Quick Cycle Question.

Hello, just a quick question about my 10g. I have no idea where I am
in the cycle. I set the tank up just over a month ago. I put in a
hand full of gravel, a few cups of water and an ornament from my 55g.
I added food a couple of times just to let it rot in there. I set the
tank up as a hospital tank for my floating Ryukin. Anyway, I didn't
use it and when I went to empty it found my single fry in there. That
was just over 2 weeks ago. Of course he is pooping and food is being
added. I do a 20% water change and gravel vacuum every 2 days. I just
did a water test and the findings were
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 5

I'm sure the tank can't be cycled, or should say I would be shocked if
it was. The water change was done yesterday afternoon.

Any ideas?

Mellie

"Mellie101" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello, just a quick question about my 10g. I have no idea where I am
in the cycle. I set the tank up just over a month ago. I put in a
hand full of gravel, a few cups of water and an ornament from my 55g.
I added food a couple of times just to let it rot in there. I set the
tank up as a hospital tank for my floating Ryukin. Anyway, I didn't
use it and when I went to empty it found my single fry in there. That
was just over 2 weeks ago. Of course he is pooping and food is being
added. I do a 20% water change and gravel vacuum every 2 days. I just
did a water test and the findings were
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 5

I'm sure the tank can't be cycled, or should say I would be shocked if
it was. The water change was done yesterday afternoon.

Any ideas?

Mellie

Once you have an established tank, cycling
another tank is as simple as moving over
some gravel, maybe squeezings from filter
media, etc. Sounds like you did all that.
Test readings say your tank is cycled.

I cycled my first tank using a no-fish method,
took weeks. Cycled every other tank as
above.

Gail

"Mellie101" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm sure the tank can't be cycled, or should say I would be shocked if
it was. The water change was done yesterday afternoon.
=============
The last tank I cycled I simply moved a ripe AC mini to the new tank along
with a few plants and voila!
--
Koi-Lo....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
Aquariums since 1952.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

Mellie101wrote,
I have no idea where I am in the cycle...
I set the tank up just over a month ago...
Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 5 .....

It's cycled, but sounds as though your bacterial colony isn't going to
support much of a bio-load. If your going to use it for a quarantine
tank, you need to put a couple of drops of pure ammonia into the tank
every day. Otherwise the bacteria colony will slowly die (no food). If
you were to sdd a fish or two at this point, your likely to get a mini
spike. Mini, meaning short lived - the ammonia/nitrite level within a
mini spike can get quite high............. Frank

Thanks everybody. I'm going to be using this 10g tank that the fry is
in as a small community tank for some white clouds and neons. Was
thinking of getting some more gravel that is the same as the 55g.
Putting that in the 55g and removing some more of that for the 10g.
That way the 10g will have all 'used gravel in it'. Hoping that having
my fry in there for a couple of months yet will help build up the
bacteria for a neon and white cloud bioload. Thats the one good thing
about having a goldfish, they are soooo dirty.

I'm hoping that if I need to get a hospital tank up and running in an
emergency that i can just squeeze some sponges out and transport some
more gravel.

Still shocked that it happend this quick. Also relieved. My 55g took
5 weeks. Lesson learnt - always have a cycled tank in your house :-)

Cheers
Mellie