It usually takes 4-6 weeks to cycle a tank, whether it's with or without fish. The quick way of course is to use a cycled sponge or media.
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It usually takes 4-6 weeks to cycle a tank, whether it's with or without fish. The quick way of course is to use a cycled sponge or media.
It seems that my cycle has resumed. I added a new bottle of ATM bacteria and dosed ammonia back up to 4ppm for the new bacteria. Ammonia is gone in less than 8 hours. Nitrites still high of course, but I have noticed Nitrates finally starting to climb as well somewhere between (20-40ppm). So time to stop dosing ammonia and let the Nitrobacter bacteria do its thing. Hopefully, it will be finished by thanksgiving. Kenny is holding my discus for me so I don't want him to have to hold them for too long.
I don't believe that to be the case. These commercial 'bacterial' concoctions are mostly hype. Mervin's advice to put in a seeded sponge, if available, is likely your best option.
A seeded sponge is always best. Wonder if Kenny would ship filter material prior to discus shipment. Mine will come from Discus Madness my fish source. I would recommend you continue to low dose ammonia, otherwise your AOB population will die or at least decrease to the point you may have a mini cycle once you introduce fish.
Well, something crazy happened. I tested both nitrite and nitrates 3 times just to make sure I wasn't getting an error. Idk if it was a result of the 32 oz bottle of ATM bacteria that I added but it looks like I'm fully cycled now. Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0 from 8ppm, and nitrates shot up to 60-80 ppm.
Here's what I did:
Wednesday morning I dosed 4ppm ammonia and brought my kH up to 3 made sure my pH was above 7.2, removed both my filter socks. Added the whole 32 oz bottle of ATM and just let the thing go. It's been about 39 hours since I added the bacteria.
I am really skeptical to believe that the ATM produced this result that fast. But something happened. I wasn't even expecting it to be ready for at least another 10 days.
Going to do a water change tomorrow then test to make sure.
That was about four weeks. Right on time. Just keep feeding the tank until fish arrive and make a big WC just before adding fish.
Congrats. ATM or coincidence of timing, who cares. agree, continue feeding 2ppm/day ammonia, get with Kenny and get your fish before it gets any colder and enjoy for the holidays. Knock your nitrates down to 5-10 with water change just prior to fish arrival.