Put dead fish in to help cycle tank When can I take it out it stinks

I cycled my tank with aquarium plants, they had a bit of dead leaves on them that polluted the tank but I left them in there a few weeks to help it cycle. to be fair though I did get some water from my goldfish tank but only like a quarter. i only added 4 guppies to the 60 litres so I knew it wouldn’t spike much anyway

What do you mean you got some water from your goldfish tank? I don't think that does much for the cycle.

 

What do you mean you got some water from your goldfish tank? I don't think that does much for the cycle.

I was setting up a guppy tank and already had a goldfish tank, so when I did a water change I threw some water in the new tank, it probably didn’t do anything but I was hoping there would be a little bacteria already in that water

 

Letting some fish food sit in a tank and deteriorate is a much less smelly way to cycle a tank

 

Stinkier the better! Lol. Get pure ammonia if you can. Fish food and dead fish are inconsistent way of cycling.

 

I don't want to be seen as argumentative but I keep seeing this posted over and over. I am not sure how it got started but it seems more and more folks are reading and then repeating it. I truly do not believe it is in fact true.

I can't say I have ever seen ammonia stalling a cycle because it is too high. It may take longer to go down to zero but that is just because there is so much of it. Taking longer to go to zero doesn't mean the cycle is stalled. I can't see high levels of ammonia killing bacteria either. That just isn't the way it works. The higher the ammonia level the longer it will take to go down and the more bacteria it will grow.

I may have some proof...that I obtained completely by circumstance, accident.

These are all from the same tank, I took the pic because it was so over the top:



There weren't any fish in the tank; it was a tank that had been sitting empty, that i was setting back up again.

It had originally been active for about a year, then everything moved out, tank drained and the substrate (Eco) left to dry out. I don't vacuum planted tanks, so there had been a fair amount of organic material left behind in the substrate.

It sat empty for six months or so, and then I set it back up with just water and plants, added a little filter media from an active tank, and started testing it after a few days just to see where it was.

And the above was the result. Max everything, all at once. The source for the ammonia was only the 'mature' substrate itself, and it's maxed out; but also clearly not inhibiting the conversion to nitrites, nor are the high nitrites inhibiting the nitrite to nitrate conversion either.

[It grew some serious pastures of hair algae long before it was ready for any new inhabitants as well, let me tell you...]

For whatever it's worth, anyway...