Another cycling question....

First i want to say I fully understand the cycling process. I am currently cycling my qt, I annd pure amonia up to 4ppm, now the question is, do I keep adding amonia to keep to level at 4ppm? Or do I leave it alone and let it cycle with what's there? I have read to do both... which is better or is there any real difference? When we cycled our fw tanks we kept adding amonia to keep the level at 4ppm. If you keep the amonia level up does it make the bio filter stronger?

Thanks

 

let it ride out from there

 

Let it come down as mentioned. Keeping it too high can actually reverse the process. I actually prefer to use the old decaying shrimp method personally.

 

Agreed- I, too, prefer the shrimp method. Raising the ammonia too high too quickly can stall the cycle; attempting to maintain a certain level will only produce more nitrate.

BTW, the qt/ht should actually be sterile- IOW, uncycled. The most effective meds kill bacteria, so if you needed to treat a sick fish in a cycled tank, the bio-filter would be destroyed, and the microbial die-off will very nearly guarantee an ammonia spike.

 

Thanks a lot everyone. I've not a lot of research on the qt just never understood exactly how much amonia. As for the meds killing all the bacteria, I'm not convivced it will kill all of it. I want tor try it and see, after I have to medicate a fish and the tank is clear, I want to introduce some amonia and see how long it will take for it to be gone. I had to keep some fish I in an uncycled tank once while my main tank cycled, and that really sucked. I'm hoping the cycle will be strong enough to bounce back without harming any fish, ill keep an eye on the levels when in use just in case though.
Thanks again