# First planted tank/cycling questions



## Statica (24 Sep 2018)

Hey everybody,

I have a 200 litre tank and it's my first planted/soiled tank and I'm a little confused about the cycling process and what I should be looking out for exactly. I hope you don't mind giving some guidance?

I've used ADA Amazonia soil, and I have 6 plants in the tank currently. The plants have grown extremely well in the past 2 weeks. 

Timeline:

6 days ago on the 19th of September I began "officially" cycling the tank by putting in Dr Tim's liquid ammonia and One and Only products. Up until the 23rd of September (yesterday) I have not seen much action, the ammonia may have dropped slightly but was still high, nitrite stayed around 0.5, and the PH had dropped from 7.6 to 6 rather rapidly. This prompted me to do a 25% water chance. A few hours later I did some testing on the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate and got these results:




 

Today (24th of September) I did another test on the PH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Here are the results:



 
Based off the instructions around the Dr Tim's products I've been following, I expected to see no/low ammonia by now, but it doesn't appear to be happening still. I guess ultimately my question is whether a soil-based planted tank is ever going to show 0/0.5 ammonia?

Any advice on my current levels and what I should be doing next?

Any advice would be really helpful, thanks greatly!


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## Seanogleby (24 Sep 2018)

From my understanding 2 weeks is too short to cycle a tank fully, it will need more time.

Have you only done one water change? 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## john dory (24 Sep 2018)

Hi
I don't think many people dose their tanks with ammonia on this site.
The preferred method is to plant heavily and then wait 6/8 weeks.
Assuming your plants are healthy,you can then start to gradually add fish.


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## Tim Harrison (24 Sep 2018)

You don't need to add ammonia, especially if you're using AS, it'll give off more than enough to cycle several tanks. UKAPS has many threads discussing cycling. For starters, perhaps take a look at this and follow Ian's and dw1305's links https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/cycle-guidance.53678/


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## tam (24 Sep 2018)

The soil you have leaches lots of ammonia so you don't need to add extra, it will go down to zero eventually, but it may take 4-6 weeks or so to do it.


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## azawaza (25 Sep 2018)

You just have to wait and be patient. Looks like your tank has started cycling. I would only do water change if the nitrates go too high (>80ppm) but since you have no lifestock (I assume) in there, that’ll be fine.

You may want to do the following to speed up the process:
- dose liquid bacteria in bottle or seed filter with matured biofilter
- dose Seachem Prime (if you have lifestock)
- increase surface agitation (increase O2 for beneficial bacteria to multiply faster)

Just chill and let the cycle completes itself ya.

NB: In the meantime, if you have space and $$$, plant lots of plants; fill the tank up to about at least 50% surface area occupied with plants. Trust me, you’ll thank them later


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## Keith GH (25 Sep 2018)

Statica

I have never used the ADA substrate.
If I could not complete a cycle under 14 days or 7 days depending on the Biofilter medium I used.   Seachem Stability is not actually a live bacteria it becomes when activated by the tank water.  Water changes only 25% way to little I will let Tim give you more info on that.
pH testing a waste of time and testing liquid as it will be all over the place and many keep trying to adjust it only to keep the Cycling process going longer.

Plants I always used cheap floating plants the more the better.

This is what I always post on other Forums .
CYCLING A NEW TANK 

Some call it the biological cycle, the nitrification process, new tank syndrome or even the start-up cycle. They all are referring to the same cycle - The Nitrogen Cycle. This very important cycle is the establishment of beneficial bacteria in the aquarium and in the filter media that will help in the conversion of ammonia to nitrite and then the conversion of nitrite to nitrates. Check out the aquarium water chemistry page (on the left) for more information on these terms. 
This process can take from 2 weeks to 2 months or longer to complete. It is vital for anyone planning on keeping aquarium fish to understand this process. Learning about this process will help you to be successful in keeping fish and it should definitely improve your chances when keeping tropical fish. The best way to monitor the nitrogen cycle is to purchase a high quality test kit that will test for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and ph. 
Test your aquarium water every other day and write down your readings. You will first see ammonia levels rising. A few weeks or so later you should see the nitrite levels rising and the ammonia levels dropping. Finally, after a few more weeks you should see the nitrate levels rising and the nitrite levels dropping. When you no longer detect ammonia or nitrites but you can detect nitrates you can assume that it is safe to add you’re FISH
Nitrogen Cycle Stages

Stage 1
Ammonia is introduced into the aquarium via tropical fish waste and uneaten food. The tropical fish waste and excess food will break down into either ionized ammonium (NH4) or un-ionized ammonia (NH3). Ammonium is not harmful to tropical fish but ammonia is. Whether the material turns into ammonium or ammonia depends on the ph level of the water. If the ph is under 7, you will have ammonium. If the ph is 7 or higher you will have ammonia. 

Stage 2
Soon, bacteria called nitrosamines will develop and they will oxidize the ammonia in the tank, essentially eliminating it. The by-product of ammonia oxidation is Nitrates. So we no longer have ammonia in the tank, but we now have another toxin to deal with - Nitrites. Nitrites are just as toxic to tropical fish as ammonia. If you have a test kit, you should be able to see the nitrite levels rise around the end of the first or second week. 

Stage 3
Bacteria called nitrobacteria will develop and they will convert the nitrites into nitrates. Nitrates are not as harmful to tropical fish as ammonia or nitrites, but nitrate is still harmful in large amounts. The quickest way to rid your aquarium of nitrates is to perform partial water changes. Once your tank is established you will need to monitor your tank water for high nitrate levels and perform partial water changes as necessary. There are other methods to control nitrates in aquariums besides water changes. For freshwater fish tanks, live aquarium plants will use up some of the nitrates. In saltwater fish tanks, live rock and deep sand beds can have anaerobic areas where denitrifying bacteria can breakdown nitrates into harmless nitrogen gas that escapes through the water surface of the aquarium. 

Starting the Nitrogen Cycle Fishless
There are a few different ways to get this process started. To easily get ammonia reading from your tank water try the Seachem Ammonia Alert. It sticks inside the tank and has a circle that changes colour depending on the ammonia levels in the tank. 

1: Using Fish Food
Drop in a few flakes every 12 hours. As the food decomposes it will release ammonia. You will have to continue to "feed" the tank throughout the process to keep it going. 

2: Use a small piece of raw fish or a raw shrimp
Drop a 2 inch by 1 inch chunk of raw fish or a raw shrimp into the tank. As it decomposes it will release ammonia into the tank. 

3: Use 100% pure ammonia.
Using a dropper, add 5 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons of aquarium water. If you don't get an ammonia reading with your test kit, add some more drops until you start to see an ammonia reading. Keep track of how many drops you've used so you can repeat this process daily. Continue to dose the tank with ammonia until you start to get nitrite readings with your test kit. Once you can detect nitrites you should only add 3 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons of aquarium water, or if you added more drops originally to get an ammonia reading cut the amount of drops used in half. Continue this process daily until you get nitrate readings with your test kit. Do 30% water change and your tank is ready. 

4: Use gravel and/or filter media from an established and cycled tank
This is one way to go. This will seed the tank with all of the necessary bacteria for the nitrogen cycle. "Feed" the tank daily with flake food until you are getting nitrate readings. Depending on how fast you were able to get the gravel and filter media into your tank, you may be getting nitrate readings in only a day or two. There are some drawbacks to this method. Ask your source if they have recently used any copper medications in the tank. If they have and you are planning to have invertebrates in the tank you should probably not use this method. Invertebrates will not tolerate copper. Get a copper test kit to determine if it's safe to use. 

Speeding up the Cycling Process Increase the temperature of your aquarium water to 27C-28C 80F-82F 

There are products called Bio Starters on the market today like Sera Nitrivec/Seachem Stability there are also others that do a excellent job in helping to cycle your tank.

Keith


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## Edvet (25 Sep 2018)

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/tank-cycling-a-bit-clueless.54740/#post-535987


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## ian_m (25 Sep 2018)

Please stop following you test kits...this is starting down the path to future issues.

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/what-about-test-kits.52487/

Just leave alone for 8-12 weeks, maybe shorter if planted & water changes and you will be fine, no test kit needed. Stop adding ammonia (your soil will provide) as this, being a strong disinfectant, just tends to wipe out any bacteria that have built up, either stalling or delaying the tank cycling.


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## foxfish (25 Sep 2018)

I am not sure if many folk will want to wait 12 weeks!
Adding dead shrimp or ammonia just seems like going backwards to me, I am more .... add plants, do water changes and wait six weeks, type of guy.


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## tam (25 Sep 2018)

I think the best option is just to have lots tanks  Set mine up, waited 10 days whilst I fussed with plants etc. transferred half the biomedia from an existing tank and then transferred first batch of fish and shrimps. It's a great excuse for more than one and you can move plants, hardscape, water, filter media around and transfer bacteria and healthy actively growing plants in the process or even run new filters on old tanks ahead of new setups.


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## Edvet (25 Sep 2018)

tam said:


> even run new filters on old tanks ahead of new setups.


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## Madhav (26 Sep 2018)

tam said:


> I think the best option is just to have lots tanks


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