What stage am I at in cycling new tank ?

[sammie68]

Hey everyone,

I've been cycling a new tank for 3 weeks now, with an axie in it for the first 2 weeks but moved him out when the nitrite reading showed lethal levels.

I've just done another test and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all reading 0 with the ph neutral. I use the drip test for all of them. No axies have been in the tank for over a week now.

When I started the tank I used the media filter from the old tank along with the ornaments. I'm not sure if the tank has cycled or not, I always thought it would be much longer.

So has the tank cycled or is it still way to early to put the axie back in there ??

Thanks again
Kind regards Sammie.

 

[sammie68]

Sorry forgot to add, the tank is 3ft and holds 90 to 100 litres of water. Sometimes it looks cloudy. Actually when I look at the tank straight on it looks clear, but when I view it from either end it looks cloudy, not sure what this is either ????

 

[carsona246]

It depends, you had to have done a waterchange since the nitrite was at a high levels, otherwise there would be some nitrite/nitrate in the tank.(unless you have plants) Did the tank have an ammonia source while the axolotl was not in the tank?

 

[sammie68]

Hi Carson, thanks for helping me out yet again,

I did a water change as soon as I got the high nitrite level and removed the axie at the same time.

As for an ammonia source I had live plants in there, however they were not very healthy, meaning they looked they were dying. Should I have left them in there ?

I'm going to do another reading this morning, I will be more than happy to let you know the results if your interested...

Thanks again
Regards
Sammie.

 

[carsona246]

Well the plants can explain the 0 parameters, if enough of them died, there may be enough ammonia in there to have kept the bacteria alive.
You need to keep some ammonia in the tank to keep the beneficial bacteria alive. When your axolotl was in the tank, he was the ammonia source. Once you removed him the plants/bacteria probably used up all the ammonia. Without ammonia the bacteria will starve.
If your not keeping your axolotl in the tank while it cycles you can stick a frozen shrimp in the tank, and allow that to be the ammonia source, and let the tank cycle that way. However there is nothing wrong with cycling with your axolotl in the tank, and just doing multiple waterchanges a week to keep the parameters livable. For instance next time nitrite gets too high, you can just do a large waterchange. it won't harm the bacteria, but it will take a little longer to cycle the tank because the ammonia will not be able to reach the optimal level for cycling(4 ppm's is what I've always been told). Don't let ammonia go over 4 ppm's though, that will start to hurt the bacteria.

 

[sammie68]

Great thanks for the advice,

I've already put my axie back in there, just last night after I got all the zero readings. So from now on I just have to do daily readings and change the water if I get high or dangerous results...Is that right ...or should I be changing the water every day regardless ?

 

[carsona246]

just if the readings are in the dangerous zone, no need to do waterchanges otherwise.