Cycling WP's

[Squiggle]

WP looks good for the cycle, when the ammonia hits zero do a water change(with RO & minerals) to get your nitrates down, you want them to be below 5ppm, but I would definitely wait till your pen turns up so you don't overdose the minerals cause then you'll be back to square one & have to change it again to get your TDS down :encouragement: Stability is working otherwise you wouldn't be getting nitrates :congratulatory:

[hoang1912]

Dean said that we have to use EC prn for testing RO + Salt water mineral.

I dont know why my tank is running for a week and ammonia still around 0.25-1 and no nitri, nitrate. Still not cycled yet?

[mr_c265]

Can't comment on the first bit, but yes, if there is ammonia, no nitrite and no nitrate, it's still in the very first step of cycling. It will be a while.

[JohnH]

Are you using tap water? If you do check to see if you get an ammonia reading straight from the tap. Your tap water may have chloramine in it which will give you a false reading for ammonia.

[Squiggle]

Very good point John :encouragement:

[Dead Can Dance]

I'll laugh quite hard if its that.... I've been waiting a while now and ammonia has been at 0.25 for a long time and I used water straight from the tap thinking it'll age in there, no biggie.

Testing tap water now.

[Dead Can Dance]

Forgot to mention, the tank has a fair bit of algae in it. getting concerned the shrimp will have trouble eating it all. :)

Result does show a small amount of ammonia. I added prime to tank. Should that help ?

Let's pretend it has cycled awhile ago, would my nitrates keep rising with nothing in there ?

[hoang1912]

I got a question.

Currently, my tank is cycling with tap water + seachem stability.

I want to change to RO water + Bee shrimp mineral, Dean said that it's better when I take all the tap water out and replace 100% it with RO water.

The question is am I have to keep cycling with Seachem stability? and the cycling process is back to the start or it keep going?

[ninja]

Hoang1912, exactly when did you start up this tank, please?

[hoang1912]

Last Thusday :)

[ninja]

Good ok, when were you planning to put shrimp in?

[hoang1912]

As soon as it has been cycled.

But I am thinking changing from tap water to RO+ shrimp mineral to the cycling tank.

Could I just take all tap water out and replace it with RO? and does it effect to the cycling process?

[ninja]

Yes it will, best to leave alone for now. Do you have another tank?

[hoang1912]

yeah. I got 2 tanks.One is currently using and the other is cycling. Thinking to change to RO water because my old tank TDS having problem with TDS and they are dying due to unable molting :(. I am changing 10-20% water everyday and it's come down to 250 from 500

[Dead Can Dance]

Can anyone tell me why shrimp go toward the water that is just freshly put into the tank ? Ie, they literally touch the surface of the water as the RO water is hitting the tank ?

[Dead Can Dance]

I tested my RO water / tap water, it's showing the same ammonia reading as my tank - not yellow yellow but between the yellow and first green (0.25)

So I'm using that as my reference and my ammonia has been 0 for awhile.

I did a WC and my nitrates were ~20ppm now down to 5ppm.

Ill test again tomorrow and see how it's all going. If all is well, I can move my chocolates in.

[Kaya]

Hi all

so I'm cycling my first shrimp tank and I'm not sure if it's ready yet. I filled half the tank with water from an existing shrimp tank and half tap water conditioned with seachem prime as well as a mixture of gravel from an existing tank and new gravel. I set it up on Tuesday which seems really fast to cycle but the water parameters are:

ammonia 0ppm

nitrite 0ppm

nitrate 5ppm

pH 7.8

temp 24C

Is it ready for cherries or should I wait longer? I read that nitrate is the final product of conversion from ammonia->nitrite->nitrate so to me it looks cycled but I don't want to kill my shrimp :confused-new:

thanks for any help :)