I Hate To Cycle New Tank!

Ph is 6.6, ammonia 2. Nitrite2. And nitrate 160. Should I keep adding more ammonia or what number should I keep a ammonia at? I have babies coming so I really need this tank cycled.

 

Babies as in baby fish? If so, when are they coming?

 

Ammonia needs to be 0

 

You don't have to keep adding more ammonia, this is plenty. The babies won't be producing 2 ppm of ammonia per day.

 

Do you have a cycled tank you could take cycled media from?

 

You could try adding tetra safestart plus to cycle it faster. Just test it daily and when the ammonia is at 0, raise it again to keep the bacteria fed until the babies come.

 

Ammonia and nitrItes should both be 0, for a tank to be ready to add fish, and I would recommend doing a water change to get your nitrAtes down, before you add any fish 160 is really high and if you are using the apI master test kit, that is the highest it reads(at least that is the highest mine reads) therefore the levels may be even higher. I try to keep my nitrAtes below 20 for my molly babies. but others have different opinions on how much nitrAtes is safe, this sounds really high to me, not sure tho as nobody else has mentioned this yet and I am a beginner myself.

 

Babies as in baby fish? If so, when are they coming?

Yes, baby fish hahaha. Sorry, I have a pregnant Blue Diamond Guppy that is strikingly gorgeous and she is abut 3 weeks pregnant I would guess. I bought her and mate from California breeder and they came in same bag....yikes. Had to set up another tank for fry when they come, wasn’t expecting her to be pregnant so soon.

 

I sometimes manage to get mines down to all 0. People say that's not cycled, I say it's an amazing filter

 

Do you have a cycled tank you could take cycled media from?

I have a ten gallon set up but had to put a a grandpa guppy in there because he was acting sick and kind of bloated so I can’t use any media from there as I am treating the tank.

You could try adding tetra safestart plus to cycle it faster. Just test it daily and when the ammonia is at 0, raise it again to keep the bacteria fed until the babies come.

I have been adding Special Blend which is bacteria. My ph was 0 so I added ph up, thought maybe that had something to do with high numbers.

I sometimes manage to get mines down to all 0. People say that's not cycled, I say it's an amazing filter

I know what you mean, I have two 35 gal octagon tanks and one 10 gallon hospital tank.....cycling never gets easy!