how long does it take for a 10 gallon fish tank (aquarium) to cycle?
by Aquaboy on Saturday, March 27th, 2010 | 5 Comments
My friend knows alot about fish and that kind of stuff and told me in about 2 weeks my fish tank will cycle and i can get some better fish, so i have had my tank for 2 days short of 2 weeks and i want to know if now i can start to get better fish and maybe some newts and other fish
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070104152631AAtoj8V
The size of the tank doesn’t effect the time of a cycle. “Normally” it takes 4-6 weeks for a full cycle. The best way to determine what stage your cycle is in is to test the water parameters. If the Ammonia is high, then your tank is not cycled yet. If the Nitrites are high, the cycle is in it’s last stages, and once the nitrates begin to rise, you will simply have to do water changes to keep them down, but at that point your tank should be done cycling. Even in a cycled tank, you should still add fish slowly to give the bacteria time to catch up to the new bioload.
Does your friend have a fish tank? If he does you should add some of the filter media from his tank and put it into your filter, that way you get bacteria in the tank and it will cycle in a matter of days.
There is no set time for cycling. It all depends how you go about cycling your tank, ie with fish (not recommended), fishless (using fish food or ammonia), using pre-seeded gravel/rock from an established aquarium etc. Average time is usually 3-5 weeks. Only way to be completely sure is to test your Ammonia and Nitrite levels daily and once they both spike AND come down to 0 is it safe for any livestock. HTH.
Just simply adding some ammonia to the tank (whether by adding fish or using artificial means) gives the tank about 5 or 6 to cycle fully. Adding Bacteria in a Bottle cuts it down to 2 or 3.