# Cycling First Aquarium



## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

I am in the process of cycling my first ever aquarium and just looking for feedback about if I'm headed in the right direction. My tank is low-tech, heavily planted, and I'm doing a fishless cycle using Dr.Tim’s Ammonium Chloride and Seachem Stabiliy/Prime. I've also been supplementing the tank with Seachem Flourish and Flourish Excel. I've been testing water levels using the API Master Test Kit. The tank is a Fluval Flex 15 gallon. I haven't done any water changes thus far.

Here are the levels / what I have added each day of the cycle:









I'm encouraged that the cycling process has started since the nitrites appear to be spiking, but is it weird that my ammonia has been consistently 4.0 ppm since I added Dr.Tims on the first day? I'm also curious about why the pH would be dropping. I tested it twice today and started with a pH reading of 6.4 and then later on 6.6. 

Any feedback would be really appreciated, even if it is stop overthinking it and just wait :wink2:.

Thanks!


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## Icegoalie32 (May 8, 2012)

Be patient and continue testing daily. The Ammonia will begin to drop soon enough.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Your tank looks pretty spiffy! What substrate are you using?

Just mark your calendar for a month from when you started. Thats pretty much when you can add fish. Too many bad outcomes from folks thinking the tank is cycled because they don't see any ammonia 1 day only to have a big spike the next.


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

Thanks for your replies!

I used Fluval Stratum for my substrate. I think if I did it again though I would use an option with a finer grain size. Maybe ADA Amazonia? Had lots of floating plants in the first couple days -- total headache.

Nitrite is up to 2 ppm today and Ammonia is still staying constant at 4 ppm. Considering doing a water change to raise the pH back up a bit.

Any more advice is welcome!


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## aquanerd13 (Jun 22, 2019)

Do a water change and keep testing! 

BTW Welcome to THE PLANTED TANK AND THE HOBBY IN GENERAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wish you a happy hobby and lots of baby fish.

Bump: Do you have any stocking ideas so far?


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

Thanks for the warm welcome! I did a 30% water change and will test the levels again tomorrow.

As for stocking, I'm thinking about a Rummy Nose Tetra/Serpae Tetra/Cherry Shrimp combo. I like the contrast of the red against all the bright green plants. Could do 5 of each tetra and 10 shrimp and AqAdvisor puts me at 85% stocking level. Definitely open to suggestions!


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## Duboisi (Jul 11, 2019)

For the ammonia are you sure it's at 4ppm or just off the charts? it may be going down but maybe the ammonia levels are just higher than the test kit so it feels like its not dropping. You can try adding 1/2 aquarium water and 1/2 distilled water to see if the ammonia is less (to make sure the test kit is functioning properly)

Live plants also come with beneficial bacteria, that combined with stability should kick off your cycle relatively quickly. (personally, I just stocked at full levels and added stability and was fine)


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

My test kit will register ammonia up to 8 ppm and it's definitely not testing that high, so I'm pretty confident that its been a consistent 4 ppm. I did a 30% water change earlier today and haven't tested the levels since but will be expecting to see a drop in ammonia in tomorrow's test or I'll really be stumped. 

Will keep you all updated.


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

Levels this morning after a 35% water change yesterday: 

pH: 6.6
Ammonia: 1.0 ppm
Nitrite: 2.0 ppm	
Nitrate: 10 ppm

I believe this shows things are still moving forward? Ammonia is significantly lower, which was expected. Nitrites stayed the same, which I assume means they are still spiking. Nitrates are low.

Only real question I have is why the pH would have remained at 6.6. My tap water tests fairly high (pH of 8.2~), so I would have expected the level in the tank to have risen after such a big water change. From what I'm reading it sounds like this could just be caused by the spiking levels of nitrites, but I ordered a KH/GH test kit to be sure. 

As per Dr. Tim, I'm not going to add any more ammonia until the nitrites get back to 1.0 ppm or lower. I'm also on the last day of adding Seachem Stability according to the directions. Anything else I'm overlooking or any advice?

Thanks!!


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## aquanerd13 (Jun 22, 2019)

Looking good! the cycle is almost over! 

As for stocking, I would just get one species of tetra. Cardinal tetras get 2 inches, have a tiny bioload, and are red and blue. They school loosely and are quite fun to watch. You could get 20 of them if you tank is 20 gallons because of the plants.

What filter are you running?


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Your tank is at point I would start using small pinches of fish food as ammonia and phosphate source and start also testing phosphates and making sure your hitting that target of about .5-1.5ppm. It’s ignored by most people but there is a phosphorus cycle that needs to be cultured in tanks also. 

Just remember with food as source it takes about 36hrs to breakdown and show up on tests. Just pretend your feeding one fish once a day and slowly start backing off ammonia solution dosing when it shows up. At this point 2-3ppm ammonia will be fine.


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

aquanerd13 said:


> What filter are you running?


I'm running the filter that comes included with the Fluval Flex 15 gallon. I haven't been able to find an actual name of it for the life of me; I'd love to be able to put it into AqAdvisor. It's built-in filtration with foam/carbon/bio media.



DaveKS said:


> Your tank is at point I would start using small pinches of fish food as ammonia and phosphate source and start also testing phosphates and making sure your hitting that target of about .5-1.5ppm. It’s ignored by most people but there is a phosphorus cycle that needs to be cultured in tanks also.
> 
> Just remember with food as source it takes about 36hrs to breakdown and show up on tests. Just pretend your feeding one fish once a day and slowly start backing off ammonia solution dosing when it shows up. At this point 2-3ppm ammonia will be fine.


First I'm hearing about the phosphorus cycle so I appreciate the advice! I'll buy a phosphate test kit and start to monitor that level as well.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

HuskerFish said:


> I'm running the filter that comes included with the Fluval Flex 15 gallon. I haven't been able to find an actual name of it for the life of me; I'd love to be able to put it into AqAdvisor. It's built-in filtration with foam/carbon/bio media.
> 
> 
> 
> First I'm hearing about the phosphorus cycle so I appreciate the advice! I'll buy a phosphate test kit and start to monitor that level as well.


It a much more mundane cycle compared to nitrogen cycle, most the bacteria and especially fungus involved in it came in on your plants and roots. But they are important for converting organic phosphate into inorganic phosphate that your plants uptake. Most of the algae bloom people will see right after adding livestock and starting to feed them is because those micro fauna haven’t been cultured, they have basically been starved of their food source which is organic phosphates. They actually propagate very quickly (2-3 weeks max) compared to microbes involved in nitrogen cycle since a lot of them are fungi but they still need a food source to do so.


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

Really great information. Thanks a bunch!

Retested the nitrites and they are now showing at 5+ ppm (higher than my test will show). Definitely spiking hard at this point. Also will start ghost feeding a little bit like you recommend and gauge the phosphate levels in a couple days when the test kit arrives. 

If anyone has any more advice, I'm all ears! Really appreciate all the help thus far.


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## Duboisi (Jul 11, 2019)

ghost feeding or just dose straight ammonia. Ends up with same goal (cleaner since the food doesn't need to rot and make a mess)

Almost there!


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

Update from today:










I've been doing progressively larger water changes since the nitrites were staying above 5.0+ ppm. They're back to 2.0 ppm today after a 90% water change yesterday, so I'll wait and see what happens overnight. I'm still a little confused as to why my ammonia isn't dropping to zero but I'm just going to wait and watch. Suggestions here would be welcome.

I'm also a little confused as to why my pH is still at 6.8 today after a 90% water change, since my tap water tests at 8.4 pH. I started testing for KH and it is also correspondingly low, although it was a little (barely) better today after the water change. I'm guessing this is likely still due to spiking nitrites? I also have a bit of plant melting which I have read can lower KH/pH? I ordered some Seachem Marine Buffer but will probably wait a couple more days to see if the nitrites drop to zero and then do another big water change and see if the pH/KH stays higher without the additives. Even if the tank finished cycling I would be worried about adding fish with such a low KH/unstable pH. Thoughts?

This is all super new for me so any suggestions/feedback is really appreciated!


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## CarissaT (Jul 1, 2019)

If you have some plant die off that is going to be releasing ammonia so it will take a bit for the bacteria to catch up. Just be patient. Same with the pH I would say. Let things settle out to a stable level before starting to mess around with buffers etc. Low pH and KH isn’t necessarily always a bad thing anyway, but with higher pH from the tap it will have to become stable with water changes eventually, then you will know where you are at and if it’s worth fiddling with. Because if you start buffering and then add fish, you essentially commit yourself to continuing to do so, or risk the health of your fish by changing things again. It’s far easier to choose fish that will do well with your natural water and acclimate them to that than to artificially change your water chemistry and continue to have to do that. 

Btw 6.8 is pretty near perfect for most tetras. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

CarissaT said:


> If you have some plant die off that is going to be releasing ammonia so it will take a bit for the bacteria to catch up. Just be patient. Same with the pH I would say. Let things settle out to a stable level before starting to mess around with buffers etc. Low pH and KH isn’t necessarily always a bad thing anyway, but with higher pH from the tap it will have to become stable with water changes eventually, then you will know where you are at and if it’s worth fiddling with. Because if you start buffering and then add fish, you essentially commit yourself to continuing to do so, or risk the health of your fish by changing things again. It’s far easier to choose fish that will do well with your natural water and acclimate them to that than to artificially change your water chemistry and continue to have to do that.
> 
> Btw 6.8 is pretty near perfect for most tetras.


Definitely appreciate the advice. I'll keep monitoring the levels, wait for the tank to finish cycling, and then weigh my options. Thanks!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Patience is everything not just at the start but throughout the life of the tank. You just started the aquarium on the 11th? So its been 12 days. Typical cycle time before adding fish is a month. So you are not even halfway there. Your water chemistry will do all sorts of stuff before you are done. Ammonia will drop away to nothing, then it might spike higher then ever only to drop away again. Same for nitrites etc. This might happen multiple times.

Remember we are growing bacteria which are living things with relatively short lifespans. Its not just that once you have beneficial bacteria then their numbers are constant and only increase. You can have situations where large swaths of your bacteria die off and need to replenish their numbers. You can have situations where dead or inefficient bacteria are the only ones in contact with the ammonia/nitrites and you need new colonies to form. Lots of stuff can happen and we only see a few numbers from the end product of their life cycles. So just be patient. 

I know some folks counsel checking parameters every day but I don't do that anymore. I check once or maybe twice a week to see how things are going and just wait it out. When I checked every day it just drove me nuts trying to figure out what was going on. But always at around a month I saw things stabilize.

I would second the advice of adding as little in the way of water chemistry stuff as possible. Your fish care most of all about consistent water. If you add chemicals to get your water a certain way the fish will constantly be stressed from big swings brought on by the chemicals as opposed to relatively gradual swings brought on by the life cycle of plants and whatever your tap water chemistry is like.


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## HuskerFish (Jul 15, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Patience is everything not just at the start but throughout the life of the tank. You just started the aquarium on the 11th? So its been 12 days. Typical cycle time before adding fish is a month. So you are not even halfway there. Your water chemistry will do all sorts of stuff before you are done. Ammonia will drop away to nothing, then it might spike higher then ever only to drop away again. Same for nitrites etc. This might happen multiple times.
> 
> Remember we are growing bacteria which are living things with relatively short lifespans. Its not just that once you have beneficial bacteria then their numbers are constant and only increase. You can have situations where large swaths of your bacteria die off and need to replenish their numbers. You can have situations where dead or inefficient bacteria are the only ones in contact with the ammonia/nitrites and you need new colonies to form. Lots of stuff can happen and we only see a few numbers from the end product of their life cycles. So just be patient.
> 
> ...


Thanks very much for the advice. It's good for me to hear what to expect from others who have gone through the process before. Will just plan to wait and watch for now.


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