tighidden

not that this is important but I am a very neat person. and when I am cleaning my gravel in my ten gallon tank I always have stuff leftover in the gravel before the twenty five percent water change is complete and I am wondering if this is alright. But the main reason it got like that is because the people at the petstore told me to wait 4-6 weeks until my tank has cycled and the debree in the gravel just built up I guess.


Ryan

sirdarksol

Do you actually have fish in the tank? And did the people at the petstore tell you to wait before doing a water change/gravel vac?
If so, they're not terribly bright. Vacuuming the gravel might slow the cycle, but not vacuuming the gravel will severely stress your fish as the ammonia builds up.

And no, a bit of leftover stuff in the gravel won't hurt anything. It's only when there's a lot and it's allowed to build up.

tighidden

yes. yes. So then when you cycle a tank you still do the twentyfive percent water change every two weeks

Allie

The dirt in the substrate is the good stuff for your water/tank as long as you do your weekly water changes & a gravel vac once a week keep the crud from overloading.

sirdarksol

It's not so much that the crud is good stuff, but that it is food for good stuff. As you say, routine vacuuming should be good.

As far as water changes, I would go for 25% every week, and I would watch my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels, and if any of them get too high (fish can handle very little ammonia or nitrite), do extra water changes to maintain lower waste levels. Unfortunately, the waste is what builds the bacteria colony, but the colony isn't worth much of anything if the fish are already dead, so it's better (in my opinion) to slow the cycle down a bit to keep the fish happy and healthy.

tighidden

yup my levels are all at zero so everything is good thank you all for your help

jsalemi

All at 0 isn't necessarily good -- when the tank is cycled, you'd expect ammonia and nitrites to be at 0, but there should be some nitrates, as they're the end product of the cycle. Live plants eat up some of them, and the regular water changes keep the nitrate levels down so they're not harmful to fish.

You should read this to get a better understanding of the cycle: http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm