Fishless Cycle 10 Gallon Update

**Shidohari** · 12-14-2012, 08:17 AM

Here are this morning's numbers from the 10 gallon fishless cycle...

AMMO .5 (due to some leftover rotting leaves from the crypto melt after the bleach solution bath i'm pretty sure)

NITRITES ZERO (finally)

NITRATES didn't bother checking because we all know they're high...

Temperture currently 83.7 (bumped it up two days ago from 78.4 and it gave it what it needed)

Now i could probably find some shrimp to stock in this tank as far as the red crystal ones at the lfs i trust, but not the ember tetras. I could always check with the fourth of my lfs to see if they have them.

Should i do a 90 percent WC on this tank and then keep dosing with ammonia. I can check my LFS stores this evening and see if i can find anything after i get off work. I will be looking for ember tetras. Neons and cardinals i know at least one of my LFS stores carry them.

What do you think. Also if you advice me to wait...four drops of ammo daily gave me a ready of .5 should i keep dosing with that if you tell me to hold off? The ammo in there is a constant reading i've had for the last two to three days, so don't think i'd need to dose unless it drops to zero.

Thoughts? Comments?

**Honey Badger 1** · 12-14-2012, 12:23 PM

I think you should wait till that ammonia drops to 0ppm and be sure both the ammonia and nitrites stay at 0ppm for at least 24 hours after re-dosing with ammonia before you call the tank cycled.

**Shidohari** · 12-14-2012, 12:43 PM

perfect thank you. I will keep an eye on both for another week or so. thank you for the advise. also saved me from getting fish i wasn't ready for yet...

(only 3 oto cats left) i know one died from stress the other may have two, because it was curled up a little bit floating on the top of the tank water this morning)

**Shidohari** · 12-25-2012, 01:20 PM

Today I took readings on the ten gallon fishless cycle.

This is about a week after i found out that my first try at this probably failed and am following fishmommie's advice. Also on the first try of fishless cycle i think i OD the initial dose of ammo which is another part of the reason the first try failed.

This morning's readings:

Ammo: .25
NitrItes: .25

I will be checking my ammo this evening to see if falls to Zero since it's only at a straight .25 now. I will not dose if i has not fallen to Zero this evening.

I also have that brown algae growing in my fishless cycle tank on the 'rock cave' decoration i bought from one of my local LFS stores. The one that is supposed to grow on things during cycling.

Hope everyone is having a merry Christmas.