I'm not sure if my tank is cycled or not, weekend before last i moved the contents of 1 tank (minus a small amount of gravel and some water) into a new larger tank - same fish, same filter etc. I only got a test kit on the friday, moved the tanks on the sunday.
Last saturday morning i got up and found uphappy looking fish. Checked water params and found ammonia up. Thought the cycle had crashed.
Fitted new filter old filter sponge is in new filter.
Spent most of weekend doing water changes to bring ammonia under control.
Since tuesday morning tank has been 'acting' cycled again, whats going on?

Water param readings to follow: (sorry long list!)

18/02/05 tank 1
pH 8.0
Ammonia 0 - 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5 - 10ppm

19/02/05 tank 1
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5 - 10ppm

20/02/05 tank 1
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5 - 10ppm

Big water change as tanks changed over, 75% ish probably

tank 2
Ammonia <0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm
Heater set approx 20C

21/02/05 tank 2
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm
Temp 19.5C

23/02/05 tank 2
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5 - 10ppm
Temp 19.7C adjusted up slightly
Water change 25%

26/02/05 tank 2
Ammonia 4ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm
Temp 20C

Water change 50%ish
Ammonia 2ppm at lunch time after water change and didn't rise again before i went to bed

27/02/05 tank 2
Ammonia 4ppm
50-60% water change
Ammonia 2ppm
50% water change
Ammonia 1ppm

Dosed tank with stress zyme

28/02/05 6am tank 2
Ammonia 2ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm
30% water change

6.30pm
Ammonia 1ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
30% water change

8pm
Ammonia 0.5 - 1ppm

01/03/05 7am tank 2
Ammonia 0.5 - 1ppm

11.30pm
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrites 0ppm

02/03/05
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 10ppm

When i've tested it the tap water is:
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm

So has my tank cycled already and the weekend was just a blip or should i still be stood over the tank armed with the aquarium salt ready for the nitrite peak

Any light shed on this would be appreciated as i'm still quite new to this water testing malarky and have no idea what to expect next.

Cheers,

Rachel

btw, the results above are exactly as i have written down so any i have missed out i either didn't do or didn't write down, although i do have more tap water readings (all much the same) and water hardness readings.

Also meant to say (apart from sorry for the very long post again ) the new tank is 9 uk gallons and has 2 small (2 - 2 1/2") orandas in it.

Rachel, I would say the tank is cycled! It can be that the weekend indeed was just a hiccup of the new tank, since the move, especially the loss of bacteria in the gravel, upset the beneficial bacteria. It was a good thing you used the sponge from the old filter, that helped along a great deal, and cut the cycling time down to just a couple of days.
I take it, your old tank was smaller than the new one, right?

Cool!

Thanks for that, i never expected it to cycle that quickly, it was odd it took nearly a week for the blip to happen tho, oh well - i'm not complaining. I also expected to see a blip in nitrites as well after the blip in ammonia, i guess those bugs weren't disturbed as much or something. Hopefully the bio bugs are happily filling my new canister filter and all those biomax tube things!

The old tank was 6 uk gallons so the new one is 50% bigger but probably more like 2x the amount of water because the external filter stores quite a bit and there is less gravel and no internal filter now. I know its still too small but as soon as we've moved they will have a much bigger tank.

Thanks,

Rachel