the nitrogen cycle works thank you very much. I didn't know, however, that plants used all that stuff. I thought they only absorbed nitrate. Hmmm this will be tricky...

 

[pendragon]

A planted tank must still cycle. An aquarium will come to an equilibrium state with relation to the nitrogen cycle whether it has plants or not. The only difference is that all the nitrogen compounds are left to the bacteria in a non-planted tank, whereas the plants use some of them for food in a planted tank (plants do use nitrate, but they can also generally use ammonia and nitrite as well). Plants will not remove nitrogen compounds completely from your water though, and thus your tank must eventually still cycle.

It has been asserted before that you can "skip" the cycle if you plant an aquarium heavily, but this is a fallacy. Plants do not cycle a tank, and plants do not eliminate the cycling process, they only cushion the more dangerous portions of the cycle by reducing the quantity of the toxins in the water. You can't always accurately predict how much of the nitrogen compounds the plants will absorb, either; plant food uptake is a complicated process that includes a lot of other factors, including the presence of sufficient light and other trace elements.

Just as surely as meat left out on the counter will eventually spoil, all aquariums bearing any non-plant bio-load will undergo the cycling process to reach an equilibrium state for that bio-load. Plants or no plants.

As for how long does cycling take: the answer is, unfortunately, as long as it takes. I've seen fishless cycles complete in 10 days, and I've seen natural cycles take up to 10 weeks.

Your cycle is finished when all three of these criteria are met, and not before:

1. Ammonia peaks, returns to zero, and remains there
2. Nitrite peaks, returns to zero, and remains there
3. Nitrate is detectable and steadily rises (while the other two remain at zero)

If all three conditions are not met, you're not cycled yet.

Hope that helps.

pendragon!

 

[Fiddlesticks]

The cycle is very unpredictable. The cycle in my 60 took almost a month. Then I found some mature gravel and it was done 2 weeks later. My 10gal cycled in 2 weeks. Thats cuz I got mature gravel right away. If u know your cycling I would recommend doing a water change every other day. It may be alot more work, but I havent lost any fish doing it that way. hth

 

[Da_Oz]

This is a quote from the April 2004 issue of Aquarium Fish Magazine tm The author is Karen Randall.

Karen Randall has been an aquarist for more than 15 years and specializes in live plants and planted aquariums. She has written extensively about this topic and is a committee member of the Aquatic Gardeners Association

This is a question and answer section of Aquarium Fish Magazine tm This is the answer part of it.



A properly set-up planted aquarium will “throw off” typical fish-tank type cycling, only in the sense that it often will not “cycle” in the fish-tank sense of the word. If there is plenty of light,co2, and micronutrients available, the plants use the nitrogenous waste produced. The end result is that you can’t track an ammonia spike followed by a rise in nitrate. The plants use it all (or at least enough that the residual amount cannot be measured by hobby-grade test kits).
If it is set up properly, there is absolutely no need (nor benefit) to “cycle” a planted tank. There can be some risks, actually, in that if you introduce nutrients via fish waste before establishing the plants, you can end up with algae using nutrients instead of the plants. There is no risk to waiting a month following planting before adding the fish, but it is unnecessary.
Many millions of bacteria are imported into the take with your plants. Even so, many of us prefer the “back up” of including some cycled filter material in the filter of a new tank, just ensure the safety of our fish. Alternatively, you can siphon some mulm out of an older tank and seed your gravel bed with this material - but these measures are more for a safety net than anything else. With then, you can add quite a few fish right from the beginning. Without them, you might want to stock more slowly and carefully.
Once you have one reasonably sized tank with a good biological filter, there is no reason to ever cycle any new tanks (even fish only tank) again. Simply run the filter intended for the new tank on the older tank for a week or so, then transfer it. Because we often set up new aquariums at our local schools, and the children are usually anxious to see fish in the tank a soon as possible, we routinely keep a few extra filter sponges stashed in the filter of established tanks in the building. When a new tank is being set up, all we need to do is move one of these sponges to the filter of the new tank. Voila-instant, fully operational biological filter, with no cycle required. I haven’t cycled a tank. With or without plants, in close to twenty years.