# How far into the cycle am I?



## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

I have recently moved to a new house and had to shut down all my tanks. I am now in the process of cycling my 46 gallon bowfront. It has been 8 days and I have been using seachem stability. They claim it takes 7 days to cycle but my API master test kit says otherwise. Right now, MY parameters are as such:

Ammonia: 2.0-4.0
Nitrite: 2.0
Nitrate: 10.0

I used Fish food as an ammonia source and it worked haha. But i had to manually remove some because the ammonia levels were getting too high. I have some left.

Is my cycle essentially complete? Can i just do a 50% WC and then test the parameters again or should i not in case of a crash?


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## Y2KGT (Jul 20, 2009)

Kimchi24 said:


> I have recently moved to a new house and had to shut down all my tanks. I am now in the process of cycling my 46 gallon bowfront. It has been 8 days and I have been using seachem stability. They claim it takes 7 days to cycle but my API master test kit says otherwise. Right now, MY parameters are as such:
> 
> Ammonia: 2.0-4.0
> Nitrite: 2.0
> ...


Your cycle is complete only when your Ammonia and Nitrite is at zero and your Nitrate starts to climb.

Looks like you're still in phase one. When you have no Ammonia but you have Nitrite you're in phase 2.

Can you get a sponge or other media from a friend so you can squeeze it into your tank to speed things up?
--
Paul


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

I dont know. I just moved to thornhill. I have no personal friends with tanks haha. Hence the stability. I guess I dont mind waiting more but I'm planning on getting a much larger tank to seed to and I would like to have them up and running for livestock soon  Should I manually remove ALL the decomposing food?


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## Bullet (Apr 19, 2014)

The Mod makes a good point about "seed" good bacteria from an existing tank to help move things along 
I'm in downtown Toronto (east side) but I am happy to offer a batch to get you started 
BTW; I used Stability with Prime and my recent build cycled very quickly 
I don't put all my faith in these additives but they worked well for me but never forget the importance of letting your live rock work it's magic


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## Mykuhl (Apr 8, 2013)

I would not say he is in phase one of the cycle because he is showing a considerable amount of nitrite and getting a bit of nitrate already. I would say he is maybe half way done, maybe even a bit more. My experience with doing fishless cycles tells me that unfortunately the cycle does not always proceed in text book fashion. Sometimes you will still get readings of ammonia even when you have zero nitrite. Although, I find that it reads quite low if it does read.

I have read mixed reports about Stability, some say it works and some say it does nothing(it did nothing for me). In Kimchi's case I would say that it is working. Since it does seem to be working for you Kimchi... I would suggest adding a dose of it everyday. I read on Seachem's support website that they recommend doing this until your tank cycles, and that you can't overdose on the product.


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## Mykuhl (Apr 8, 2013)

Kimchi, you would be better off cycling with pure ammonia. That way you have much more control over how much ammonia is in the tank, and you don't have rotting food in the tank. It produces a cleaner and more efficient cycle.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Yeah, I tried getting my hands on it but home depot didn't have any. Without a car, I depend on my friends to get me places haha.


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## Mykuhl (Apr 8, 2013)

Wal-Mart carries what you are looking for. It is in the cleaning section. It's a jug called Household Ammonia,and the brand is Goldex.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

ohhh thanks man. I'll check that out! i have to cycle a bigger tank soon anywho


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

So i did another water test and the results are different from this morning. I have:

Ammonia: 2.0
Nitrite: ~4.0
Nitrate: ~40

IS this normal? how come my ammonia wont go down? I manually removed most of the food :/


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## bob123 (Dec 31, 2009)

I use Tetra Safe Start Plus, no need to cycle as your tank is ready instantly. I have used it on many tanks and no fish loses.


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## Mykuhl (Apr 8, 2013)

It is normal.in the cycle. If you notice, your ammonia is down to 2ppm as opposed to 2-4ppm and.your nitrite is double and your nitrate is quadruple of what it was. This means that your bacteria is doing it's job converting. You are making progress. Also, because you are using food instead of a measured amount of ammonia it is hard for you to measure and control how much ammonia is being added.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

bob123 said:


> I use Tetra Safe Start Plus, no need to cycle as your tank is ready instantly. I have used it on many tanks and no fish loses.


When I first got into this hobby I used tetra safe start. It caused me a lot of headache and did not cycle my tank instantly, killing off all my livestock. I guess I had an unlucky batch


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

best way to cycle is the slow way. Seeding can speed it up greatly.

cycling can take up to a few weeks


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## TBemba (Jan 11, 2010)

I used to have MTS ( multiple Tank Syndrome) at the height of my addiction I had 12 tanks.

I kept mostly cichlids, I would get a tank up and running with new stock in a day. Not sure if this is right or correct or will work with sensitive fish.

I would do the following:

Put new filter on existing tank, I had tanks that were running for over 5 years and had not been completely taken down.

I would put the old filter on the new tank

Or

If new filter was running on existing tank for a couple weeks I would put it straight on new tank.

Put about 50% of water from established tank into new tank then top up with aged or new water. Leave for 24 hours once the temp was right I would put in the new fish. 

I was very lucky over the years, this worked to many time to count.

I got smarter along the way and stopped doing the impulse purchases. But I started keeping two filters on every tank. 

I have saw many accomplished hobbyist over the years and their fish rooms that only rum sponge filters. So I started having at least one sponge filter in every tank. This allowed me to completely clean any canister filer I had on a tank and then the next month I would clean the sponge, hot water in a bucket under a tap.

Water changes (WC)

Used a python never live without one.

Straight from the tap always had a water softener and it never harmed the fish.

I would add prime after emptying 40/50 % of the tank and straight tap water hot and cold mix close to tank temp.

Smaller tanks 20 gallons or under no more than 30%

I always did stuff by feel and years of knowledge.

Every so often I would get burned on a tank the water was over treated by the city and I would lose some fish. This would be every two or three years.

In the hobby over 30 years. But slow is always better and less is more.

Drastic changes to any system can cause losses.

I've always wanted to try salt water again, a lot has change since I last tried 20 years ago.

But I have always thought all the testing of parameters would make the hobby not fun for me and would cause fish loss and I'm not one to put fish in danger.

I have had fish for over five years, I always sold them at auctions if I didn't want them any longer.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

So, Because of a new tank that I got, I had to move my 46 Bowfront which meant I had to take out some water. My other tanks are in storage at the moment so I could only salvage about 25 gallons of water. Anyways It doesn't seemed to have done anything to the cycle except remove ammonia. 

Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 4 ppm
Nitrate: 40 ppm

I really need to find some ammonia soon  Guess I have something to do tomorrow.

I hope my cycle isnt screwed because of this. I did add some stability afterwards though I highly doubt that worked. I want this tank cycled already so i can seed my 140 haha


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## jamie (Feb 20, 2013)

"I really need to find some ammonia soon  Guess I have something to do tomorrow."

Home Hardware carries a small bottle of pure ammonia, less than $10. About a litre, I think I used about 5ml to bring a 30g up to 4-5ppm. I forget the name but it is their own brand, label looks like Old Dutch(?). You could probably cycle 20-30 tanks with one bottle.

I've heard some fish stores might give you a bit of dirty floss for seeding material.

I used a food syringe from a dollar store, bought 2 and it made applying ammonia and testing a breeze.


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