Am i ready to do a water change yet???

My 55 gal tank is appraoching the 4th week of cycle and recently started to have a diatom bloom on my rocks and sand ( quite a bit in the last day or so). my question is does this mean my tank has cycled. and also when should i do my first water change?

 

well the right way to know if your tank is cycled is if your parameters are stable.. check for ammonia and nitrates and nitrites.. if all are 0 then you are good to go..
if you are cycled then you could do a 20% water change if you would like. although thats not going to really solve your diatom problem. that should go away on its own.

 

the only way to tell if your tank is cycled is by using test kits. Have you been testing your ammonia and nitrates at all? And if its not done cycling I wouldn't do a water change, will prolong the cycle a little.

 

i have been testing the water, just wondering if the diatoms were a indication it was threw. or just something that happens during the cycle due to silicate

 

the diatoms are one of many outbreaks of algae you'll have. im on 8 weeks in my setup and ive had diatom and currently my glass is turning into a nice solid brown....

 

4 weeks in an you want to do a water change? Um…no.

Learn from so many other’s mistakes and be patient.

First, tell me your test results – Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate

NO3 is phase three of your cycle, at this stage nitrifying bacteria has converted ammonia into nitrites – nitrites create the next nitrifying bacteria, nitrobacters. These are what you are looking for, this bacteria are living things that require food and oxygen and will now grow on all the surfaces in the tank. Waste from nitrobacters are nitrates (end of your cycle). BUT…..this is where the common mistake comes in – and lack of patience is displayed. True, you have reached the end of your cycle – but the beneficial bacteria are just now trying to establish themselves, they are just babies and need time to mature and multiply. The greater the number of nitrobacters the better they will be in absorbing your future bio-load.

From reading this and many other forums, this is where people goof. They test Nitrates and say “I am done” do a water change, drop in the fish and then beg for help. What happened to them? They rushed, didn’t let the notrobacters develop and multiply added a bio-load the nitrobacters could not keep up with, spiked ammonia and began a cycle all over again killing the tank….

edit:
Oh, should have said….just clean off the walls, and remove the waste that is on the sand with a siphon. You can do a water change (I would wait yet I like the 6 week mark myself) when you do the water change it should be a large one.

 

thankyou for the help

 

My 55 cycled in 3 weeks but I waited 2 weeks to end diatoms before adding fish or changing water. Just go slow, let it grow!