Cycled or Not?

[materbona]

I've read all the cycling information. I had plain dechlorinated water in the tank for several weeks. No live plants or anything. Plenty of aeration. I bought Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride and followed directions. After a couple of times adding every few days I finally got an ammonia reading around 1.0. Meantime I had already added an old biomax bag from another aquarium as well as a sponge behind the filter pad. After I got the ammonia reading I poured the sludge from cleaning my other filters into the filter. Today I checked again. No ammonia or nitrite. Nitrate is maybe 5.0. The ph is a little high at around 8. So this tank has been empty for about 6 weeks. I started with the ammonia about 4 weeks ago. How will I ever know if/when it is cycled? I had the old filter media in there from the beginning (behind the charcoal filter pad) and added the sludge a few days ago? Any feedback would be helpful? Thanks--Shirley:sconfused: PS--I need to top off the water level again. I have been using Prime--is that okay?

[madagascariensis]

Cycling is acquiring bacteria in order to convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate. You put in some old filter media loaded with bacteria and as a result, all ammonia is gone and you have nitrate. By putting in filter media from another tank, you have essentially instantly cycled the tank. Now add more ammonia or add fish in order to prevent the Bacteria from starving as they already have used up all the ammonia.
By the ways, the method of cycling you are doing is only necessary when you are cycling the first time. After you have at least one established tank, to start a new tank you simply have to transfer some media and that is it.

[materbona]

By transfer some media, do you need old filter pads or just gunk from washing out other filters? Thanks so much for replying to me. I think that I probably always had bacteria since I added the biomax, sponge, and finally gunk.:thankyouyellow:

[madagascariensis]

pretty much anything. bacteria grows with abandon on all surfaces. old filter gunk has lots just as well as filter media. I always try transferring media because using filter gunk will raise the nitrate level in the new tank faster meaning that your first water change will be sooner, but if transferring media is not possible somehow then I just grab a mature sponge and squeeze it in the new tank. the filter in the new tank will soon pick up the sediment and bacteria in the water