Question About Cycling

[fishybuisness]

Hi,
i'm new to the whole tropical fish thing but i read up a lot about it before i got a tank,
i got a 95 litre tank about 6 weeks ago and added nutrafin cycle which i later found out is useless,
i started adding fish after about three days cos i hadn't known at the time that you could do a fishless cycle,
after 6 weeks my tank still hasn't cycled, i'm doing water changes every few days to keep the ammonia below 1.0, my nitrite reading is always 0 but i have a nitrate reading of about 8.0 which i presume is from my tap water, my ammonia level hasn't gone above 2.0,
i have an api liquid test kit, i currently have 3 guppys, 3 cherry barbs and a parrot fish which all seem to be doing fine

I have since heard about getting bacteria fro an established tank to speed up the cycle and i was wondering could you use bacteria from a
goldfish tank as my parents have a 60 litre goldfish tank, it has a fluval filter and gravel on the bottom.
so could i just squeeze out the sponge into my own tank or transfer some gravel to it as i do not know if the cycle would be the same in a goldfish tank???
Thanks In Advance

 

[rewlyn]

welcome to tff nutrifin cycle i found only works after your nitrItes have risen i was fish-in cycling for 3 months before i tried nutrifin cycle then it took 6 days to cycle (yay) your fish are pretty hardy so i would up the ammonia to 2ppm and add ammo-lock worked for me as for bacteria i would go for it put a fresh batch in their filter with the cycled 1 and in a few days youll be right it takes 24hrs for mature(6 moths old) bacteria to develop 50%

try it out and let us know

 

[KittyKat]

after 6 weeks my tank still hasn't cycled, i'm doing water changes every few days to keep the ammonia below 1.0, my nitrite reading is always 0 but i have a nitrate reading of about 8.0 which i presume is from my tap water, my ammonia level hasn't gone above 2.0

Welcome and glad that you found us. What I would do if I was suddenly asked to look after a tank such as yours would be the following:
- 20%+ waterchange every day
- feeding only every other day and minimal, so the fish get just enough so that they don't start looking starved
- find a shop or a hobbyist in your area and beg them to borrow some filter media or at least something out of an established tank, even some squeezings from the sponge when they clean the filter will be good

The first two would lower the amount of new ammonia. The third will increase the rate of cycling.

Ammonia in any amount will harm the fish. The equivalent in humans would be pouring bleach all over yourself and not washing it off right away.. very painful. So I would try to get that down to 0 if I can.

If you follow my instructions, the tank should finish cycling within a week or so.. but may potentially take a lot longer if you do not "borrow" enough bacteria from someone else (see third point).

i have an api liquid test kit, i currently have 3 guppys, 3 cherry barbs and a parrot fish which all seem to be doing fine

Assuming you mean parrot cichlid, aka the hybrid, it is not compatible with either of the other two in the long term: it will get far too big for your tank and be able to eat the other fish. Please be aware that they are hybrids and health problems can be common.
Guppies are prone to finrot, if you are in the EU, eSHa 2000 works very well. A problem I can across when I first kept guppies many years ago, so just a friendly warning.
Cherry barbs are schooling fish. Try to get that up to at least 6 fish once the tank is fully cycled, for best results, get both males and females.

I have since heard about getting bacteria fro an established tank to speed up the cycle and i was wondering could you use bacteria from a
goldfish tank as my parents have a 60 litre goldfish tank, it has a fluval filter and gravel on the bottom.
so could i just squeeze out the sponge into my own tank or transfer some gravel to it as i do not know if the cycle would be the same in a goldfish tank???

Not as good as from a tropical, but will work. Before adding the bacteria, warm them up to tropical temperature slowly by floating in your own tank (in a bag or something). This is exactly what I was on about earlier The bacteria are actually exactly the same.. you just don't want to give them too much of a shock.

Good luck!

 

[fishybuisness]

thanks for the quick replies,
i've decided to add some gravel from my parents tank, how much should i add? about a cup full??
i had planned to get more cherry barbs alright once i got my tank more settled and i'll keep an eye on the parrot cichlid so thanks for the comments

 

[bushbrother]

thanks for the quick replies,
i've decided to add some gravel from my parents tank, how much should i add? about a cup full??
i had planned to get more cherry barbs alright once i got my tank more settled and i'll keep an eye on the parrot cichlid so thanks for the comments

I think you would be better to take some of their filter media if you can, there are many more bacteria in there than in the gravel ...

 

[fishybuisness]

i was gonna do that but they just cleaned it out so there probably wont be much left, the gravel hadn't been cleaned yet though

 

[fatheadminnow]

i was gonna do that but they just cleaned it out so there probably wont be much left, the gravel hadn't been cleaned yet though

How did they clean their filter out? Did they rinse it off in tank water?

All you need to do, is get a piece of their filter media and place it in your filter.

Ammonia over .25 ppm will cause permanent gill damage to your fish.

Doing a fish-in cycle takes a lot of work. You NEED to keep your ammonia, and when it becomes present, Nitrite, below .25 ppm or as close to zero as possible.

If you do a water change and check the ammonia level an hour later and it is still above .25 ppm, they you need to perform larger, more vigorous water changes.

This is why a fish-in cycle is not recommend, as it is hard on the fish, and a lot of work for the fish keeper to do properly.

-FHM

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum fishybuisness.

If I was in your position, I would do my parents a favor and wash their filter for them, in my tank. That will get lots of the absolutely correct bacteria seeded in your newer filter and should get your cycle to finish in just a few days. The water might be a bit cloudy at first, it may not even be possible to see through to the back, but the filter will get a huge jump start and will cycle quickly. I had to do this on a newly set up tank when I brought home some fish from an auction that I didn't expect to find. The ammonia and nitrite both settled at zero after 3 days of doing 90% water changes to control the nitrites. It took all 3 of those days for me to finally get a zero on nitrites although it was much better after just one day. The ammonia went to zero on the first day after that treatment. The few large wqater changes also removed much of the dirt that was making the tank cloudy at first since I used a gravel vac to clean up the visible surface dirt each day.

 

[fishybuisness]

My thank has now finished cycling,
my ammonia levels started going down about 24 hours after adding the gravel from the goldfish tank and i also washed out the sponges from the goldfish tank in my tank and i just wanted to thank you all for the advice and help

 

[OldMan47]

I am glad it worked out for you. How about some nice pictures now that you don't need top spend all of your time on water changes.

 

[KittyKat]

Congrats!

 

[fishybuisness]

I've since added a piece of bogwood to my tank and a few neon tetras,
Its kinda funny now actually my cherry barbs have started schooling around with the neons,
I've added a few pics to photbucket but i've never used it before so i hope this works.

Heres a few of the overall tank

Hers some of the neons

And heres my parrot cichlid

 

[OldMan47]

A nicely balanced look to your tank and the fish all look happy in there. Congratulations.