How long fish tank cycle

There are several ways to cycle an aquarium, and some are easier than others. Based on our experiences of successfully running hundreds of fish tanks, here are the methods that have worked well for us:. This approach is the most common, used by both beginner and veteran fish keepers alike.

Most people cannot watch an empty aquarium for several weeks or months, hoping that beneficial bacteria are actually growing. So, here are a few tips to help you get started on the right foot:. A water test kit helps you determine if there are toxic levels of nitrogen compounds in the aquarium. This method is our favorite because it truly transforms your aquarium into a natural ecosystem, both biologically and visually. Rather than setting up a bare tank with very little to no fish, you can immediately add live aquarium plants and then focus on growing them with good lighting, substrate, and fertilizers.

In fact, according to microbiologist Diana Walstad , aquatic plants consume nitrogen waste even more effectively than bacteria. All the more reason to go for a planted tank! That said, the leaves and roots of the plants will contribute some beneficial bacteria, but you can add even more using the tips mentioned above. Once the plants or algae show new growth, the cycle is complete.

If, after six to eight weeks of cycling, your ammonia and nitrite levels aren't satisfactory well, zero , you need to trouble shoot your situation.

You should not need to use any chemical to stop unwanted increases in ammonia levels. Your biological filter should take care of that for you. If you have ammonia problems or see signs of ammonia stress after the tank has cycled, then your tank is overpopulated , under- filtered or overfed.

Ammonia in the tank is a sign of a problem, not something that is easily treated with a chemical. Use of a chemical to remove ammonia will very often result in starvation of your biological filter leading to more ammonia problems and meaning that you will need to cycle the tank again. Remember, if your ammonia levels are high, you need to treat the problem that is causing the high ammonia levels, not the ammonia itself, which is just a symptom. I recommend against using a bacteria booster or any kind of chemical when cycling your tank.

These tend to leave you with a less stable tank in the long run. A tank cycled slowly and carefully with a few fish will usually cycle in six to eight weeks.

A tank cycled with a bacteria booster or chemical supplements will take between two days and eight months to cycle, usually completing the cycle at about eight weeks, and these tanks usually do not stabilize for about six months after the last treatment.

Do Aquarium Plants Absorb Ammonia? The nitrogen cycle process of your aquarium can slow down or even stop if the pH of the water of your aquarium is below 7! If you noticed that the pH of the water in your tank is lower than 7 then there are a few ways to increase to easily increase the pH of the water of your aquarium. During the cycling process, you may be using different ammonia sources like fish food or pure ammonia or in the fish-in cycling the fish waste. These sources release ammonia as well as other pollutants in your aquarium which lowers the pH of the water in your tank.

The pH of the water decreases if the water in your aquarium contains a very concentrated amount of carbon dioxide. Increasing dissolved oxygen in the tank can help to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide and so carbonic acid which will help increase the pH level in your tank. There are several ways to increase oxygen levels in your tank. You can introduce an air pump in your tank. The air pump will produce bubbles in your tank which will disturb the surface of the water of your tank.

As gas exchange happens on the surface of the water of your tank, the Oxygen will get dissolved in your aquarium water. And carbon dioxide will get released into the air which will help to increase the pH of the water in your tank.

This method is quite popular, common, and simple to cycle your tank instantly. If you already have an established tank then you can simply pull out the filter media from the established tank and add it into the filter your newly setup tank.

For example, if you have a sponge filter in your established tank then you can remove the sponge from the filter of the established tank and replace it with a new one. If you have a hang on the back filter in your established tank then you can pull out the filter floss from the filter of the established tank. And put it inside a new filter which you are going to use in your new tank and then fix the filter in your new tank.

Or if you have a hang on the back filter in your established tank and you want to use a sponge filter in your new tank. Then you can pull out the filter floss from the filter of the established tank and put it between the sponge filter and the glass of the new tank. This will seed the beneficial bacteria into the sponge filter.

If you have two filters in your established tank then you can simply pull out one of the filters and add it to your new tank. The basic ideology behind this method is you are pulling out the filter or the filter media from an established tank that has already a lot of beneficial bacteria and putting it in your new tank.

And should I do another water change to get nitrites down further or just wait a bit and see if this kickstarts the nitrates growth again? It explains that the ammonia is being converted as usual. This way you can see what is actually happening in your tank. I wanted to get nitrites down to readable. Finally did get to 2. My readings tonight are ammonia 0, nitrites still high at either 2 or greater than 5, and nitrates at 40 or 80 Those two shades of purple and red are so close its hard to tell, but nitrates definitely are up finally!

I dosed with ammonia again like usual. Now do I just wait and hope those nitrites start to drop? That must be a relief.

But before long you should see some downward movement on the nitrites. This is normal. If your nitrites or nitrates exceed the chart again, use another water change to bring them down.

Hi Ian, So my mitrates seem to be rising slowly, the red is darker today than it was three days ago. Nitrites seem to be rising still or at least the same, purple is darkest on chart. Like you said though, it may take a bit for the nitrites to peak and drop. My question is should I be dosing with ammonia every day?

But is dosing every day what is making my nitrites go so high? Never higher. I guess if real fish were in there, they would be emmitting ammonia daily as well so it should in theory be ok right? In your instructions, it says not to dose daily until nitrites are as low as ammonia, but my ammonia had been going to zero daily for quite some time. So I was a bit confused as to what I should be doing.

All of this sounds perfectly normal. The second bacteria will establish itself to a point where it can eat all the nitrite in your tank. I can see where you got confused in the instructions. Well, day 31 and we are finally cycled!! Nitrites hugely dropped yesterday and today Ammonia and nitrites are both reading zero. So tonight I will add a full dose of ammonia, and if tomorrow its all at zero again, is that the time to do a big water change and add fish?

So exciting???? I wondered your opinion, if I have been keeping the tank dosed at between ppm ammonia, how many fish do you think I should start with? We were thinking neons and guppies to start. That was an effort! It will be worth it. Neon tetra are a schooling fish, so minimum size number is 6 although more is better you could do 10 or so and 3 guppies?

It never hurts to ask the place you are buying them from for a second opinion. Just make sure you stay on top of your water maintenance and testing. Just make sure that your nitrates are way down, as while these are harmless in small amounts, then can prove to be toxic if they get out of hand.

Also, I just want to confirm your tank has a filter and heater? Thank you for the advice about the fish! I had a question about pH. My tap pH is 6.

But it seems to rise quite high once in the tank, up to 7. Then it tends to steadily slowly decline. Today its down to 7. I know there are a lot of factors that could be at play and pH could fluctuate even in 24 hours up and down. How do I keep it stable? Why does it go so high after being in the tank? It is just from all the chemical processes going on?

Will it harm the fish if that happens when they are in there? You are probably sick of hearing about the dangers of fish they are darn sensitive but pH swings can be serious. Because pH is measured logarithmically, a pH of 6 is 10 x more acidic than a ph of 7.

A ph of 5 is x more acidic than a pH of 7, and so on. So while the change in numbers might seem small, the change in pH is hugely noticeable to your fish. It sounds to me like your water might also have a low KH, which helps prevent pH swings. Hi Ian: Thanks for all this great info. I really appreciate it! I added enough ammonia in the beginning to get about 2ppm. Also, what is the ammonia reading since the water change — the water change should have diluted the ammonia levels.

I have personally used this amount for my nephews tank. Something else is amiss that is preventing your beneficial bacteria from establishing. Unfortunately, given the limited information you have provided, narrowing down the exact cause will be difficult. I generally reply to comments once a day so if you need a faster response I highly recommend posting your question in one of these friendly online communities with the information I asked for included, you may find someone has experienced the exact same problem as you and can give a quick solution.

Ammonia is 1. I did de-chlorinate the water before I put it in, and all water I add The tank has 2 fake plants, one fake driftwood piece, 1 ornament, larger gravel looks like little stones , a heater, and the filter.

Thanks again for helping! Even so, I would have expected at least some of that 1. Based on the information provided, I cannot see anything wrong here. Unfortunately, when something does go wrong, you just need to keep narrowing things down until you find the problem.

I put more ammonia in the tank to bring it up to 2. This morning my ammonia is reading. My ph is 7. I put in a half dose of ammonia, per your instructions in the article, and will test each day to see when the nitrites drop and continue to follow your directions. The reason I have it in the 3 gallon tank is that I have lost a few fish because a pet store sold me a fish that turned out to have ich after a few days. Of course the other 2 I already had got it too, and the 10 gallon tank was infected with it.

So now I want to put new fish in this smaller tank for a couple of weeks to make sure they are healthy before putting them into the bigger tank. I did empty and clean out the infected tank before trying to cycle it.

One last question, Will the small tank ever be cycled? Thanks again for your help! If you have somewhere for the beneficial bacteria to live, you can cycle a tank that small.

The beneficial bacteria will adapt to the amount of waste your fish produces. A single fish should be fine, but even so, it is recommended you keep an eye on your water parameters for the first week, just to make sure everything is Ay-okay. After that, you can reduce testing to your maintenance schedule. The nitrates went from 5 to in 2 days. Yesterday I put in a half dose of ammonia and it read zero today, with the nitrites still at 2 and the nitrates at The directions say when the nitrates show up you should add a half dose of ammonia every few days to keep it at 1.

Since my ammonia is 0, should I add the half dose every day now? Also, about my 3 gallon tank. The ammonia reads. So every day I put in one dose of Prime. Should I be doing any water changes at this point, and is having ammonia at. As always, I really appreciate your help. Your directions and explanation of the process are the best available on the internet! This should get them back down to Make sure you dose back up with ammonia!

The reason I suggest this is so that you can see exactly what is happening in your tank. As it currently stands, we do not know if your nitrites are still being converted to nitrates. Getting them back down to readable levels will help determine where the bottle neck is.

If the nitrites are remaining at 2 but nitrates keep growing, then it should just be a matter of more time. As for the 3 gallon, your fish should be producing enough waste to have at least started the cycle by now. Is there any nitrates in the tank? There is even a possibility that your tank has already cycled — Seachem Prime converts ammonia harmful into ammonium harmless. The problem is that this ammonium can still be picked up by test kits as ammonia.

If you are reading nitrates, but no nitrites then this tank is cycled. You can confirm this by waiting 72 hours and retesting for ammonia. Fingers crossed that this is the case!

My readings are now at 0 ammonia, 2 nitrites, and 5 nitrates. Do I just keep daily dosing the ammonia and wait for the nitrites to go down? And my 3 gallon tank continues to be stubborn. Ammonia at. If all other water parameters are correct, there is nothing left to do but keep doing what you are doing and wait. Please update me in days with what is happening! This morning my 10 gallon tank readings were ppml ammonia, 5 nitrates and.

The ammonia stayed at 0 for a while but rose to 1 for a couple of days and now 2. At one point the ammonia was 0 and the nitrites were. Then the readings started going up and down. How much and how often do you think I should be putting in ammonia now? Also, my 3 gallon tank sometimes reads 1 and sometimes reads 2 ammonia. Still no nitrates or nitrites. Have been putting in 1 or 2 doses of Prime every day and the fish seems fine. Seems like there should be nitrites by now.

And one more question, please. My son has 1 betta in a 3 gallon tank just like mine. The ammonia is almost always 4 ppm, sometimes even 8. He puts the appropriate number of doses of Prime in every day. I just wondered if this amount of ammonia is normal for a betta. He does water changes, but maybe not often enough?

My single fish never makes that much ammonia. What is the pH and temp of the two tanks? Are you monitoring this as well? I still recommend keeping ammonia up at 1 ppm with a daily top up if it drops under until nitrites are 0. Are you able to get someone else to confirm your tests? Regarding your sons tank, IMO a 3 gallon is too small for a betta and without constant water changes, waste is going to build up quickly regardless.

Another possibility is that your son is over feeding. The more food, the more poop, the more ammonia. Thanks, Ian. I hope we can get to the bottom of this mystery. It would be great if you can return home to a cycled tank! Thanks…that would be great! But now I have another problem. Apparently the platy in the small tank has had babies…. So he put her in a temporary VERY small just for transit,etc by herself.

I told him to watch her to see if she has more babies. Should we put her in the big tank alone and dose it with the appropriate amount of prime until it finishes cycling? Are you able to take the fish to a pet store in the mean time? If I wanted to try to keep them, would I need to do anything special for them? Well my son went out and bought a 5 gallon tank to put Izzy in the mother.

We were afraid to put her back in the 3 gallon tank with the babies since she looked like she was trying to eat them. It would take a lot of Prime every day. That is, of course if any of them survive. But my son did the best he could to make sure the temperature in the new tank was the same as the small transport box, and treated it with Prime.

It has a heater and filter too. She has hung in there with me for 7 weeks in an uncycled tank so it will break my heart if we lose her. I really appreciate all your help and advice! It was a good move to separate them. I hear what you are saying, the whole process has been quite an ordeal for you and it would be amazing if she pulls through.

I have my fingers crossed for you. It sounds like, given the circumstances, your son has done as well as he could. Hats off to him. How did he go re-testing your aquarium to confirm the bouncing nitrates? At the end of the day, this is the biggest issue, the lack of a cycled tank to place your fish in. It would be great to see some progress here.

He fed the babies flakes this morning that were extra ground up and he said he thinks one or two of them ate a bit. Do they usually figure out eating pretty quickly? Should we feed them a couple of times a day?

We were worried about the filter sucking them up, so after looking online we decided to take a fish net, cut it, wrap it around the opening and secure with a rubber band. Hope that will work as long as we need it to. He was doing the testing yesterday when he discovered the babies, so we both panicked and he stopped testing to go to the pet store for the 5 gallon tank once he saw Izzy try to eat them and we figured out what we should do.

What do you think about all the readings? His betta was 4 on the ammonia again, I told him to do water changes more often. The plan is now to move the betta into the 5 gallon when Izzy can finally go into the 10 gallon.

Platy fry will eat the same food as their parents, so he more than likely did see them eat. Twice a day feeding should be fine, you need to remember that any uneaten food and there will be lots with fry can affect water quality, which is already balancing on a knife with your fish-in cycle.

Any pieces of uneaten food that can be scooped out after feeding is a good thing. For readings I generally recommend creating a spreadsheet and adding the daily readings, so you can see exactly what each parameter is doing. There are plenty of free apps that will also do this. For this many tanks, it might be a good idea, making it easier to keep tabs.

Adding so many tanks into the mix is making it difficult for me to keep up, although I have double checked my advice based on the comments and I believe we are on the same page. For the 10 gallon, a pH of 6 is acidic to the point where it can prevent growth if not downright kill the types of beneficial bacteria present in aquarium filters. We want to ideally keep the pH at 7 or higher. Perform a water change and re-test pH and all other parameters.

I also want to confirm you are not using seachem prime in the empty 10 gal tank. A snap shot of the other tanks, everything sounds normal. I know this is hard while you are away from everything but hopefully we can finalize all this when you get back? Thanks for your reply. I thought the same thing about the 3 gallon. Over 7 weeks and not a single nitrite has shown up. But since it was 4 today I told him not to put any in. My son is graduating from college in the spring with a degree in Business Analytics and a minor in Computer Science.

One thing I thought about the 10 gallon tank. So the empty tank was without a heater all night. The water cooled to about 72 overnight. Would that hurt the bacteria and cause the ammonia to go up overnight from 2 to 4? Izzy the mother in her private 5 gallon tank and her babies in the 3 gallon tank are all still kicking and seem to be doing well! They are a week old today. Their ammonia is 1 every day, and I put 1 dose of Prime in daily. I guess I should do another one.

The temp is There was actually 1 nitrite yesterday, so hopefully the end is near! Do you think I need to do anything different? For the 10 gallon, Are the nitrates increasing? The nitrates have been 5 for the last 4 days, and 1 for the 3 days before that. So they have gone up but not in the last few days. Is it the water from your water change that raised the Nitrates to 5? Just something to be mindful of. I was just reading online.

Is that a good thing to do? Baking soda raises both pH and KH. If you are adding it to tanks with fish, go slooooooow. Add a bit, wait, test and repeat. I looked at the spreadsheet and the nitrates actually went up from 1 to 5 the day before my water change. I was thinking of putting baking soda in the empty 10 gallon tank to try to raise the PH in hopes of moving the cycling along faster. Increasing the pH to an appropriate level should noticeably improve the speed that the tank cycles.

Please let me know how it goes. I read over your article again. Is that correct? What you read is correct. Nitrites are supposed to spike before the second bacteria grows in number to accommodate the nitrites being produced by the first bacteria. As long as you are providing a consistent source of ammonia, they will balance themselves relative to this input.

You just have to wait. Make sure you keep an eye on the pH, as it will decrease over time. Nitrites and nitrates are acidic. Water change or add more baking soda as needed. Over the next few days pay attention to what is happening with the nitrites and nitrates, one of the two or both will go up.

This is a good thing, and means you are back on track. To help with testing, view the tests outside in daylight, in the middle of the day. It will allow you to better observe the actual color against the chart. Thanks Ian, I needed that pep talk! I really want to have Izzy and eventually her babies in the big tank so I can start enjoying them. I will keep testing and watching and let you know how it goes. I sincerely appreciate the information and advice you provide here.

My 10 gallon tank is finally cycled! Now all I have to do is a water change for the nitrates I did want to ask about transferring my fish from the 5 gallon tank to the 10 gallon one.

I think you said one fish would be ok to keep the bacteria going, correct? Even though her readings are zero ammonia and zero nitrites every day in her 5 gallon tank? Just want to make sure. And as I understand it, the amount of bacteria will adjust as I gradually add more fish, correct?

Also, the 3 gallon that the babies are in. And it has never shown any nitrites or nitrates. The PH is very bad. It worked very well to raise the PH in the empty 10 gallon tank. The 3 gallon tank has a small heater, but with no settings. It keeps it at about degrees. I would like to keep trying to cycle this tank to use to put new fish in for a week or two before putting in the big tank. A single fish, such as a betta, will easily keep the beneficial bacteria going. In which case you can acclimatize your fish the same way you would when you buy them from the store.

Based on what you have told me, I would say the pH is more of an issue, going off how the cycle completed once you rectified the pH in your 10 gallon. It seems plausible this tank is having the same issues with the pH of 6 and it will need to be raised in order to cycle. I read over your KH guide. I guess I should go ahead and order the test kit. Aquarium water generally becomes more acidic over time — even if you have not made any changes.