From Old To New

[FishyThinking]

Good morning! Advice, please!

My niece has recently set up her first ever freshwater tropical tank & I have tried to help by giving her a couple of cups of gravel & filter media from my established tank.

She put 4 guppies in straight away before cycling the tank. Against my recommendation but youngsters are impatient so I'm now on damage control duty! I've popped round everyday to test the water levels & so far ammonia & nitrite levels have stayed at zero.

The tank is a Juwel Rekord 700 (70 litre 30cm x 60cm x 40cm) which has been quite heavily planted on a soil & gravel substrate. It's running the standard Juwel Bioflow Super filter with a 15w light. Fish have been in since Monday 19th September.

My question is whether the aquarium may already have enough bacterial colonies from the established tank to be able to deal with the bio-load from those 4 guppies straight away - hence no sign of ammonia/nitrite levels rising? Or if things are just taking longer than normal for the cycle to start due to planting, size of tank etc?

Anyone experienced a really slow start to cycle?

Many thanks for any help!

 

[Tizer]

Sounds like a good start really, although the gravel wont have any decent bacteria on it, but the media you gave her will, as long as its been placed into the filtration system of the tank. i would test the water every other day for a week or two and see how you go really. not much more to say.

 

[fluttermoth]

+1

Four guppies aren't much of a bioload, so there's every chance your mature media has enough bacteria to process their ammonia.

If you have no ammonia or nitrite readings for a week with no water changes being needed, then you can safely consider the new tank cycled

 

[FishyThinking]

Sounds like a good start really, although the gravel wont have any decent bacteria on it, but the media you gave her will, as long as its been placed into the filtration system of the tank. i would test the water every other day for a week or two and see how you go really. not much more to say.

Thanks!

 

[FishyThinking]

+1

Four guppies aren't much of a bioload, so there's every chance your mature media has enough bacteria to process their ammonia.

If you have no ammonia or nitrite readings for a week with no water changes being needed, then you can safely consider the new tank cycled

Thank you kindly. I'll keep an eye on the levels & keep fingers crossed.

 

[the_lock_man]

You still want to add extra fish gradually - don't go putting 10 more fish in at once.