# Bacteria Cycle Problem



## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

Hi Everyone,

I started a 45/48gallon long dirted tank January 5th and I'm pretty sure i had no beneficial bacteria or anything to begin with. Not knowingly I started a silent cycle with lots of stem plants like blyxa, aromatica, sunset hygro, a bunch of floaters and nana vals plus dwarf sag. I have fish in there already since day 3 of setup and i know it was bad when i tested my water three days ago and it gave me a reading of .25 ammo, 5.0 nitrite and 10 nitrate. On Monday i went to get a bottle of excel and started dosing one cap full. so far i have dosed 2 cap fulls. yesterday i disconnected my eheim and bagged my substrate and biomedia in mesh bags, found a dead decomposed cardinal in my eheim and did a little cleansing with aquarium water and hooked everything back up. I did a 15% water change while at it. Now heres the weird part i just did a water test and all my readings are at 0 ppm. Was my cardinal giving me those previous test results and once removed my water parameters changed? But previous three days ago my water was so bad it couldn't have just vanished from a 15% water change. Was i able to kill all my beneficial bacteria in my canister during that 20-30 mins of bagging my substrate and biomedia? Whats got me puzzled is how did all that nitrite and nitrate just vanish?

Has this ever happened to anybody before? Your help is much appreciated.


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

What kind of water did you use to start with? (tap aged, ro, etc) Did you have cloud water?
One dead fish can change water parameters, and it's not recommended to stop the canister for more than 30 min. Everything could go bad after 30 min. 



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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

I used normal tap water double dosed prime to start with so i know i killed all existing beneficial bacteria from the start. Because my tank is dirted its quite tea cleared but i wouldn't say cloudy. Well on monday i did have a power outage for at least 5-6 hours but i didnt touch the filter at all. I heard its okay up to 72hrs before the bacteria start to die off was i misinformed?


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

That bacteria needs oxygen. I don't think will live up to 72h without it. 
Tap water?!?!?!? Not even dechlorinated? Bad start. My advise is to ask before you start something. 
The white cloudy stuff that you probably have in your tank is the proof that your nitrogen cycle is not done. 
You are lucky you have something left in your tank. 

Read the beginner section and the nitrogen cycle to realize what you did wrong. 

To speed up the process put bacteria in your tank every day for the next 3 days and in one week do a reading. Btw, what test are you using? Not strips, right? 


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

i use api liquid test kit. and no i dont have cloudy water though. I am not trying to argue just telling you what happen though. I have 20 cardinals and ten white clouds. so far only three deaths to the cardinals and all three were sucked into the filter before i sealed it up with a mesh on the intake. so at the moment i have 3 deaths due to canistercide. But this leads to my initial question. my water test were giving me 2-5ppm nitrite and 10ppm of nitrate. is there a reasonable explanation why all my reading have gone to 0ppm all within two days?


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

Maybe you didn't kill the bacteria after all. 


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

Does this mean my cycle has restarted though and i have to wait for the ammonia and nitrite to build up again before seeing and nitrate in my tank? I'm very new and i read that a cycled tank has to have 0 ammo, 0 nitrite, and less than 40ppm of nitrate. would it be safe to add an ammonia source and find out if my cycle is turning it into nitrite and nitrate or just to see if i have to start all over again?


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

Do not add anything. All readings must be 0 for a good water. If you have ammonia, something is not right (too much food, too much fish, too much waste, etc)




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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

filter being off for 72 hours is to long.

with only .25 ammonia and 5 nitrite your cycle is starting and making progress.

Excel is a carbon, does nothing for your cycle

prime does not kill bacteria, it removed chlorine from tap water

read the sticky about cycling aquariums

I strongly recommend not adding any fish until the cycle is complete, which means ammonia and nitrites stay at 0

the plants would have helped add bacteria most likely and the bacteria needed forms on its own even without adding some bacteria, but adding some helps alot. I use API stress zyme to add bacteria when needed, Seachem would have their own product if you want that brand.

how many of what type of fish do you have in the tank right now?

Is your nitrite test able to read over 5.0 nitrites? Sometimes a cycle gets stalled and the nitrites won't go down. If 5.0 is the higher the test can read, I would do a 25 percent water change and retest, if still 5.0 do another 25 percent the next day and so on. Do not clean the gravel, just remove water for now until the cycle is complete.

If you say your location, another member may be able to give you some used media to greatly speed up the cycle process.

Make sure you do not over feed.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Highly possible that your cardinal died from dosing the excel. It has been known if high amount of the excel gets directly onto the fish it may die. I always mix my excel with aquarium water before putting in the tank. I also put little less than instructions say. What type of fish you have already in your tank ? Cardinals not an easy fish to cycle tank with life breeders are better. Also if you cannot find used media I'll recommend using "Stability" by seachem (same guys as prime and excel). I used it before and it worked for me.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

no reason to be using excel at this point, get the tank cycled then worry about the plants after.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

I'm not sure if i worded it correctly for everyone. on saturday or sunday my readings was .25 ammo 2-5ppm nitrite and 10ppm nitrate. on tuesday when i tested after cleaning my filter and doing a 15% water change. my readings have been zero throughout the test. However during my filter cleaning i did remove a dead cardinal from inside my filter. The question is where could have all that excess nitrite and nitrate have gone to. Could that fish have been giving me false reading and now that it is out of my filter my readings are back to having and uncycled tank? Please correct me if i am wrong though. The Dead fish would be giving off ammonia not nitrite and nitrate though am I correct?


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

xriddler said:


> Could that fish have been giving me false reading and now that it is out of my filter my readings are back to having and uncycled tank? Please correct me if i am wrong though. The Dead fish would be giving off ammonia not nitrite and nitrate though am I correct?


A dead fish would give you only ammonia. 2-5ppm nitrite means your tank is not cycled. 
For me it is a mistery how you could have 5ppm nitrite and after 15%wc, 0ppm nitrite. Are you sure you did the test correctly?


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

yea i do my test about every other day and today it was still giving me 0 nitrite. i even did the test yesterday. it is 5 drops of the nitrite test kit into 5ml of my tank water. shake for 5 secs and let sit. I am as baffled as you to where all the nitrite have gone. Not that i am not thankful that its gone but now i have no idea where i stand for my tank cycle. 

Lets say i managed to harm my bacteria in my filter while cleaning, it still shouldnt have reset all my test results to zero because i have existing nitrites in my water. and i highly doubt that 15% water change could have gotten rid of all that nitrite too.


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## aniroc (Aug 23, 2012)

The nitrite probably turned into nitrate but then, where is the nitrate? 
The answer is: plants. However, plants would rather use ammonia if available. If no ammonia is present, will use nitrate.
The excel helped balance nutrients and light to help plants grow. But excel will very likely melt Valeriana.
A cycled a tank with plants (and fish) and I did not detect any ammonia, nitrites or nitrates for 6 weeks. After that, all I could measure was nitrates. Plants were grabbing almost all the ammonia, I was concerned that no ammonia will reach the filter and no bacteria will ever developed.
Good bacteria colonize every surface of the tank, a lot are in the substrate; I don't think you killed the bacteria in the filter in 30 minutes (unless you rinse it with hot tap water)
Keep checking for NH3 and NO2, be prepared for larger water changes, look after the plants needs. They must grow in order to use NH3/NO2/NO3.
Prime will temporarly detoxify ammonia. And only works for about 24 hours


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

Yea I read about and heard that excel melts vals but some people have had them bounce back. I'm just preying that they would bounce back after the initial melt.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

It once took me many weeks for my vals to bounce back after double dosing excel for hair algae.

If your ammonia and nitrites are 0 for a few days, you are then cycled and good to go.

Nitrates went down because of the plants and the water change, those are the only two ways to remove nitrates generally speaking.

One dead cardinal wouldn't do much and would not be detectable in a cycled tank.

Sounds like you are now all set and can add more fish slowly if you want.


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## aniroc (Aug 23, 2012)

I would try DIY CO2 for a while instead of Excel. And ferts. Providing your lights are good. All you need is the plants to grow. Some people remove all live plants when tank is completely cycled.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

DIY is harder to do with a 45 gallon tank, works best with smaller tanks. I do it with a 75 and 90 but I am not nearly getting enough in, but I guess every bit helps, I saw great improvement in my plants


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

HI!!!! so its been three days and my readings are still all zero in my 45 gallon longand my ammonia is reading a constant 0.25 since day one. With my 17 cardinals and 10 white clouds do they give off decent amount of ammonia with in three days? And if they do is it safe to assume my tank is now cycled since it has been at 0? Can i go nuts and add a bunch of fishies yet lol


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

cycled is a relative term. Cycled means there is enough bacteria for the fish load in the tank. Each time you had more fish, the bacteria need to expand. But once a good colony is started, cycled tank, you can add a few fish every week. If you add too much too fast, your bacteria won't keep up and you will have ammonia and nitrite spikes. Just take your time, I wouldn't add more than 10 inches of fish a week approximately.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

maybe i'm reading my ammonia wrong. does anyone else see distinct yellow when reading their ammonia with the api test kit? I read that from 0-.25 its really hard to see the difference between them. my test for it doesnt ever look very green


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

please disregard my .25 ammonia. It is actually 0. I was reading my results in not a well lit room and the shadow cast upon my readings making it look like 0.25 however after going to a very well lit room and checking my results it is clearly a light yellow colour and not lime green, thank god. 

I am going to repeat myself because I am scared that i did not have enough bioload in this tank. Is 27 small fish about half of them are still less than an inch able to kick start a cycle properlyin 45 gallons of water? I am just worried that no beneficial bacteria was produced during these 20 days the tank was setup. I don't want to add 9 small serpaes then find out holy crap now the ammonia is kicking in and then most of my fish die scenario. Please help a naggy beginner


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Ok, instead of trying to re read the whole thread Im going to try to answer your questions.

If you had a source of ammonia since you setup the tank then all should be good.

The cycle requires a source of ammonia, if you have no ammonia added the tank will quickly show 0 on all tests and you will have no good bacteria and your tank would not be cycled.

a cycled tank means that there has been a source of ammonia and after having a spike in nitrites both ammonia and nitrites get down to 0, all this happens while having a source of ammonia.

Once a tank is cycled, meaning there has been a constant source of ammonia and ammonia and nitrites levels read 0, you can slowly add fish. A fair general guideline is adding about 10 inches of fish a week and confirming that ammonia and nitrites are 0 before adding new fish.

When you add fish, you are adding more ammonia and it takes a little time for the bacteria to build up to the new required levels. If a tank is already fully cycled, this happens fairly quickly and without any real spikes.

to summarize, if your tank has had constant ammonia source and levels are 0, you can add some fish. You can then add more fish again once the levels stay at 0 again.

The next problem you will have after starting to stock the tank is nitrates, this is the end result after ammonia and nitrites are gone. It is recommended to keep nitrates down below 30. Most people are in the range of 10 to 30.

There are basically 2 ways to keep nitrates down. First is water changes. you do not want to change more than 50 percent at a time and 50 percent is pushing it. The general guideline is 10 percent a week. The other way to reduce nitrates is by having live plants which use the nitrates to help them grow. If you keep track of how much water you change and how often and the levels of nitrates, you can then figure out how much water you need to change and how often to be able to keep nitrates in a safe range.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

thanks for your post  I hope the neon tetra's are still on sale at my big als. gonna grab 12 neons and see how it goes since they are smaller than 1inch.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

i went and grabbed 9 glowlight rasboras instead and added them to the tank at 4pm. 

i am at 10 whitecloud, 17 cardinals and 9 glowlight rasboras(not glofish). think i can squeeze in 12 neons and 9 serpaes still? my readings are still 0 across the board. im trying to get some nitrate readings but still no luck even with so much fish in here. because they are about one inch big are they just not producing enough bioload?


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I recommend waiting a week to add any more fish


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