29 Gallon Tank Did my cycle crash?
mattgirl
This is what to expect when a tank is cycling. first you have ammonia, after a while you will have ammonia and nitrites, the ammonia will go down, quite often to zero. Over time both ammonia and nitrites will be zero and you will be left with nitrates. Nitrates are kept down with water changes. Since this is a fish in cycle I would get the nitrites down as low as possible with water changes. I was doing them daily during my nitrite spike. One day soon they will drop to zero for you.
GusMcGrath202020
- Thread Starter
- #3
so what should I just do daily water changes?
mattgirl
I would change out at least 50% of it daily as long as it is this high. You shouldn't have to do them long. I only had to do them for 5 days. It may take more or less days for yours to drop. The water changes will protect your fish from its damaging affect. Just be sure you temp match and dechlorinate the fresh water before pouring it in there.
GusMcGrath202020
- Thread Starter
- #5
How will the tank continue cycling if there is no nitrite? just curious.
mattgirl
You can't water change out all of the ammonia or nitrites. If there are fish in a tank they are constantly being produced. Once the tank completes its cycle the ammonia and nitrites will still be there but there will be enough bacteria to keep them at zero. A fully cycled tank will never have readable levels of ammonia or nitrites. Cycling a tank simply means growing ammonia and nitrite eating bacteria. When we have grown enough of each to keep both numbers at zero the cycle will be done.
Put in very simple terms. With fish in a tank ammonia is constantly being added. The ammonia eating bacteria is hard at work keeping it cleaned up. Like everything else, bacteria poops. What ammonia eating bacteria poops is nitrites. The nitrite eating bacteria is hard at work cleaning up the nitrites. The nitrite eating bacteria poops out nitrates. Most of us never grow the bacteria that will clean up the nitrates so we keep them down to safe levels with water changes.
GusMcGrath202020
- Thread Starter
- #7
Thank you so much for your help. But I do have one more question. I just tested my water again this morning and I have no ammonia, no nitrite, no nitrate. And I didn't do a water change last night cause it was to late. Is prime giving me false readings? are my plants using up the nitrate before I could test for it? thank you for being so helpful!
Here is a picture so you could see just how planted it is
Here is a picture so you could see just how planted it is
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mattgirl
Yay, This is what we have been hoping for. You now have enough ammonia and nitrite eating bacteria. Make sure you are running the nitrate test exactly as the instructions tell you. Be sure you are shaking bottle #2 like your life depended on it and you are shaking the test tube for a full minute after adding drops from both bottles.
If you are doing all of that and still seeing no nitrates then just give it time. It is very possible all the healthy looking plants in this tank are helping you out here. I have to think it is time to move to your weekly water changes now. Don't over clean the tank or your filter media. We now want to give this cycle time to get firmly established.
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