Fishless Cycling

[busta]

Hi.I'm new to the forum and new to keeping fish.I set up my 60 litre tank without being told about the cycle.Sadly the fish have all now died.Will I still be able to do the add and wait fishless cycle?
I have so far added 3.1ml of ammonia to the tank and it only raised the level to 1.So I did the same thing again and it's still only reading 1.Am I doing the right thing?.Any help would be great.
My readings before adding the ammonia were.
ammonia 0.25
ph7.6
ph high 8.2
nitrite 0.5
nitrate 80ppm

 

[waterdrop]

Hi.I'm new to the forum and new to keeping fish.I set up my 60 litre tank without being told about the cycle.Sadly the fish have all now died.Will I still be able to do the add and wait fishless cycle?
I have so far added 3.1ml of ammonia to the tank and it only raised the level to 1.So I did the same thing again and it's still only reading 1.Am I doing the right thing?.Any help would be great.
My readings before adding the ammonia were.
ammonia 0.25
ph7.6
ph high 8.2
nitrite 0.5
nitrate 80ppm

Hi busta, You most certainly can switch over to a fishless cycle after the fish die. Are you testing with a good liquid-reagent kit like the API Freshwater Master Test Kit or the Nutrafin Mini-Master Test Kit? If you use paper strips (which are worthless really) you may not be able to detect differences in the ammonia amounts you put in. Also you may need to verify the type of ammonia with the members, they can help with that. If you have not changed the water since the fish were in there you might want to do a complete water change (gravel clean the water out) and recharge with ammonia again. The nitrate looks pretty high and that may be due to the fish rather than your tap water. Post up your tap water resuts too (not here, but in your fishless cycling thread which you should start as a separate thread) (this is a reference article basically, so not normally a good place for discussion.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[eaglesaquarium]

At this point, your tank will probably look terrible with brown algae everywhere and probably cloudy water. As I mentioned, the nitrate reading will also be off the chart. Nitrates can only be removed with water changes. Do a large water change, 75 to 90 percent, turn the heat down to the level the fish you have decided on will need, and you are ready to add your fish. You can safely add your full fish load as your tank will have enough bacteria built up to handle any waste they can produce.

This confuses me a bit... As I understand it, brown algae is not good. Does the water change and addition of fish fix this problem?

 

[catfish4ever]

Wow i still find this quite confusing.

 

[fluttermoth]

It's not that confusing...add enough ammonia to read 4ppm on your test.

Test everyday until the ammonia drops to zero. Add more ammonia, test until it drops to zero. Once it's dropping to zero in 24 hours, you can start testing for nitrite.

Keep on adding ammonia every time it drops to zero.

Eventually you'll get to a stage where both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 12 hours of you adding the ammonia. Then you're done

All other issues (over high nitrites stalling the cycle, pH crashes) you can deal with as they happen, as they don't all happen for everyone.

 

[catfish4ever]

It's not that confusing...add enough ammonia to read 4ppm on your test.

Test everyday until the ammonia drops to zero. Add more ammonia, test until it drops to zero. Once it's dropping to zero in 24 hours, you can start testing for nitrite.

Keep on adding ammonia every time it drops to zero.

Eventually you'll get to a stage where both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 12 hours of you adding the ammonia. Then you're done

All other issues (over high nitrites stalling the cycle, pH crashes) you can deal with as they happen, as they don't all happen for everyone.

can i add fish after that or should i do water change?

 

[Overload]

It's not that confusing...add enough ammonia to read 4ppm on your test.

Test everyday until the ammonia drops to zero. Add more ammonia, test until it drops to zero. Once it's dropping to zero in 24 hours, you can start testing for nitrite.

Keep on adding ammonia every time it drops to zero.

Eventually you'll get to a stage where both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 12 hours of you adding the ammonia. Then you're done

All other issues (over high nitrites stalling the cycle, pH crashes) you can deal with as they happen, as they don't all happen for everyone.

can i add fish after that or should i do water change?

From my understanding, total water change before you put the fish in

 

[catfish4ever]

It's not that confusing...add enough ammonia to read 4ppm on your test.

Test everyday until the ammonia drops to zero. Add more ammonia, test until it drops to zero. Once it's dropping to zero in 24 hours, you can start testing for nitrite.

Keep on adding ammonia every time it drops to zero.

Eventually you'll get to a stage where both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 12 hours of you adding the ammonia. Then you're done

All other issues (over high nitrites stalling the cycle, pH crashes) you can deal with as they happen, as they don't all happen for everyone.

can i add fish after that or should i do water change?

From my understanding, total water change before you put the fish in

But i do have the filter running the whole time right?

 

[Overload]

It's not that confusing...add enough ammonia to read 4ppm on your test.

Test everyday until the ammonia drops to zero. Add more ammonia, test until it drops to zero. Once it's dropping to zero in 24 hours, you can start testing for nitrite.

Keep on adding ammonia every time it drops to zero.

Eventually you'll get to a stage where both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 12 hours of you adding the ammonia. Then you're done

All other issues (over high nitrites stalling the cycle, pH crashes) you can deal with as they happen, as they don't all happen for everyone.

can i add fish after that or should i do water change?

From my understanding, total water change before you put the fish in

But i do have the filter running the whole time right?

yes and if there is too much time between the qualifying week and getting fish you need to keep adding ammonia (Someone with more experience will have to give you an idea of what kind of time scale that is) to feed the bacteria colony

 

[L_Plates]

Filter runs constantly apart when you do a water change.

LP

 

[Daza-Cupcake]

what master testers do u need the salt water or the freshwater or the marine

 

[the_lock_man]

the only master tests i can find are salt water ones is this okay

My test kit does both - but different colours for fresh and saltwater samples.

 

[fluttermoth]

If you have a freshwater tank, you need freshwater tests; if you have a marine tank, then you need saltwater tests; you can't swap between the two.

 

[Daza-Cupcake]

so it depens on the fish

 

[fluttermoth]

so it depens on the fish

Yes; some tests, like the_lock_man's, will do both, but you need to read the box to check