Step By Step Cycle?

can someone give me a step by step guide on what I need to do to my tank while it cycles? we do have a few cardinal tetras in it. yes I'm familiar with how the nitrogen cycle works, but I can't find instructions on what I have to do at the different levels. what do I need to do at each step? when the ammonia (or nitrite, or nitrate) spikes, what do I do to the tank? some sites I'm reading say to leave it alone until the very last step, then do water changes at that point to help bring the nitrate levels down. but other sites say to do small partial changes every couple days during the whole process. So do I go hands off until the nitrate level or do I do water changes through out the whole process?
editing to add I have a 15 gallon with 6 tetra. I'm in japan, so have really limited options in english to know what I'm actually getting or what I need. I couldnt find any safestart and we don't have access to the liquid test kit, only test strips. and shipping on either of those things would be at least 10 days.

 

Hi, welcome to the forum

Because you're cycling with fish in you want to keep them safe while allowing the cycle to progress.
But first in order to help I need to know what size tank is this and do you have 3 tetras?
I would pick up Tetra Safe Start Plus (bacterial additive that will seed your filter for a rapid cycle (2 weeks) )
Do you have a liquid test kit to monitor ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?

 

sorry, I should have included that all. I have a 15 gallon with 6 tetra. I'm in japan, so have really limited options in english to know what I'm actually getting or what I need. I couldnt find any safestart and we don't have access to the liquid test kit, only test strips. and shipping on either of those things would be at least 10 days.

 

Oh ok, do you have access to Seachem Prime for your water conditoner? What is the ammonia, nitrites and PH of your tap water?

 

our tank came with a dechlorinator and what we guess was a bacteria conditioner of some sorts, but google translate couldnt tell us what exactly it was. we just realized our test strips don't test for ammonia so we will be getting strips for that. but nitrites is 0, and PH is 7-7.2 or so.

we did do a test strip this morning (18-20hrs after fish were added) and it says we actually have a small amount of nitrate in the water already. what does that mean?

 

Can you purchase Seachem Prime? There is a reason to my questioning, it will help me determine the best way for you to cycle with your betta.

 

what is it? the pet store has several different bottles of stuff but 99% of it is in japanese so we can't read it. there are several tetra products, so if you know what the name of their product would be, we MAY be able to find it.

 

It is a water conditioner but it also detoxifies ammonia + nitrites up to 1.0 so is useful when cycling. Tetra's product is Tetra Safe Start Plus and would be really helpful for cycling your tank.

Basically there are a few ways to go about this, and it depends on the products you have.

1. If you have no Prime and no TSS+ then you'll want to do enough water changes to keep ammonia below .5 and nitrites at .25 or below. This is the longest way to cycle but the only way to keep your fish safe.

2. If you no prime but you have TSS+, this is ok. You do a large water change, make sure ammonia and nitrites are 0, add your water dechlorinator and 24 hours add in the bottle of TSS+. Do nothing for two weeks except feed sparingly, only 2-3 pellets twice a day.

3. If you can find Prime but have no TSS+ then you let ammonia + nitrites get up to 1.0 before doing a water change and dose prime daily for the volume of water in the tank.

Good luck finding one or both of these products!

 

ok thank you. I couldnt find TSS at the one store, but we have one other option I can look at. I will see if I can find thePrime too. if not, we will make sure to do frequent water changes.

So searching Amazon.jp I was able to find something that said it's for good bacteria. Some is lost in translation but I "think" the description is saying that it adds beneficial bacteria to the tank. Could I use this to help with the cycling process? I can take a screenshot if you want to see if you can figure out what it is

 

Sure, lets see the screen shot.

 

Ugh! K I can't figure out how to add a screenshot to a message. How do I do it?

 

There should be an upload file or an icon with a tree in it in the editor.

 

Did this work?

 

We were able to test our ammonia today and after 2 days of having fish in, the ammonia was almost 0. It's not anywhere close to .25. Is this normal? Will it keep going up or is it normally higher by now? We do have a carbon filter that says something about taking care of ammonia. Is that ok?

 

That's great news. I couldn't tell anything with those pics, sorry!

Ammonia looks great so far and yes its ok to keep that filter in.

Just test once a day for ammonia and nitrites and do water changes as needed like mentioned above.

 

one thing, it looks like it says mg/l, not ppm.

 

Actually works out to be the same as ppm

 

K thanks! We will keep an eye on things and do water changes when needed

 

Actually works out to be the same as ppm

So we tested ammonia again today and it's still pretty much 0. Nitrite is 0, and nitrate is between the 10 and 25. This is only day 3 after the fish went into the tank. Nitrite never went above a 0, nitrate never went to a full 25, it's stayed between 10 and 25. Does this mean our tank is already cycled? Could the bacteria packet that came with the tank have been an instant cycle thing?

 

I would test your tap water for nitrates as a tank never cycles in a few days.

 

I would test your tap water for nitrates as a tank never cycles in a few days.

Yeah I didn't think so. What does it mean if there are nitrates in the tap water? Is that a bad thing?

 

Its pretty common due to farm land fertilizer run offs. Mine is high enough that we added in a Reverse Osmosis system for our drinking water. Here in the US the EPA limit is 10 of NO3-N which would equal 45 NO3 on the API Nitrate Test.