New 10g, Need Help/advice

I am a complete beginner. Our tank has been filled for approx. 2 weeks. After horrible advice from LFS and 4 dead fish later, we decided to reach out for advice from this forum. Today we changed 50% of the water, added tetra safe (despite lady telling us we didn’t need it) as well as liquid bacteria, then tested the water. Parameters were: 6.8 pH, 0.5ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 0ppm nitrate. Now I am aware of the nitrogen cycle and I’m doing a fishless cycle. I’m leaning towards adding food instead of liquid ammonia. That brings us to now, and I’m not sure where to go from here... do I add food daily? Do I need the liquid ammonia? How often do I change the water while it cycles? How long will it take to cycle? Just completely lost lol. Would be great if someone could give me a rundown on how to cycle this 10G based on what I’ve said about it so far. Thx for any help in advance!!

 

I prefer food over ammonia simply because you don't need to add it as often, but it takes a while longer to cycle with food than it does ammonia. If you're using a hob filter just put some in(1/4 teaspoon or so) the back of it. Add some more 3 or 4 days later and check your levels. Do you have a test kit? Since you're new to the hobby I strongly recommend getting one.
I wouldnt mess with water changes unless your ammonia goes above 4ppm or after your nitrites climb up to about the same. You want around 2ppm ammonia and 2-3ppm nitrite as ideal while cycling imo.

 

I prefer food over ammonia simply because you don't need to add it as often, but it takes a while longer to cycle with food than it does ammonia. If you're using a hob filter just put some in(1/4 teaspoon or so) the back of it. Add some more 3 or 4 days later and check your levels. Do you have a test kit? Since you're new to the hobby I strongly recommend getting one.
I wouldnt mess with water changes unless your ammonia goes above 4ppm or after your nitrites climb up to about the same. You want around 2ppm ammonia and 2-3ppm nitrite as ideal while cycling imo.

I do have a hob filter and I also have the API master test kit. Thank you for the advice! I will add the food into the filter when I get home from work

 

I'd say dose fish food daily, check ammonia daily, and check nitrates/nitrites weekly. Do a 50% water change if the ammonia goes really high. (2ppm and up) otherwise, a 1/4 water change every two days is fine. Follow the instructions on your bacteria bottle. Be patient; you're gonna have to do this for maybe 4-8 weeks. Once your nitrites and ammonia drop to 0 and you get a nitrate reading in a 24 hour period, you're done. Oh, and make SURE to only stock two or three low bioload fish at first, wait a few weeks, then do more, ect. so you don't accidentally overload your bio-filtration once its established.

 

HI & welcome. Sorry you learned the hard way about taking advice from LFS workers, most of them have no clue what they're actually taking about & will tell you anything to get money from you. So now you're into a fishless cycle, they're all different & take different amounts of time but usually two to three weeks sometimes a month or so. You can use fish food as a source of ammonia to grow the BB colony but using liquid ammonia is a more accurate way of doing it but if you do use ammonia make sure it's pure with no additives like surfactants. What you're looking to do is raise the ammonia level to about 4 & then test it 24 hours later & it should have dropped as the BB will start converting it to Nitrite so you'll see the nitrite levels rise then after a while you should see ammonia & nitrite come down to zero & the nitrate go up to 5 - 10 & then the tank is cycled & you can start to gradually add fish. Do you have a master test kit? if not you'll need one (the strips you can get are useless & not worth the money you pay for them). Good luck & let us know how you get on.

 

I'd say dose fish food daily, check ammonia daily, and check nitrates/nitrites weekly. Do a 50% water change if the ammonia goes really high. (2ppm and up) otherwise, a 1/4 water change every two days is fine. Follow the instructions on your bacteria bottle. Be patient; you're gonna have to do this for maybe 4-8 weeks. Once your nitrites and ammonia drop to 0 and you get a nitrate reading in a 24 hour period, you're done. Oh, and make SURE to only stock two or three low bioload fish at first, wait a few weeks, then do more, ect. so you don't accidentally overload your bio-filtration once its established.

Adding fish food daily might create too much of a spike in ammonia once it all starts to break down. Unless they just add a tiny amount daily.

 

It really depends on the food, a lot of aquarium foods are designed to release very little ammonia and can be a inneficient way to add ammonia. but anything decaying will give you ammonia, so you could try things like lettuce maybe? there's also products that contain bacteria that you can add, it should help speed things up, cycling generally will take around a couple weeks to a month or two at most.

 

Adding fish food daily might create too much of a spike in ammonia once it all starts to break down. Unless they just add a tiny amount daily.

I was thinking tiny cause that's what I would do lol. Like a small pinch.

HI & welcome. Sorry you learned the hard way about taking advice from LFS workers, most of them have no clue what they're actually taking about & will tell you anything to get money from you. So now you're into a fishless cycle, they're all different & take different amounts of time but usually two to three weeks sometimes a month or so. You can use fish food as a source of ammonia to grow the BB colony but using liquid ammonia is a more accurate way of doing it but if you do use ammonia make sure it's pure with no additives like surfactants. What you're looking to do is raise the ammonia level to about 4 & then test it 24 hours later & it should have dropped as the BB will start converting it to Nitrite so you'll see the nitrite levels rise then after a while you should see ammonia & nitrite come down to zero & the nitrate go up to 5 - 10 & then the tank is cycled & you can start to gradually add fish. Do you have a master test kit? if not you'll need one (the strips you can get are useless & not worth the money you pay for them). Good luck & let us know how you get on.

I can vouch for this. Test strips are horrible, especially for tank cycle testing!!! My 5 gal is so hard to read properly with them! A water test kit is cheaper and lasts for many, many more uses!!

 

you should use food not ammonia

 

HI & welcome. Sorry you learned the hard way about taking advice from LFS workers, most of them have no clue what they're actually taking about & will tell you anything to get money from you. So now you're into a fishless cycle, they're all different & take different amounts of time but usually two to three weeks sometimes a month or so. You can use fish food as a source of ammonia to grow the BB colony but using liquid ammonia is a more accurate way of doing it but if you do use ammonia make sure it's pure with no additives like surfactants. What you're looking to do is raise the ammonia level to about 4 & then test it 24 hours later & it should have dropped as the BB will start converting it to Nitrite so you'll see the nitrite levels rise then after a while you should see ammonia & nitrite come down to zero & the nitrate go up to 5 - 10 & then the tank is cycled & you can start to gradually add fish. Do you have a master test kit? if not you'll need one (the strips you can get are useless & not worth the money you pay for them). Good luck & let us know how you get on.

Thank you so much for replying I do have the master test kit and that is where the results from the original post came from. Ammonia is very inaccessible to me where I live so I’m basically stuck using my fish flakes to add an ammonia source. Thank you for the advice, and I will update as the cycle progresses!

I'd say dose fish food daily, check ammonia daily, and check nitrates/nitrites weekly. Do a 50% water change if the ammonia goes really high. (2ppm and up) otherwise, a 1/4 water change every two days is fine. Follow the instructions on your bacteria bottle. Be patient; you're gonna have to do this for maybe 4-8 weeks. Once your nitrites and ammonia drop to 0 and you get a nitrate reading in a 24 hour period, you're done. Oh, and make SURE to only stock two or three low bioload fish at first, wait a few weeks, then do more, ect. so you don't accidentally overload your bio-filtration once its established.

Thank you for the tips!! Will keep these in mind.

It really depends on the food, a lot of aquarium foods are designed to release very little ammonia and can be a inneficient way to add ammonia. but anything decaying will give you ammonia, so you could try things like lettuce maybe? there's also products that contain bacteria that you can add, it should help speed things up, cycling generally will take around a couple weeks to a month or two at most.

I just have some generic fish flakes the LFS recommended for the neon tetras I had purchased (that sadly passed because I was uneducated). I think I’m going to add that food every few days and maybe add lettuce alongside it! Thank you!