my tank has been cycling for 5 days now and these are my results of a water test, i havn;t got any fish i ahve been using beneficial bacteria for 3 days now,

ammonia: .25ppm
nitrite: 0ppm
nitrate: 5ppm
Ph: 7.6

am i on my way to a cycled tank?

When a tank cycles 1st the ammonia increases, then nitrites start to go up and ammonia goes down eventually to zero. Nitrites will increase and then nitrates will start to show and nitrites decrease eventually to zero. When ammonia and nitrites are both zero and you have some nitrates present you will have a cycled tank. So it sounds like your tank is starting to cycle, the only worry it that you have some nitrates. These may be in your tap water, testing your tap water and posting the results would help

When cycling tanks i have either used fish (NEVER USE OSCARS) or borrowed some filter media from a tank already cycled. I dont know about adding beneficial bacteria but i would say it would have to be added everyday to work

ok i tested the tap water it came back:

ammonia between .25ppm and .5ppm
nitrite: 0ppm
nitrate: 0ppm

maybe i will test tank again for nitrate


ok so nitrate was 0 i think i read it wrong...

i am using the bacteria once a day for 7 days is the instructions, do you think i should add some fish or wait for the 7 days?

dexter wrote:

there is not nitrite / nitrate yet because you don not have fish waste.
seeding beneficial bacteria for a day or 7 days or more, if you do not
have fish in the tank, it will be useless. bacteria without food will just
die. seeding bacteria and a fish on the first day is better and more
practical.

www.oscarfishlover.com/oscar-fish-advice...4&id=49626#49632

Ok so your tank test results are the same as your tap water so your tank is not cycling. Please read the section on this site about cycling. You need to give the bacteria in your filter something to feed on. In a cycled tank the bacteria feed on fish waste but they take some time (at least a month) to multiply to get enough so that they can 'eat' all the waste ammonia and nitrite. Until this time you cant keep oscar or you will cause them long term problems or even death in the short term.

You can either put some hardy fish in the tank until it is cycled and then rehome these fish and put oscars in

Or you can use prime - i have no experience of this, but apparently it works

Or you can borrow some filter media from someone with a cycled tank which will cycle your tank instantly (this only works if they have a much bigger mass of fish than you have)

ok well i think i will add some gold fish in and see how that goes, i ahve read about cycling but when i went to my lfs they told me to use this product called stability which helps cycle a new tank before adding any fish, so i was kind of confused at that...

I have never used this cycling stuff, it might help, maybe someone who has used it will chime in and help.

Get yourself a testing kit, i wish i had when i started keeping fish- it would of saved me a lot of heartache and money

i do have a testing kit that is how i got these results...

dexter wrote:


They would cos its more than 2 gold fish I bet. you can do without but some of the additives can speed things up drastically. are you after a fast cycle an any cost? maybe it would be worth it in that case.

yeah that is what i thought, ah well i suppose it couldn't hurt and i will know for next time, i went to get gold fish but they couldn't sell me any cause they all had white spot...so i guess tomorrow i will ahve to go to a different shop...

dexter wrote:

most lfs will sell you any stuff to make sale...but in reality, they are
useless.... in your other post, i told you, those stuff would be useless with
out the fish... thus, you had help them generate some revenue......

going on another post take this golden opertunity to test the urine theory 1 litre of freshly squezed into your tank!!!!!!!!!!!