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piranhapat

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Don't add any more ammonia let bacteria work. Your still 7-14 days for nitrites to drop to zero and your nitrates should go up .25-.30ppm. So far fish acting normal no sign of stress. Tomorrow I will test and let you know how colony doing.
 

theMeat

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I taking it that your fish less. You won't effect the cycle by doing one as long you leave filter bed alone where bacteria is growing. I would wait to nitrates go up. But I do small WC because I have fish in my Qt.

Agreed

Althou I'd say doing a water change could slow the process. Once nitrites go down and nitrates go up, do water change. But only if and when nitrates are above about 15ppm
 

marrone

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Should I do a water change yet or wait for Nitrites to drop?


You don't want to do a water change until the ammonia and nitrites are zero, otherwise you're taking away the fuel that will build up the cycle and slow down the cycling. Also, once you see the ammonia starting to drop it's good to add more ammonia, as that will increase the amount of bacteria that you have in the tank and let you be able to have a large load once the cycling is done.

In the mid 80's people used to use products to boost the bacteria levels during cycling, Ammonia Chloride was a big one, which you could only get at a chemical ware house. It greatly increased the bacteria in your tank and let you be able to handle a big load right away. The only down side was that the cycling took a long time, the ammonia test reads would also be black once you started to use it.
 

marrone

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It doesn't start the cycle over, it just adds more fuel so that you can build up more bacteria in the tank, which is very important as most cycled tank don't have enough bacteria to handle the load of fish put in them, which causes the tank to try and catch up. You can usually see this when you fish start to put in livestock in your tank.

Basically you're adding additional ammonia as you start to see the ammonia levels in your tank drop, as at this point the bacteria is starting to form and grow. The additional ammonia will help build up the tank bacteria, though it may take longer to cycle the tank it will be better for it in the long run.
 

theMeat

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Or you could/should phantom feed throughout and beyond the cycle, so when fish do go in the bio load and capacity stays the same and you get no swings, or catch up phases. When fish go in it won't be phantom/ghost feeding anymore, it'll just be feeding
 
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theMeat

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Yeah, listen to dr Tim who sells you the ammonia. Food breaks down into ammonia. You could take a piss in the tank and that would add ammonia

Or you could phantom feed around the same amount as you would when you have fish in there and keep everything stable
 

piranhapat

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Everybody thinks you can keep adding ammonia. Let bacteria work while it's working. The bacteria will not die or speed up by adding more ammonia. Bacteria can live a week without extra ammonia and by than you will have added fish.
 
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piranhapat

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Yeah, listen to dr Tim who sells you the ammonia. Food breaks down into ammonia. You could take a piss in the tank and that would add ammonia

Or you could phantom feed around the same amount as you would when you have fish in there and keep everything stable

What ever you want to use as a bacteria. Dr.tim and Stacey Blood know something about bacteria.
Marrone knows that putting his hands in LFS is a good thing to see coral. Lol....
 

theMeat

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Yup. Just kills me when something so simple becomes so complicated. It's not rocket science. And you don't need to keep testing and buying quick fix concoctions. Just phantom feed, wait for cycle, and done.
 

marrone

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Everybody thinks you can keep adding ammonia. Let bacteria work while it's working. The bacteria will not die or speed up by adding more ammonia. Bacteria can live a week without extra ammonia and by than you will have added fish.


I think that you don't understand about adding more ammonia and building up the amount of bacteria in the tank.
 
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piranhapat

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I don't think you understanding anything about cycling a fish tank. Watch video and you will learn something. This is coming from Stacey Blood and Dr.Tim not me. They happen to know more about it than you. You should not add ammonia when your nitrites are up. only add it when Ammonia and Nitrites are back at zero.
 
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marrone

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Considering how many tank that I've cycled over the years I understand very well how to cycle a fish tank, and I don't need to see a video from someone, who is selling products to hobbyist, to tell me any different. Actually it's you who doesn't understand what adding additional source of ammonia during the cycle does.

Or you could/should phantom feed throughout and beyond the cycle, so when fish do go in the bio load and capacity stays the same and you get no swings, or catch up phases. When fish go in it won't be phantom/ghost feeding anymore, it'll just be feeding
 
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