Tank Is Ready, Now Help Me Cycle It

[symon_say]

Did the water change and ammonia drop to 4ppm, now lets the cycle start.

Another thing my tap water is a little hi in pH i get 8.0, will this be good or bad for the cycle, should i do something about this??

 

[waterdrop]

You are lucky. 8.0 is within the perfect range of 8.0 to 8.4 reported as the plateau of pH range that gets the highest rate of growth for our two species of autotrophic bacteria. In other words, the beneficial bacteria grow the fastest when their water is in the low 8 range (and when the temperature is at about 29C/84F also.) When fishless cycling, the water in the tank should be considered to be "the bacterial growing soup" rather than "the tank water for fish."

~~waterdrop~~

 

[symon_say]

Nice to know, my temp is about 30C, i'll start logging the results from my water test.

 

[Aqua Tom]

Goos luck & remember patience is a virtue.

 

[Skins]

I hope its a short cycle ride unlike the tour de france i had.

Good luck and like Tom said "patience is a virtue"
Keith.

 

[symon_say]

I'm collecting media from all my friends that have aquarium, that way i can put fish in ASAP, the aquaclear filter arrives friday and i'll put some more mature media in it.

 

[waterdrop]

The two generalizations we seem to be able to make about how to best mix mature and new media are:
1) higher mutual surface area is better
2) mature media earlier in the flow path than the new media is better

What I mean is that if one were to cut the new sponge into some sort of jigsaw puzzle and the mature sponge into some sort of jigsaw pieces that fit in in a mixed way, the greater contact achieved between old and new would be of benefit. Come to think of it, this might be just the sort of puzzle that's good for a forum full of minds to chew on, somebody might come up with a clever way of doing this and still having the overall sponge fit properly and without leaks in the tray position it's meant to be in inside the filter (probably none of made any sense ?)

With sponge media we want to have a tight enough fit that water can not "cheat" and leak through unfiltered but we also definately do not want to compress the sponge such that the open-celled pathways are crushed and blocked and the water can't traverse them!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[symon_say]

The media i insert into the filter works really nice, my tank has been taking ammonia and nitrite down to 0 for 3 days now (my friend give me his whole sponge from a aquaclear 110) i will keep it for a few days more to see if everything goes fine, and will start stocking slow, that way i can get to know my fish better.

My aquaclear 70 filter arrived today and i set it, my question is about the inlets, i have the inlet of the aqueon filter about 2 inches from the substrate and the aquaclear about half way of the tank, should i leave it like that or is there a better way to set this??

I'll use the aqueon as mechanical filter basically cause it cleans the water really fast, is better to place it in the center of the tank, or to one of the sides (in my case left, cause of hood opening)??