Does temperature have an impact on cycling?

Goobs

Goobs

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I'm about to start cycling a tank, it will be empty so it doesn't matter what the water temperature is in there. Does the water temperature change the speed of the cycling or does it not have an impact?
 
I imagine the warmer your tank is, the faster your bacteria will grow. But I don't think it matters that much.
 
Every time I cycle a tank I bump the temps up to 26 and add an airstone to promote faster bacteria growth. It might get you done a couple days faster that way.
 
I remember reading somewhere that bacteria grows "faster" if the temperature is above 20 Celsius. I would think it might help, but I wouldn't go to extremes and crank a heater in there.

What type of cycle are you doing (like fish-less, using food, etc)
 
It makes a big difference. The bacteria you're after are very slow growing and only double in size once every 15-17 hours in optimal conditions. The cooler it get's the slower they grow but they don't seem terribly keen on temps much above 26 either :rolleyes: fussy little things. It won't kill them but the do slow a bit after that.
For these little guys optimal temperature is around the 24-25 degrees C mark. It's at that temperature that they will grow the fastest, food supply permitting ;)
 
Mere, do you think it would have an impact on your bacteria colony if you cycled your bacteria at 25C, and then suddenly reduced the temperature of the tank to make it habitable for your caudates?

It seems like whenever I monkeyed with temperatures like that with my lab specimens (bacteria usually, occasionally fungi), they didn't do well.
 
Depends on how fast you bring the temp down Kaysie. Here where we have HOT summers and fairly mild winters compared to some I would just switch the heater off and let it cool to room temperature on it's own and leave it overnight as that is when it will cool as much as it is going to naturally. I may leave it the next day too if I was going to turn a chiller on and slowly turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees at a time and let it come to temperature before turning it down a bit more. I've never had a problem with the cycle crashing or anything like that. In winter depending on what room temperature is you might need to do it in a couple of steps. Turning the heater down to about 15 and letting it drop to that for a day and then turn it off and go from there. It gives the bacteria a full growing period to adjust to the temperature change and the new bacteria would be a little more hardy to the cooler temp.

If you take any living thing out of warm water and quickly make it's water cold you will send it into shock if not kill it. Fish and Axies included. You would never take your axie straight out of the fridge and just throw him back in his tank the difference is just to great and you will hurt him so you let him warm on the bench first and then put him back, just like floating a bag of fish in the tank for an hour to allow the water temp to slowly equalize. Bacteria are no different they won't take kindly to it, if it's summer in their home in the morning and it's snowing by lunch. ;)
 
So its day 6 of cycling and it seems to be going ok so far. I'm cycling a small 17L tank that i'm setting up for shrimp and basically using it as a practice for cycling my 140L axie tank when its set up. I'm not using fish, only crumbling in some flakes every 2 days. Its taken a while for the ammonia to rise but it is currently between .50 and 1.0 ppm (closer to .50).

Should i continue to add the flakes every 2 days and will the ammonia drop if i do continue once the bacteria has colonised? How high should i let the ammonia get?
 
once the bacteria colonizes it should drop, so keep adding those fish flakes. Also if I were you I'd stick a sponge filter in there or something that can hold a lot of beneficial bacteria so that when you need to cycle your axolotl tank you can speed it up by putting the sponge filter in there.
 
exactly what I was thinking
 
Today - Ammonia - 0.50, Nitrite - 1.0, Nitrate - 5.0, pH - 7.8

Is the pH high because of the cycling?
 
The pH isn't that high. I wouldn't worry much about a pH of 7.8.
 
Yeah ok i won't worry about it i guess it's not that high. It was just because i had to use the high range pH test from my test kit to get the reading, the standard one went straight to maximum.
 
Just under 2 weeks of cycling - Ammonia - slightly under 0.25, Nitrite - just over 1.0, Nitrate - 5.0, pH - 7.8

Should i be doing any water changes during the cycle?
 
i don't think you need to be doing water changes if nothings inthe tank as there will be no waste from animals
are there plaqnts in your tank its a good idia if your going to have live plants to put them in now as they help scycling and it gives them time to grow and put out roots with out them being pulled out by a inqwizitive axolotl or fish
sam:happy::wacko::eek:
 
Ok its been over 3 weeks now and cycling seems to have stopped :confused:

I've been adding fish flakes every couple of days. At first it seemed ok, ammonia went up then started to drop as nitrite went up. For just over a week now the readings have been the same, ammonia ~0ppm, nitrite 0.50-1.0ppm and nitrate is above 0ppm but not at the next colour on the chart which is 5.0ppm.

Why isn't the nitrite reading coming down??? Do i need to do a water change or something??
 
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