How Long

[lfckopite]

Hi can any one tell me how long a cycled filter should take to get rid of 1.0 of ammonia filter has 1 little sponge

 

[waterdrop]

When a properly sized fully-cycled filter is functioning, it is very difficult to pick up ammonia or nitrite with a test. At most a reading of 0.25ppm or such might show up unless a huge amount of ammonia was added manually or something. Seeing 1.0 probably means the filter is not cycled or is undersized for the fish load.

 

[lfckopite]

When a properly sized fully-cycled filter is functioning, it is very difficult to pick up ammonia or nitrite with a test. At most a reading of 0.25ppm or such might show up unless a huge amount of ammonia was added manually or something. Seeing 1.0 probably means the filter is not cycled or is undersized for the fish load.

I am just testing a spare filter which i plan to use for a QT the filter has been in main tank and i was told to add ammonia to 1.0 and see if the filter could get rid of it in the QT with no fish

 

[waterdrop]

Right, well that makes more sense. If you look in the pinned rdd1952 fishless cycling article, the thing that defines a cycled filter/tank is that 4ppm of ammonia and nitrite can be processed to 0ppm within 10-12 hours.

Now you just can't extrapolate and say that if 1ppm drops to 0ppm in 3 hours, then that's the same thing because the process is not linear. Often most of the ammonia and/or nitrite will still be there at close to 10 hours and then all of a sudden it will drop very fast -- at least some here have observed this behaviour.

So the best I can tell you is to use more drops, raise ammonia to 4ppm and just use the same baseline we all do. Trying to guess the time it should take for 1ppm could be all over the place.

On the other hand (!), a Q-tank that only has a fish or two is a very small load, so I would think the recommendation may have come to save time. You could almost just see if the 1ppm is dropping in somewhere 10 hours or less and seems like that would be find for a Q-tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

when a filter is cycled what that means is the rate of consumption is equal to the rate of production.

for a fully stocked tank of fish you would expect to see a production of 5ppm of ammonia in a day, so you add 5ppm, if that can be processed in a 12 hr period then the filter is cycled to handle a full stocking of fish.

if you know you'll only ever use the tank for a handful of fish you can safely do the same exercise with 2/3ppm of ammonia, if this can be processed in 12 hrs then the filter can handle half a tank's stocking of fish.

realistically though, in this case, less is not more!! Just do it with the 5ppm then you've a margin for error.

 

[lfckopite]

Thanks very much the ammonia has droped to 0.50 in 14 hours to i assume that it is not cycled yet so i will put it back in main tank and raise it to 5 next time i test cheers