5 Day Cycle? - Tested

do you know how much time it will usually take for it to brake down into ammonia and does anybody use a Kent lugols dip? How much do you use

 

I have never used a product like that before. I cycled my tank the old way, used a damsel and waited. I wouldn't recommend using a fish. Knowing what I know now I would use a shrimp and I dose bacteria. I use a product my seachem call stability. But I like seachem. Fluval and Biospira (I believe that how it's spelled) are also pretty good.

 

Normal cycles are from two weeks to a month. In this hobby nothing good happens fast.

 

I wouldn't worry about lugols at all right now. All ANY bacteria products do is help speed up the cycle. I would seriously do some research into what a cycle is before buying all kinds of products. Adding bacteria to a tank with nothing to feed the bacteria is pointless. Ghost feeding a tank creates the cycle to produce ammonia so the nitrifying bacteria can start breaking it down to nitrite and then nitrate. This will take weeks and should never be rushed. You want to ultimately have a population of bacteria to consume the waste of the fish in the tank. Once you get the tank cycled do not add a bunch of fish at once since the bacterial population will need to grow to handle the tanks bioload. Nothing happens fast in this hobby except a tank crash. Your building an ecosystem and anything that advertises that you can do it in 5 days I would honestly avoid.

 

I'm going to watch it and only if i see it cycle will I add maybe 1-2 clowns to start

 

I've used the fluval on freshwater before and it worked but the fritz stem was much more concentrated and had great reviews

 

I would just add one fish to start, but that's me. As DSC stated you want your tank and it's ecosystem to keep up with the bioload.

 

successfulreefkeeping.com

This is a very good site, it help me understand in detail what's going in your tank right now. And truthfully my tank is almost 8 months old.... and I still dose bacteria after every waterchange. Just give it time and all will be good.

 

Thanks I will definitely add fish slowly probably 2 clowns
Goby
Shrimp and snails
Corals
over a 2 to 3 months

 

How ever you want to do it always remember there are multiple ways to do the same thing. Don't get discouraged when something doesn't go your way. And 3reef in my opinion is a great place for help.