If you want to cycle your aquarium with fish inside, then you can do so safely by using Seachem Prime. In order to properly do so, you can take a look at this article from Aquarium Blueprints.
How Seachem Prime helps with fish-in cycling
Seachem Prime will help convert ammonia, nitrites and nitrates inside your fish tank into non-toxic forms so that these nitrogen compounds won’t harm your fish.
Furthermore, Prime will remove chlorine and chloramine from the tap water. Otherwise, these two chemical compounds will end up harming the beneficial bacteria living inside your tank.
How to use Seachem Prime when fish-in cycling
In order to use Seachem Prime during the fish-in cycle, we recommend that you take the following steps:
1. If you haven’t done so already, make sure you setup your aquarium by adding a substrate, heater, filter, air stone, décor and other equipment.
2. Next, you need to fill up your fish tank with water.
3. You can then dose Seachem Prime.
When it comes to the dosage amount, you should add 5 mL of Prime per every 50 gallons or 200 liters of tank water.
4. After adding Prime, you can start adding fish into your tank.
Make sure you slowly acclimate your fish to the new tank water before you put them in the aquarium.
5. You should then wait until the next day.
6. After waiting, we then recommend doing a small water change of no more than 20%. To start the process, remove 20% of water from the aquarium.
7. You then need to dose 5 mL of Prime per every 50 gallons or 200 liters of tank water that your aquarium is capable of holding.
8. Next, you can refill your tank with new water.
9. You need to do daily water changes with Seachem Prime until the fish-in cycle is completed. This process can take several weeks or even a couple of months.
10. In order to tell whether or not your tank is fully cycled, you need to use an aquarium water test kit, such as the API Master Test Kit, to measure the ammonia and nitrite levels in your tank.
For a cycled tank, your tank water needs to have 0 ppm of ammonia and 0 ppm of nitrites.
When it comes to nitrates, you should aim to have less than 40 ppm. If you have more sensitive fish, then you need to aim for less than 20 ppm. To reduce nitrate levels, you can do water changes or add a specialized biological media like the Seachem Matrix.
How to use Seachem Prime to quickly fish-in cycle your aquarium
If you want to speed up the fish-in cycle of your aquarium, then you can either use Seachem Stability or Seachem Aquavitro Seed. Both of these products will add live bacteria to the tank, which will help you cycle your tank water in as little as 7 days.
