Step 4: The fish continue to eat food and produce waste, which gets processed from ammonia and nitrites into more nitrates. Step 5: Eventually, the amount of nitrates will build up and can become harmful to the fish in high amounts. You must remove the nitrates either by doing a water change or by using aquarium plants. The aquarium plants consume the nitrates to produce new leaves. If you have ammonia test strips and multi-test strips , ideally you should measure 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrites, and usually some amount of nitrates in your tank water.
If the nitrates reach 40 ppm or more, then you need to remove some of the dirty tank water and replace it with fresh, clean water. It depends, but usually it can take anywhere from a few weeks to months. You can speed up this process by buying a bottle of live nitrifying bacteria , getting some used filter media from a friend, or growing live plants which also come with beneficial bacteria on them.
For more details, read the full article on how to cycle your aquarium. If you ask your average hobbyist whether or not their aquarium is cycled, most people think the answer is either a hard yes or no. In reality, the answer is a little more complex. I generally reply to comments once a day so if you need a faster response I highly recommend posting your question in one of these friendly online communities with the information I asked for included, you may find someone has experienced the exact same problem as you and can give a quick solution.
Ammonia is 1. I did de-chlorinate the water before I put it in, and all water I add The tank has 2 fake plants, one fake driftwood piece, 1 ornament, larger gravel looks like little stones , a heater, and the filter. Thanks again for helping! Even so, I would have expected at least some of that 1. Based on the information provided, I cannot see anything wrong here. Unfortunately, when something does go wrong, you just need to keep narrowing things down until you find the problem.
I put more ammonia in the tank to bring it up to 2. This morning my ammonia is reading. My ph is 7. I put in a half dose of ammonia, per your instructions in the article, and will test each day to see when the nitrites drop and continue to follow your directions.
The reason I have it in the 3 gallon tank is that I have lost a few fish because a pet store sold me a fish that turned out to have ich after a few days. Of course the other 2 I already had got it too, and the 10 gallon tank was infected with it.
So now I want to put new fish in this smaller tank for a couple of weeks to make sure they are healthy before putting them into the bigger tank. I did empty and clean out the infected tank before trying to cycle it. One last question, Will the small tank ever be cycled? Thanks again for your help! If you have somewhere for the beneficial bacteria to live, you can cycle a tank that small. The beneficial bacteria will adapt to the amount of waste your fish produces.
A single fish should be fine, but even so, it is recommended you keep an eye on your water parameters for the first week, just to make sure everything is Ay-okay. After that, you can reduce testing to your maintenance schedule. The nitrates went from 5 to in 2 days. Yesterday I put in a half dose of ammonia and it read zero today, with the nitrites still at 2 and the nitrates at The directions say when the nitrates show up you should add a half dose of ammonia every few days to keep it at 1.
Since my ammonia is 0, should I add the half dose every day now? Also, about my 3 gallon tank. The ammonia reads. So every day I put in one dose of Prime. Should I be doing any water changes at this point, and is having ammonia at. As always, I really appreciate your help. Your directions and explanation of the process are the best available on the internet! This should get them back down to Make sure you dose back up with ammonia! The reason I suggest this is so that you can see exactly what is happening in your tank.
As it currently stands, we do not know if your nitrites are still being converted to nitrates. Getting them back down to readable levels will help determine where the bottle neck is.
If the nitrites are remaining at 2 but nitrates keep growing, then it should just be a matter of more time. As for the 3 gallon, your fish should be producing enough waste to have at least started the cycle by now. Is there any nitrates in the tank? There is even a possibility that your tank has already cycled — Seachem Prime converts ammonia harmful into ammonium harmless. The problem is that this ammonium can still be picked up by test kits as ammonia.
If you are reading nitrates, but no nitrites then this tank is cycled. You can confirm this by waiting 72 hours and retesting for ammonia. Fingers crossed that this is the case! My readings are now at 0 ammonia, 2 nitrites, and 5 nitrates. Do I just keep daily dosing the ammonia and wait for the nitrites to go down?
And my 3 gallon tank continues to be stubborn. Ammonia at. If all other water parameters are correct, there is nothing left to do but keep doing what you are doing and wait. Please update me in days with what is happening! This morning my 10 gallon tank readings were ppml ammonia, 5 nitrates and.
The ammonia stayed at 0 for a while but rose to 1 for a couple of days and now 2. At one point the ammonia was 0 and the nitrites were. Then the readings started going up and down. How much and how often do you think I should be putting in ammonia now? Also, my 3 gallon tank sometimes reads 1 and sometimes reads 2 ammonia.
Still no nitrates or nitrites. Have been putting in 1 or 2 doses of Prime every day and the fish seems fine. Seems like there should be nitrites by now. And one more question, please. My son has 1 betta in a 3 gallon tank just like mine. The ammonia is almost always 4 ppm, sometimes even 8. He puts the appropriate number of doses of Prime in every day. I just wondered if this amount of ammonia is normal for a betta.
He does water changes, but maybe not often enough? My single fish never makes that much ammonia. What is the pH and temp of the two tanks? Are you monitoring this as well? I still recommend keeping ammonia up at 1 ppm with a daily top up if it drops under until nitrites are 0. Are you able to get someone else to confirm your tests? Regarding your sons tank, IMO a 3 gallon is too small for a betta and without constant water changes, waste is going to build up quickly regardless. Another possibility is that your son is over feeding.
The more food, the more poop, the more ammonia. Thanks, Ian. I hope we can get to the bottom of this mystery.
It would be great if you can return home to a cycled tank! Thanks…that would be great! But now I have another problem. Apparently the platy in the small tank has had babies…. So he put her in a temporary VERY small just for transit,etc by herself. I told him to watch her to see if she has more babies. Should we put her in the big tank alone and dose it with the appropriate amount of prime until it finishes cycling?
Are you able to take the fish to a pet store in the mean time? If I wanted to try to keep them, would I need to do anything special for them? Well my son went out and bought a 5 gallon tank to put Izzy in the mother. We were afraid to put her back in the 3 gallon tank with the babies since she looked like she was trying to eat them.
It would take a lot of Prime every day. That is, of course if any of them survive. But my son did the best he could to make sure the temperature in the new tank was the same as the small transport box, and treated it with Prime. It has a heater and filter too. She has hung in there with me for 7 weeks in an uncycled tank so it will break my heart if we lose her.
I really appreciate all your help and advice! It was a good move to separate them. I hear what you are saying, the whole process has been quite an ordeal for you and it would be amazing if she pulls through. I have my fingers crossed for you. It sounds like, given the circumstances, your son has done as well as he could. Hats off to him. How did he go re-testing your aquarium to confirm the bouncing nitrates? At the end of the day, this is the biggest issue, the lack of a cycled tank to place your fish in.
It would be great to see some progress here. He fed the babies flakes this morning that were extra ground up and he said he thinks one or two of them ate a bit. Do they usually figure out eating pretty quickly?
Should we feed them a couple of times a day? We were worried about the filter sucking them up, so after looking online we decided to take a fish net, cut it, wrap it around the opening and secure with a rubber band. Hope that will work as long as we need it to. He was doing the testing yesterday when he discovered the babies, so we both panicked and he stopped testing to go to the pet store for the 5 gallon tank once he saw Izzy try to eat them and we figured out what we should do.
What do you think about all the readings? His betta was 4 on the ammonia again, I told him to do water changes more often. The plan is now to move the betta into the 5 gallon when Izzy can finally go into the 10 gallon. Platy fry will eat the same food as their parents, so he more than likely did see them eat.
Twice a day feeding should be fine, you need to remember that any uneaten food and there will be lots with fry can affect water quality, which is already balancing on a knife with your fish-in cycle. Any pieces of uneaten food that can be scooped out after feeding is a good thing. For readings I generally recommend creating a spreadsheet and adding the daily readings, so you can see exactly what each parameter is doing. There are plenty of free apps that will also do this.
For this many tanks, it might be a good idea, making it easier to keep tabs. Adding so many tanks into the mix is making it difficult for me to keep up, although I have double checked my advice based on the comments and I believe we are on the same page. For the 10 gallon, a pH of 6 is acidic to the point where it can prevent growth if not downright kill the types of beneficial bacteria present in aquarium filters.
We want to ideally keep the pH at 7 or higher. Perform a water change and re-test pH and all other parameters. I also want to confirm you are not using seachem prime in the empty 10 gal tank. A snap shot of the other tanks, everything sounds normal. I know this is hard while you are away from everything but hopefully we can finalize all this when you get back? Thanks for your reply. I thought the same thing about the 3 gallon. Over 7 weeks and not a single nitrite has shown up.
But since it was 4 today I told him not to put any in. My son is graduating from college in the spring with a degree in Business Analytics and a minor in Computer Science. One thing I thought about the 10 gallon tank. So the empty tank was without a heater all night. The water cooled to about 72 overnight. Would that hurt the bacteria and cause the ammonia to go up overnight from 2 to 4?
Izzy the mother in her private 5 gallon tank and her babies in the 3 gallon tank are all still kicking and seem to be doing well! They are a week old today. Their ammonia is 1 every day, and I put 1 dose of Prime in daily. I guess I should do another one. The temp is There was actually 1 nitrite yesterday, so hopefully the end is near! Do you think I need to do anything different? For the 10 gallon, Are the nitrates increasing?
The nitrates have been 5 for the last 4 days, and 1 for the 3 days before that. So they have gone up but not in the last few days. Is it the water from your water change that raised the Nitrates to 5? Just something to be mindful of. I was just reading online. Is that a good thing to do?
Baking soda raises both pH and KH. If you are adding it to tanks with fish, go slooooooow. Add a bit, wait, test and repeat. I looked at the spreadsheet and the nitrates actually went up from 1 to 5 the day before my water change.
I was thinking of putting baking soda in the empty 10 gallon tank to try to raise the PH in hopes of moving the cycling along faster. Increasing the pH to an appropriate level should noticeably improve the speed that the tank cycles. Please let me know how it goes.
I read over your article again. Is that correct? What you read is correct. Nitrites are supposed to spike before the second bacteria grows in number to accommodate the nitrites being produced by the first bacteria. As long as you are providing a consistent source of ammonia, they will balance themselves relative to this input.
You just have to wait. Make sure you keep an eye on the pH, as it will decrease over time. Nitrites and nitrates are acidic. Water change or add more baking soda as needed.
Over the next few days pay attention to what is happening with the nitrites and nitrates, one of the two or both will go up. This is a good thing, and means you are back on track. To help with testing, view the tests outside in daylight, in the middle of the day.
It will allow you to better observe the actual color against the chart. Thanks Ian, I needed that pep talk! I really want to have Izzy and eventually her babies in the big tank so I can start enjoying them. I will keep testing and watching and let you know how it goes. I sincerely appreciate the information and advice you provide here. My 10 gallon tank is finally cycled! Now all I have to do is a water change for the nitrates I did want to ask about transferring my fish from the 5 gallon tank to the 10 gallon one.
I think you said one fish would be ok to keep the bacteria going, correct? Even though her readings are zero ammonia and zero nitrites every day in her 5 gallon tank? Just want to make sure. And as I understand it, the amount of bacteria will adjust as I gradually add more fish, correct? Also, the 3 gallon that the babies are in.
And it has never shown any nitrites or nitrates. The PH is very bad. It worked very well to raise the PH in the empty 10 gallon tank. The 3 gallon tank has a small heater, but with no settings.
It keeps it at about degrees. I would like to keep trying to cycle this tank to use to put new fish in for a week or two before putting in the big tank. A single fish, such as a betta, will easily keep the beneficial bacteria going. In which case you can acclimatize your fish the same way you would when you buy them from the store.
Based on what you have told me, I would say the pH is more of an issue, going off how the cycle completed once you rectified the pH in your 10 gallon. It seems plausible this tank is having the same issues with the pH of 6 and it will need to be raised in order to cycle.
I read over your KH guide. I guess I should go ahead and order the test kit. Aquarium water generally becomes more acidic over time — even if you have not made any changes. Part of this is because nitrites and nitrates are acidic. Most people can stay on top of this with regular water changes, which are enough to balance the KH and pH. I think I must have been unclear about a couple of things because of so many tanks and fish, sorry.
She has been in a new 5 gallon tank since the babies were born 2 weeks ago. She has 0 ammonia and nitrites so far.
So I wanted to make sure she would produce enough ammonia to keep the bacteria going. Could it be, cycled even though nitrates have never shown up? I guess I could skip putting Prime in for one day and see if the bacteria is still gone the next day. So you said before to go slow with baking soda when fish are in the tank. Do you think it would be better to test the kh and use the thing you mentioned in that article if necessary?
Absolutely, ignoring that platies are considered to be best kept in groups, a single platy will produce ammonia and the beneficial bacteria will balance out accordingly. If the tank is cycled, they will be fine in a tank that size. After all, in the wild, their home is much bigger than 10 gallons. As for when to add the mother, it all depends on the growth rate of the babies.
Depending on conditions food etc, they can grow at different rates. In an empty tank, baking soda is fine. Beginners can easily calculate how much they need, so as to not cause rapid raises that will shock their fish. Baking soda is a more trial and error as to how much you should add.
But it still works! The ammonia always stayed at 1 or 2 when the mother was in it. I think the low pH has something to do with it. Your larger tank was experiencing similar, when we first started troubleshooting, right? Even so, I am puzzled as to why you are not noticing a spike in ammonia. Unless you use a filter media that removes it, it should begin to increase. I think the first step is to increase the pH and then begin trouble shooting from there, adding ammonia manually like you did on your 10 gallon.
Ha, yeah you lucked right into that group of platies! Just be mindful that 6 platies is a high bioload for a 10 gallon. The filter is actually very small with carbon inside some mesh. You should be able to catch your fry with your fish net. Oh, one more thing, sorry.
Oh absolutely. And I probably will still be asking you questions when I do the 20 gallon one later on. One thing I totally forgot to ask you, and probably important, is that a white cotton-like substance has appeared on the ornaments in the 10 gallon tank.
Do you know what it is and if it will hurt my fish? This can result in all sort of oddities such as white cloudy water, gooey brown sludges and white slimes. Unfortunately, without paying attention to what triggered, these can be quite hard to identify the cause in hindsight.
Can you confirm it has appeared during cycling? Thank you. I had some new aquarium ornaments, so I rinsed those really well and put them in the 10 gallon instead of waiting for the filter to work on the ones I had bleached.
I wanted to get the babies moved today. I did the test twice to be sure. So I really want to get them out and try to raise it. How long after putting baking soda in a tank would you have to wait to put a fish in it?
A pH of zero is pretty much hydrochloric acid. You can test this hourly, after two hours or just wait until the morning. So the 5 babies have been in the 10 gallon cycled tank since yesterday, and so far they seem happy. I did water changes till the nitrates went way down. Others say monthly or at other intervals. Speaking of filters, the one in my 10 gallon has been there for over 2 months while cycling.
I rinsed it in the aquarium water when I was changing it and as soon as I touched it, the white part just kind of stretched out in a long piece, kind of like cotton does when you pull it apart only wet and very easily stretched. I actually had to push it back in to keep it in the filter.
Is that normal? You will absolutely lose the beneficial bacteria when you swap out the filter. Especially if your tank relies on the foam in this filter for a biofilter.
You can expect your tank to crash if not done correctly. The razor blade business model should not apply to aquariums. Locking yourself into buying disposable filters for a quick buck, at the cost of fish health and lives is disgusting. My recommendation is a biomedia say ceramic rings and mechanical filtration combo sponge and if required, filter floss for clarity. So if yours did, most of your beneficial bacteria will be hanging there instead of the wool stuff.
In your filter, if you have no ceramic rings, then that cotton wool like stuff will hold a good amount of your bacteria. As for how long these last. Ceramic rings and good quality sponge can last years before needing to be replace. A good sponge should be able to be cleaned with three squeezes in siphoned tank water. Purigen is chemical filtration, which is a which is separate from biological beneficial bacteria and mechanical sponge filtration.
It also can absorb tannins. I have a personal dislike for the stuff. There is a tendency to rely on purigen instead of good tank practices, which generally eliminates the need for it altogether. I see purigen as an emergency solution rather than an ongoing tank addition. Let me know if anything I have said needs clarification. Of course, as usual I forgot to ask you something. What do you think of Purigen.
Is that good to use in my filter instead of the spongy thing I mentioned? I just looked at both of these.
Which would I use? My filter is your average hang-on-the back filter. The package said it helps capture ammonia. So I should leave the old cottony filter there for about a month to spread the bacteria and add the rings and sponge, right? Then take the old one out after a month. Do you think I should look at buying a better filter that will house everything I need? If so, what kind of filter would be best for my 10 gallon tank? It probably contains something like zeolite.
I would only recommend the pre-filter sponge if there is no room inside the filter for mechanical filtration. Loose is generally cheaper buy a drawstring filter media bag to house them but the end result is the same. The only difference is that with the loose, you can swap them out, half at a time say in two years, when they eventually deteriorate this way the bacteria in the old ceramic rings will colonize the new rings, without causing a causing a complete crash.
After two weeks, swap out the other half. For a HOB, aqua clear filters hit the sweet spot in price and ability to hold everything you need. If memory serves correctly, it comes with ceramic rings too. The easiest way in this case to colonize the new filter is to run both HOB at the same time for weeks, before removing the old one.
I looked online and it looks like the aqua clear filter you mentioned does have ceramic rings, as well as carbon filter insert and foam insert. You are saying to run the new filter and the old one at the same time for a few weeks, correct?
Do you know how I can do that? Am I essentially cycling the tank again with the new filter? If you only have a single cutout, open the filter up and remove any places where beneficial bacteria could be such as the cotton filter and place it in the new filter on top of the ceramic rings. Running the new filter now will have the same effect. Keep testing and keep prime on hand, just in case, you may experience an ammonia spike. As for how it works.
In a new tank there is no bacteria. When you cycle, you are not just waiting for two different types to appear, you are waiting for them to multiply. So to put it really simply, first there is 1 of the first bacteria. Then there is 2. Then there is 4. And so on. Repeat for second type of bacteria. You already have an entire colony of both in your tank right now.
It takes a fraction of the time to cycle with a tank with a pre-cycled filter. If you have a good local fish store, they may even sell pre-cycled sponge filters for this very reason. Is there a way to take it apart and submerge it? But I know you mentioned the ceramic rings can last 2 years. Sorry, I could have been more clear here. Simply leave the whole filter, minus the bits mentioned, submerged in your tank. If and when it happens, you simply replace them with a better quality biomedia, one that will last much longer.
Squeezing it out in tank water until the water runs clearish will unclog it. It should last more than 2 months. Again, if it does wear down, simply replace it with better quality stuff. Carbon is the only part they have right. Carbon is a chemical media, it absorbs tannins and bad smells among other things.
Or just some part of it? All good, I could have been clearer here. You want to submerge as much of the section that water flows through as possible.
Depending on the design, this will vary as to how simple it is to do this. The ideal however, is to run both at once. Just had a thought, when you say cutout, is the lid removable?
If so, just remove the lid for the duration and add the second HOB. It was 6. We were messing with the tanks, water changes, ornament changes, testing, etc, all afternoon and I was stressed, frustrated, and tired. Apparently I read 0 instead of 6.
And if so, how much? Once your tank is cycled, I recommend that prime only really be used in an emergency, such as an ammonia spike, outside of dechlorinating water. Prime hides the problem rather than solve it. Yes, the lid is removable. So having the entire top open is ok, right? I guess I could always put some kind of net or screen over it. And you said to leave the old filter running for about 3 or 4 weeks, correct?
For the short term, say cycling your second filter, removing your lid is the easiest way to go about it. If you really are concerned, or notice behavior that suggests jumping, cheese cloth or something similar is cheap and can act as a barrier. Leave the old filter cycling for 3 or 4 weeks alongside your new one to be safe.
Afterwards, remove the filter cartridge and sit it on top of your ceramic rings in the new filter. Safe sounds good to me. So I will do exactly as you suggest and run both filters for a few weeks. How often would you test the water in a cycled tank with babies? How often to test your water? Once your tank has cycled, and you have your fish in. I suggest testing every day, so you can see how chemicals such as nitrate and pH change across a week in your tank yours will be different to mine or anyone elses Once you have a good understanding of this, you can swap over to testing with your weekly water change.
It can take months for the bacteria to have a strong base population, and even then your tank will still be sensitive to swings. Adding filter media from a healthy tank will cut weeks off the nitrogen cycle timeline.
Make sure the tank you get it from is healthy and none of the fish are sick! The beneficial bacteria necessary to complete the nitrogen cycle reproduce significantly faster in a warm environment.
Since the end goal is to have tons of these bacteria swimming in your tank, it only makes sense to help them reproduce as fast as possible. Any warmer and you could risk messing up the cycle. Also, make sure you do not have any fish in your aquarium if you plan to use this method. Temperatures this high can be very dangerous for certain types of fish. Much like fish, Ammonia and Nitrite consuming bacteria require a lot of dissolved oxygen to thrive.
Increasing the dissolved oxygen levels in the water will encourage strong growth in the beneficial bacteria population. There are two ways to increase oxygen levels in your aquarium. First, you can add an air pump or air stone. This air pump is quite and comes in very handy to stabilize the pH when I am mixing my own saltwater. No need to turn it off at all! Another way to increase dissolved oxygen content in your aquarium is by increasing water flow.
To do this, get yourself a good set of powerheads or wavemakers and set them up in your aquarium. Make sure at least one of them is pointed at the surface and creates a good amount of surface turbulence. You can check out our list of the best powerheads and wavemakers on the market. It may seem surprising, but Nitrifying bacteria grows best in the absence of light.
I know it is tempting to turn on your lights and witness the beauty of your newly set up aquarium, but its best to wait until after the cycle is over. Try to keep the tank away from windows as well, as sunlight can inhibit bacteria growth and cause massive algae growth, especially during the cycle.
Filter media is one of the best habitats for Nitrifying bacteria; it receives constant water flow, little light, and is very porous.
It may seem counterproductive, but letting your filter run during the cycle can help speed up the process greatly especially if you can get a filter from a mature tank!
When your cycle is complete and you are doing regular water chances, make sure to NEVER rinse the filter media with anything other than tank water.
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