Started a 75 gallon aquarium 5 days ago. After the 4th daytime i added 6 danios. How long should i permit it cycle?
I am feeding the danios 1 time a day. To keep ammonia level down. They started to spike the day after adding them and i did about a 40% wet change. They seem to be doing fine.
ok i no ethnic group wont agree with this i have 4 tanks right presently a 125 gallon a 55 gallon a 10 gallon and a what ithink to be a 40 gallon and i tihnk i may have used cycle in one of them to me it dont do much i use baking soda (to up the PH much cheaper way!!) and aquarium salt( purifies the water) so idk but next to the stuff i use its used with fish in the tank adjectives the time and within the past 6 months i've lost 2 fish i lose a sunny i had cuzz i deduce my fish killed him and a needle nose gar (cool fish) cuzz he didnt wanna guzzle ithink he was sick so this way to me works
If this is your first and only aquarium, afterwards you have a long way to go earlier your tank will be finished cycling. If you have your own test tools for freshwater ammonia and nitrite, then you will have to wait until your ammonia even goes up and then comes down to zero ppm and next you will see the nitrite level go way up and come down. There should be some overlap between the ammonia and nitrite spikes because the ammonia will be converted into nitrite which is how the phase 2 germs get started. If you keep doing water change at this point, you are only delaying the completion of your cycling stages. Danios are hardy enough to resist gradual increases in ammonia and nitrite throughout the entire cycling process so do not do any more water changes until the cycling process is completed.
When you first started up your reservoir, your water had zero ppm of ammonia or nitrite. You added the 6 danios and they begin to excrete or exhale ammonia into the water. As the level of ammonia climbs from 1 ppm to 2 ppm to 3 ppm, etc. your danios are gradually adapt to the slow accumulation which is ok. If you added another 3 danios when the ammonia level is at 10 ppm, these new fish will be shocked by the sudden fine-tuning in water quality but the dated fish will be fine. That is why you need to monitor and test your water. Adding any investigational fish before your tank has finished cycling will shock the untried fish, leaving them vulnerable to diseases which they can pass onto your innovative fish.
Since most people start out with a 10 gallon or 20 gallon tank, they will see the ammonia and nitrite level go up and down faster since the ppms will build up faster in the smaller tank capacity. In your 75 gallon tank with only 6 danios, you may not see ppms above 10 which is better for the fish but your danios can withstand up to 15 ppm as long as the relocate is gradual. Smaller tanks may take a month to complete the cycling process but surrounded by your larger tank it may take 2 months or more.
There are two things you can do to speed things up. First, if you enjoy another tank or a friend with a tank that have cycled, swap or borrow the outside power filters for a month or two. Size of the filter is not important as this is one and only a temporary swap. If the filter's happen to have alike size filter pads, all you really need is the elder pad. It's the nitrifying bacteria on the filter pad that will instantly provide you beside millions and millions of both ammonia converting and nitrite converting bacteria. Your fish will not have to experience any rise in these chemicals and the microbes on the pads will migrate into the aquarium and populate your gravel bed.
2nd, if you see any milky white cloudiness in your aquarium hose down, this will be from the nitrifying bacteria blooming. This is a good thing and will not hurt your fish as long as nearby is plenty of diffused oxygen in the water. In less than a week the microbes will finish blooming and they will settle down into the gravel bed where they will live happily ever after. The water will clear up on it's own and your cistern will be cycled. If you change the water when it is cloudy, you will be removing the bacteria you are trying to grow. In your 75 gallon container, it is possible you may not see a bacterial bloom at all, since it takes a lot of germs suspended in the water to become visible. This is why you will want to keep doing water tests, in the region of once a week until the nitrite level spikes and then comes down to zero ppm.
Feed your danios twice a afternoon instead of just once but make sure they guzzle all the food you give them. If there is any food floating around the container after 3 minutes, you've given them too much. It's always better to feed fish more times but less food at respectively feeding. Space the feedings at least 2 hours apart and they will be able to metabolize the food properly.
Answers: You have made a severely common mistake, ideally you should have used the fishless cycling method in your container. Ammonia and Nitrite can kill even hardy fish like Danios. I wouldn't recommend feeding them at adjectives whilst these toxins are present in the water. You will need to transport out several large water changes to hang on to the Ammonia and Nitrite levels down to 0ppm.
Also I have an article on fishless cycling which can be found here: http://www.ocean-wonders.co.uk/messagebo...
Test the ammonia and nitrite until both of them are 0
