6' New tank syndome? How long to cycle, be biological safe?

[batmanforever]

Hi,

I have a new 6' tank, holds 575L of water, 45L of bedrock gravel, Eheim 2080 filter (inc 12L of substrate) suitable for up to 1200L tank and pump output is 1700L / hour. Set up new tank 12 days ago, treated the water with stress coat and stress zyme. Put x50 2.5cm elect yellows in. After 5 days noticed ammonia had risen to 1ppm. On 7th day drained 2/3 water, treated with stress coat and stress zyme again. Ammonia had reduced to .5ppm. Added another x50 2.5cm demasoni's. 12th day ammonia has gradually crept back up to 1ppm.

How long will the tank take to cycle so there is 0ppm ammonia and it is biologically safe? Am I likely to get an ammonia spike, at what level do they start to die? Can I put more fish in yet? I test for ammonia daily. In the long term as the fish grow I will reduce the numbers. Is what I am doing the best and fastest way to set up a new tank? Should I be doing water changes and how much? Also I have noticed some fish as they swim will "flick" over on their side to rub themselves momentarily on the gravel?

Thanks for your help.

[herefishiefishie]

You are not meant to add anymore fish until the tank has cycled properly.

Everytime you add a bunch of new fish, you will then get an ammonia rise. You should be testing your nitrites as well. The tank isn't cycled until both ammonia & nitrite levels return to zero.

Here is a good read,

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

Tanks to cycle can take 3-6 weeks. Depending on bacteria growth, feeding, stocking etc. The fish flicking themselves will be probably due to the ammonia, be careful fish are prone to white spot & other diseases when stressed. Ammonia causes stress, burns the gills, protective slime coat etc.

How much, what & how often are you feeding the fish?

You can speed up the cycle by growing plants, using filters from other tanks.

Adding more porous matter in filters helps too. I load my canisters up with ceramic noodles, matrix, coarse sponge etc.

Frenchy

[batmanforever]

Thanks for your reply. I am feeding them x2 / day with flake food. I have read the link you sent me. Most helpful. I will reduce the food by 1/2 and will test for nitrates and nitrites. I thought stress zyme really helped speed things up alot. It may still take at least another week or more for the tank to have cycled?

[Caryl]

You will save a lot of money not using the chemicals

[Ianab]

I dont think it's easy to say exactly how much ammonia will kill a fish, it depends on too many factors, species, pH, temp, other toxins, O2 levels etc. But ammonia is VERY toxic and attacks the fish's gills, generally causes stress and weakens them so they are more susceptable to other diseases even if it doesn't kill them outright.

The easiest way to speed up the cycling of a tank is to take a working filter from an establised tank and add it along with some fish to the new tank. You still have to be carefull as there probably wont be exactly the right amount of bacteria to suit the number of fish, but at least it will be closer than starting from scratch. As there is already a usefull bacteria population in the filter it will stress the fish less and build up to full levels quicker. Taking some media from an established filter and adding it to the new filter will achieve the same thing too.

The other thing to remember is that the tank/filter will only grow enough bacteria to suit the amount of fish in the tank. So the tank may be fine with 10 fish, but dump in 50 more and the bacteria are playing catchup and you could get ammonia buildup if they dont keep up.

Another trap is that if you reduce the number of fish, some of the bacteria die off over time and they return to a level that suits the new fish population. So you need to be carefull building up the population again, do it in stages just like the last 1/2 of the initial cycling.

At the moment you are in the middle of the cycle process, and you are experiencing an ammonia spike already. The bacteria are slowly multiplying, but adding more fish wasn't the best thing to do. If the ammonia continues to rise you can do some water changes to control that. Feeding the fish less will slow the buildup, and if you can move some of the fish to an established tank that will make life easier for the remaining ones. There are also chemical treatments that convert ammonia into less toxic ammonium. Your current situation is about the only time you should need to use them, but a dose of ammonia treatment might help at the moment.

Cheers

Ian

[batmanforever]

The ammonia level still remains at 1 ppm. Nitrite and Nitrate are both 0 ppm. If the ammonia level gets higher I will do another water change.

[lickindip]

you tank sounds like a decent setup ... any chance of some pictures?

[fish-unit]

Ive never had any troubles with freshwater tanks,Always just put as many fish and plants in as I wanted straight away and always had good looking tanks

[Loopy]

We do the same as fish-unit and also never had a problem. I guess we have just been lucky though