Alessa

Hi, my bf and I decided to get a tank and went recently to petsmart to get a tank and fishes without knowing anything at all. ( I had done some research but still, i was confused).
we got there and got lectured on the nitrogen cycle. the lady told us that "we needed to get ONLY the tank add some seachem prime conditioner and wait a week... and that the cycle would start (and complete) without the fish"

so we got a 28 gallon, gravel and decorations.

later on doing some more reading i figured out the obvious:

1)bacteria need food, (amonia) to reproduce. No fish = no amonia = no bacteria = no nitrogen cycle.

2) even with fish there will be no completed cycle in a week, it will take like one month or more...

Now, the tank has been up for about 4 days full equipment working and i have white cloudy water...
I dont know the causes for this since there are so many explanations online and i dont have anything producing amonia for a bacterial bloom. I also washed the decorations and gravle before putting it on the tank. the worst part is that we didnt get the testing kits because the seller told us "bring a sample and we'll test it here for you" so...

1)I dont know what is that cloudy white water for
2) and if the water is capable of sustaining even a couple hardy fish...

angelfish220

You dont need to get fish to start your cycle, in fact some people think it is cruel to the fish to use them to cycle. You can 'feed' the tank, which is just putting fish food in it daily to decompose which produces ammonia which starts your cycle. You could also do this but putting in a hunk of raw shrimp or salmon. then you could go to your local hardware store and get straight ammonia, no additives what so ever or you could hurt your fish, and you could skip the 'decompsing' cycle and kick start your cycle that way.

I would get a kit the next time you go to town. they are helpful and I cant tell you if you are ready for fish if I dont know your numbers. good luck !!

AND...

WELCOME TO FISHLORE

Shawnie

welcome to fishlore!! lots of great help and advice here for sure....if you can, check out this link and get some bio-spira...will be so much less work in the long run!

http://www.aquariumplants.com/Bio_Spira_s/47.htm

Alessa

to both

one more question though...
for how long should I "feed my tank" before I can add some fish?

Shawnie

until you have ammonia and nitrites at 0 and nitrates under 20...which can take a few weeks with a 28 gallon ...24 to 48 hours with bio-spira ....goodluck and hope things work well !

sp33drhno

make sure you get a liquid test. the test strips are convenient, but not very accurate.

Alessa

I'll try the bio-spira and see what happens

Shawnie

your welcome...its expensive, but the best money spent on a new tank in my opinion goodluck with everything either way!!

COBettaCouple

Welcome to Fishlore

ricktavious

Every time I have needed to cycle a tank lately, I have used "Stability" by Seachem. It has done an absolutely marvelous job getting the cycle going in a hurry. In this past week, I had to cycle with fish (unfortunately) and the tank is already cycled. I also used decorations and substrate from cycled tanks which also helped a great deal, if you can get your hands on either of those you should be cycled sooner rather than later.

goggles

the cloudy water sound like you have a bacteria bloom. i had this with my first tank. the bacteria have nothing to feed on so they die and in turn the living feed on the dead. eventualy this will cause a bloom and make your water cloudy. i just started agian from scratch after getting some good advice.

Alessa

Ohhh... so that's why! thanks!

goggles

no probs, let us know how it goes.

Halibut

Order the liquid kit from drfostersmith or someplace like that you'll get it much cheaper.

I have used stability and it didnt do squat. Bio-Spira is the way to go.

Alessa

Ok, already ordered the biospira and the testing kit. I should get them both by the end of this week. I will let you all know what happened and...

for all your great advices...