The lack of nitrates makes it questionable. Typically, you see nitrates in a cycled tank unless it’s very heavily planted.
The nitrate test can be a little tricky, though, particularly bottle #2. You have to shake it VIGOROUSLY for at least 30 seconds. I literally bang mine on the edge of a counter. You also have to shake the nitrate vial vigorously for about 60 seconds after adding the second solution. Not following these steps can cause a false reading of 0 nitrates. Any chance you may not have shaken it hard/long enough?
It’s possible you are cycled even if you truly have 0 nitrates. I’d keep testing daily for a bit to be on the safe side, but the lack of ammonia and nitrite are great signs.
I’ve got 9 tetras in a 10 gallon tank. I did not cycle the tank before I added fish (I’m new). At this point it’s been about 3 weeks of feeding and water changes. Do these test results suggest that the tank is cycled?
Judging by your ammonia and nitrates, or lack thereof, it would appear so. It does seem somewhat odd that you have 0 nitrates as well though.
Given the number of fish, volume of water, and small amount of plants, I wouldn't expect there to be no nitrates at all. But I've never had moneywort and maybe it's absorbing all the excess nitrate?
Have you ever seen ammonia or nitrite when you've done testing?
Something similar happened to me when I didn’t shake the test after the nitrate bottle #1 drops. It stayed yellow. Also make sure your really shaking bottle 2 / possibly bang it once or twice on the counter.
Gotcha. Well being that you've had fish in the tank the whole time it's impossible you didn't have any ammonia in the beginning. So given that you're testing 0 now is great. Same with 0 nitrite.
I would personally test daily for another couple weeks to make sure you don't get any kind of spike or cycle crash. It appears whatever you're doing is working well so don't make any drastic changes and you should be golden!
Yes. When ammonia and nitrite reads zero when fish-in cycling, and is not due (solely) to water changes, then yes, your tank is cycled, for the current bioload.
I don't think you can say if a tank is cycled by having 0 waste, what I do is just let them run for a few weeks also about tetras 10 gal is pretty small for them especially 9 it's just kinda a myth that tetras should go into 10 gal I think the minimum should be slightly higher they really love to swim around so I'm not sure that's exactly the best stocking choice and what tetras do you have?
Oh god that's even worse. So basically I'm not talking about waste I'm talking about that the tetras need a lot of space to swim, they also need a school of 6 fish of specifically one species you can't just have 3 fish of 3 different species as one school and if you want multiple different schools you need a REALLY big tank, all tetras are very social and need to be in a group. My advice is you return all those tetras and get a school of some true nano schooling fish like 12-16 chili rasboras. Also tetras produce barely any waste that's why your tank has nothing but they just need space to swim.
Hope this helps
Tetras can shoal with different tetra species. They can also be perfectly happy in smaller groups. A bigger tank would certainly be *better*, but I think OP can do just fine with what they have.
Thanks for that feedback! We bought the 10 gallon for my daughter for Christmas and the whole family has fallen in love with fish! We’ve already bought a 55 gallon that these guys will go into. I just want to understand what I’m doing a bit better before committing to the $200 tank/setup.
Right you can just ignore all the advice and just do with the guy that complimented you sure but listen what I'm saying is you should not put so many different tetra species they just really should be in a group of 6 while they will sometimes swim together that's probably because they just don't have their own school. The tank size isn't like the smallest tank ever but it is pretty small for tetras. When you do get the 55 gal they're gonna have a really good amount of space but just don't get 3 of like 9 tetra species stick to 1-3 bigger schools
So please for the love of god listen to that one thing about schools
I have a group of 4 glowlight tetras and 5 brass tetras. When stressed (the only time fish school anyways) they will stick in one clump. For regular shoaling, they mix up anyways. I also have two Buenos Aires tetras (rescue fish... didn't buy them), also perfectly happy just being the two of them. Brilliant color, very healthy behavior in my 40 breeder. Anecdotal, but I agree with the other guy regarding tetra schools. You absolutely do not need 6 of each species for them to be happy.
The schooling thing isn't exclusively from stress it's just that they don't school if they have a small group in a smaller tank but I have 7 neons in 14.6 gal and they aren't stressed at all and they swim together most of the time and I'm not saying it's impossible to make a tetra survive without a 6 member school but if you don't care about your pets wellbeing then sure
Edit: you're mixing up with keeping your fish alive and making your fish thrive and happy
While they do swim together sometimes they need to have that social time with others of their species you just shouldn't do what OP did if you care about their wellbeing but whatever. About tank size I just said it's on the smaller side for tetras and that they love to swim
Look up some videos about the nitrogen cycle on YouTube. KG tropicals and aquarium co-op are two of my favorite channels. They are super informative and explain everything you need to know about cycling.
Honestly I think I’ve watched them all. I understand the concept (I think) I just don’t know how to know if it’s happened. I’ve got ammonia from waste and food, it’s been a few weeks and my test results are what I shared above.
To oversimplify a bit:
Without an established 'nitrifying' system, if your aquarium has creatures in it who excrete ammonia (or die and decompose), that ammonia will build up to levels where it's toxic.
Happily, nature... uh... finds a way.
Bacteria (and archaea) naturally present in the environment will colonize an aquarium with ammonia in it and establish themselves to exploit it. The first to move in will oxidize ammonia to create nitrites. Later arrivals will love that nitrite and turn it into nitrate.
Of course, now you have a nitrate buildup, but it takes a lot more nitrate to be toxic. Plants (and algae) love nitrate, and will consume it. Water changes will export it.
So how do you establish this nitrogen cycle so your tank is ready for fish? The process generally takes some weeks, depending on method. It always needs the presence of ammonia to start it, so you have to 'seed' it somehow:
- you can add a 'hardy fish'. It'll wee and poo ammonia. This implies that the poor thing is going to have to survive immersion in ammonia until the cycle starts. It may, of course, become the next option...
- without fish in there, add some dead creature and let it decompose. A cocktail prawn is a popular option. Fish food (which often contains dead meat) can work too.
- without fish in there, add ammonia. You need a product without detergent or perfume. Or, I suppose, you could wee in the tank yourself.
You can add bottled bacteria to kick things off, and that might help, but you will get them free from nature, and, either way, they won't establish until conditions are right.
So how do you know if your aquarium has an established cycle?
You need a testing kit.
You'll need one anyway for troubleshooting your tank in the normal scheme of things. You'll want to be able to test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as a minimum. It's also useful to know about pH, general hardness (dkh), and other parameters, too. Test strips are convenient, kits with liquids and chemicals to add to a sample are generally more accurate.
Test daily from when you 'seed' your cycle. It's helpful to graph the readings.
After a while, you'll see ammonia start to rise, peak, and then start to fall as nitrites start to rise. Then nitrates will rise as ammonia and nitrites fall away. These three peaks will overlap each other somewhat. You're watching evidence of those nitrifying bacteria establishing themselves and going to work.
Time, even time with fish in your tank, isn't enough to be sure that the cycle has established. There may be things in your tank (such as accidental antibacterial substances) that slow or stop that process. That's why you want proof, and testing kits are a ready way of getting proof.
Once you have seen the cycle establish (or if you missed that step), you can prove it before adding fish by adding a small amount of ammonia (say 2ppm), and using your test kit to watch it become nitrites and then nitrates over a day or two. If your tank can do that it's good to handle fish.
It's wise to stock gradually, so your nitrifying colonies can expand to handle the increasing load.
--------------
There has been talk of Prime. Prime will detoxify ammonia quickly and for a while (around 48hrs). Great in an emergency, but probably won't be useful for the time it takes to establish a cycle (I wonder, even, if it would slow down that establishment?). It also neutralises chlorine and chloramine in tap water that you use to fill your tank and do water changes (chlorine will evaporate after a while, which is why we set water change water out to sit overnight, chloramine won't) - so also great as part of your regular maintenance regime - even essential, depending on how your water company treats the water.
Seachem Equilibrium raises the mineral content of the water in your aquarium. Can be useful if your levels are low a) because plants and creatures may require it and b) because it 'buffers' - i.e. smooths out - fluctuations in pH levels thereby reducing the chances of their spiralling out of control. Only tangentially relevant in the case of ammonia, because ammonia toxicity increases with pH.
I hope some of that is helpful.
If there’s no fish in there, put some ammonia in there (like 2ppm or something low) and test it after 24 hours. If the ammonia is gone an the nitrites that should be produced are also gone, you will either have nitrates or maybe not if the plants consume them all.
If either ammonia or nitrites show up in the tests after 24 hours the cycle is not complete.
Your tank is not cycled. Are you dosing with prime? That would make the reading show as 0 which is fine just something to be aware of. Also do you have carbon in your filter?
Can you help me understand how you know it’s not cycled? I believe you I just don’t understand.
I’ve been using TopFin nitrifying starter bacteria. Is that same as “dosing with prime”?
the lack of nitrates is how you know it’s not cycled. Established tanks, even planted wastlad tanks, are going to show nitrate readings
Nitrifying bacteria, even seachems, is mostly a scam. The only way to speed up a cycle is by seeding it with established filter media.
Even in a newly cycling tank, you need to be seeing *something* in your readings. How often and how big of water changes are you doing? Also what filter/filter media are you using
Again, you are saying something untrue. Nitrate can certainly be zero in an aquarium. Plants can deplete it down to zero, and indeed people at times have to supplement nitrate to keep their plants alive.
Yeah. I had a 10 gal that I was heavily feeding before, it temporarily housed quite a few cichlids. Nitrate was rising pretty steadily until a single lonely pothos started taking root and doing well. Then bam, zero nitrate. From one pothos. In a heavily fed tank.
I’ve probably watched 10 hours on YouTube about this and your comment has been the single most helpful piece of info for me. Thank you.
I did a 20% water change on Saturday. I’m just using a topfin filter and cartridge.
Can I recommend not using the filter cartridge. These will get clogged quickly and require replacement, this is something you don’t want to do as it could possibly crash your cycle by removing the cartridge you remove your nitrifying bacteria or atleast some of it. I always used two sponges dollar store sponges and some filter floss over top, this way I can replace pieces of my filter instead of removing all of the bacteria at once doing a cartridge change. They’re also pretty expensive to have to keep replenishing.
Uhh...
I tried cycling my tank for a month and a half.
Added 5 neos, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 amano shrimp, 1 bn pleco.
Nitrite spiked to 1+ despite low bioload and wouldn't go down. Did a ridiculous amount of water changes, tbh my shrimp probably shouldn't have survived but did.
Fritzyme 7 made nitrites start lowering within 2 days, with nitrates going up a bit.
0 chance that bottled bacteria is a scam.
Though I'd believe you that seachems is a scam, considering Prime, which you recommended, does not lower ammonia like it claims.
I'm curious how you have 0 ppm of nitrates. What plants do you have?
I have a small cluster of moneywort.
The lack of nitrates makes it questionable. Typically, you see nitrates in a cycled tank unless it’s very heavily planted. The nitrate test can be a little tricky, though, particularly bottle #2. You have to shake it VIGOROUSLY for at least 30 seconds. I literally bang mine on the edge of a counter. You also have to shake the nitrate vial vigorously for about 60 seconds after adding the second solution. Not following these steps can cause a false reading of 0 nitrates. Any chance you may not have shaken it hard/long enough?
Definitely. I shake it but probably not enough. I’ll try again tomorrow.
It’s possible you are cycled even if you truly have 0 nitrates. I’d keep testing daily for a bit to be on the safe side, but the lack of ammonia and nitrite are great signs.
He has some plants, they may have chip that nitrate
It’s possible, but it usually takes a ton of plants for that to happen.
More like, try again next week
I’ve got 9 tetras in a 10 gallon tank. I did not cycle the tank before I added fish (I’m new). At this point it’s been about 3 weeks of feeding and water changes. Do these test results suggest that the tank is cycled?
Judging by your ammonia and nitrates, or lack thereof, it would appear so. It does seem somewhat odd that you have 0 nitrates as well though. Given the number of fish, volume of water, and small amount of plants, I wouldn't expect there to be no nitrates at all. But I've never had moneywort and maybe it's absorbing all the excess nitrate? Have you ever seen ammonia or nitrite when you've done testing?
Something similar happened to me when I didn’t shake the test after the nitrate bottle #1 drops. It stayed yellow. Also make sure your really shaking bottle 2 / possibly bang it once or twice on the counter.
Good point. Maybe that's the case. Did you read your API instructions manual OP?
I did but am going to try again making sure I shake the bottles correctly 😁
No I haven’t but I also didn’t do my research before starting out and I didn’t test the water for the first 2 weeks.
Gotcha. Well being that you've had fish in the tank the whole time it's impossible you didn't have any ammonia in the beginning. So given that you're testing 0 now is great. Same with 0 nitrite. I would personally test daily for another couple weeks to make sure you don't get any kind of spike or cycle crash. It appears whatever you're doing is working well so don't make any drastic changes and you should be golden!
Yes. When ammonia and nitrite reads zero when fish-in cycling, and is not due (solely) to water changes, then yes, your tank is cycled, for the current bioload.
I don't think you can say if a tank is cycled by having 0 waste, what I do is just let them run for a few weeks also about tetras 10 gal is pretty small for them especially 9 it's just kinda a myth that tetras should go into 10 gal I think the minimum should be slightly higher they really love to swim around so I'm not sure that's exactly the best stocking choice and what tetras do you have?
With 9 fish there should be adequate waste right? As far as stocking goes I have 3 black neons, 3 neons and 3 rummy nose.
Oh god that's even worse. So basically I'm not talking about waste I'm talking about that the tetras need a lot of space to swim, they also need a school of 6 fish of specifically one species you can't just have 3 fish of 3 different species as one school and if you want multiple different schools you need a REALLY big tank, all tetras are very social and need to be in a group. My advice is you return all those tetras and get a school of some true nano schooling fish like 12-16 chili rasboras. Also tetras produce barely any waste that's why your tank has nothing but they just need space to swim. Hope this helps
Tetras can shoal with different tetra species. They can also be perfectly happy in smaller groups. A bigger tank would certainly be *better*, but I think OP can do just fine with what they have.
Thanks for that feedback! We bought the 10 gallon for my daughter for Christmas and the whole family has fallen in love with fish! We’ve already bought a 55 gallon that these guys will go into. I just want to understand what I’m doing a bit better before committing to the $200 tank/setup.
Right you can just ignore all the advice and just do with the guy that complimented you sure but listen what I'm saying is you should not put so many different tetra species they just really should be in a group of 6 while they will sometimes swim together that's probably because they just don't have their own school. The tank size isn't like the smallest tank ever but it is pretty small for tetras. When you do get the 55 gal they're gonna have a really good amount of space but just don't get 3 of like 9 tetra species stick to 1-3 bigger schools So please for the love of god listen to that one thing about schools
I have a group of 4 glowlight tetras and 5 brass tetras. When stressed (the only time fish school anyways) they will stick in one clump. For regular shoaling, they mix up anyways. I also have two Buenos Aires tetras (rescue fish... didn't buy them), also perfectly happy just being the two of them. Brilliant color, very healthy behavior in my 40 breeder. Anecdotal, but I agree with the other guy regarding tetra schools. You absolutely do not need 6 of each species for them to be happy.
The schooling thing isn't exclusively from stress it's just that they don't school if they have a small group in a smaller tank but I have 7 neons in 14.6 gal and they aren't stressed at all and they swim together most of the time and I'm not saying it's impossible to make a tetra survive without a 6 member school but if you don't care about your pets wellbeing then sure Edit: you're mixing up with keeping your fish alive and making your fish thrive and happy
While they do swim together sometimes they need to have that social time with others of their species you just shouldn't do what OP did if you care about their wellbeing but whatever. About tank size I just said it's on the smaller side for tetras and that they love to swim
Fish in cycle.... the most efficient way to cycle but also the most stressful (and risky) way to cycle. Congrats!
Normally everything is low and there is some nitrate
Look up some videos about the nitrogen cycle on YouTube. KG tropicals and aquarium co-op are two of my favorite channels. They are super informative and explain everything you need to know about cycling.
Honestly I think I’ve watched them all. I understand the concept (I think) I just don’t know how to know if it’s happened. I’ve got ammonia from waste and food, it’s been a few weeks and my test results are what I shared above.
To oversimplify a bit: Without an established 'nitrifying' system, if your aquarium has creatures in it who excrete ammonia (or die and decompose), that ammonia will build up to levels where it's toxic. Happily, nature... uh... finds a way. Bacteria (and archaea) naturally present in the environment will colonize an aquarium with ammonia in it and establish themselves to exploit it. The first to move in will oxidize ammonia to create nitrites. Later arrivals will love that nitrite and turn it into nitrate. Of course, now you have a nitrate buildup, but it takes a lot more nitrate to be toxic. Plants (and algae) love nitrate, and will consume it. Water changes will export it. So how do you establish this nitrogen cycle so your tank is ready for fish? The process generally takes some weeks, depending on method. It always needs the presence of ammonia to start it, so you have to 'seed' it somehow: - you can add a 'hardy fish'. It'll wee and poo ammonia. This implies that the poor thing is going to have to survive immersion in ammonia until the cycle starts. It may, of course, become the next option... - without fish in there, add some dead creature and let it decompose. A cocktail prawn is a popular option. Fish food (which often contains dead meat) can work too. - without fish in there, add ammonia. You need a product without detergent or perfume. Or, I suppose, you could wee in the tank yourself. You can add bottled bacteria to kick things off, and that might help, but you will get them free from nature, and, either way, they won't establish until conditions are right. So how do you know if your aquarium has an established cycle? You need a testing kit. You'll need one anyway for troubleshooting your tank in the normal scheme of things. You'll want to be able to test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as a minimum. It's also useful to know about pH, general hardness (dkh), and other parameters, too. Test strips are convenient, kits with liquids and chemicals to add to a sample are generally more accurate. Test daily from when you 'seed' your cycle. It's helpful to graph the readings. After a while, you'll see ammonia start to rise, peak, and then start to fall as nitrites start to rise. Then nitrates will rise as ammonia and nitrites fall away. These three peaks will overlap each other somewhat. You're watching evidence of those nitrifying bacteria establishing themselves and going to work. Time, even time with fish in your tank, isn't enough to be sure that the cycle has established. There may be things in your tank (such as accidental antibacterial substances) that slow or stop that process. That's why you want proof, and testing kits are a ready way of getting proof. Once you have seen the cycle establish (or if you missed that step), you can prove it before adding fish by adding a small amount of ammonia (say 2ppm), and using your test kit to watch it become nitrites and then nitrates over a day or two. If your tank can do that it's good to handle fish. It's wise to stock gradually, so your nitrifying colonies can expand to handle the increasing load. -------------- There has been talk of Prime. Prime will detoxify ammonia quickly and for a while (around 48hrs). Great in an emergency, but probably won't be useful for the time it takes to establish a cycle (I wonder, even, if it would slow down that establishment?). It also neutralises chlorine and chloramine in tap water that you use to fill your tank and do water changes (chlorine will evaporate after a while, which is why we set water change water out to sit overnight, chloramine won't) - so also great as part of your regular maintenance regime - even essential, depending on how your water company treats the water. Seachem Equilibrium raises the mineral content of the water in your aquarium. Can be useful if your levels are low a) because plants and creatures may require it and b) because it 'buffers' - i.e. smooths out - fluctuations in pH levels thereby reducing the chances of their spiralling out of control. Only tangentially relevant in the case of ammonia, because ammonia toxicity increases with pH. I hope some of that is helpful.
If there’s no fish in there, put some ammonia in there (like 2ppm or something low) and test it after 24 hours. If the ammonia is gone an the nitrites that should be produced are also gone, you will either have nitrates or maybe not if the plants consume them all. If either ammonia or nitrites show up in the tests after 24 hours the cycle is not complete.
Your tank is not cycled. Are you dosing with prime? That would make the reading show as 0 which is fine just something to be aware of. Also do you have carbon in your filter?
Prime does not make readings show as zero.
Can you help me understand how you know it’s not cycled? I believe you I just don’t understand. I’ve been using TopFin nitrifying starter bacteria. Is that same as “dosing with prime”?
the lack of nitrates is how you know it’s not cycled. Established tanks, even planted wastlad tanks, are going to show nitrate readings Nitrifying bacteria, even seachems, is mostly a scam. The only way to speed up a cycle is by seeding it with established filter media. Even in a newly cycling tank, you need to be seeing *something* in your readings. How often and how big of water changes are you doing? Also what filter/filter media are you using
Again, you are saying something untrue. Nitrate can certainly be zero in an aquarium. Plants can deplete it down to zero, and indeed people at times have to supplement nitrate to keep their plants alive.
Amen to this - I have a fully planted tank that’s been established for a few months and the nitrates are zero! My plants eat that up so quickly lol
Yeah. I had a 10 gal that I was heavily feeding before, it temporarily housed quite a few cichlids. Nitrate was rising pretty steadily until a single lonely pothos started taking root and doing well. Then bam, zero nitrate. From one pothos. In a heavily fed tank.
I’ve probably watched 10 hours on YouTube about this and your comment has been the single most helpful piece of info for me. Thank you. I did a 20% water change on Saturday. I’m just using a topfin filter and cartridge.
Can I recommend not using the filter cartridge. These will get clogged quickly and require replacement, this is something you don’t want to do as it could possibly crash your cycle by removing the cartridge you remove your nitrifying bacteria or atleast some of it. I always used two sponges dollar store sponges and some filter floss over top, this way I can replace pieces of my filter instead of removing all of the bacteria at once doing a cartridge change. They’re also pretty expensive to have to keep replenishing.
I’ve read a bit about doing this and had suspected that cartridges will get expensive. I’ll look into it more. Thanks!
Anytime! Happy fish keeping!
Uhh... I tried cycling my tank for a month and a half. Added 5 neos, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 amano shrimp, 1 bn pleco. Nitrite spiked to 1+ despite low bioload and wouldn't go down. Did a ridiculous amount of water changes, tbh my shrimp probably shouldn't have survived but did. Fritzyme 7 made nitrites start lowering within 2 days, with nitrates going up a bit. 0 chance that bottled bacteria is a scam. Though I'd believe you that seachems is a scam, considering Prime, which you recommended, does not lower ammonia like it claims.