Need some quick advice

[Chris918]

Hey everyone so as I've told most of you I decided to go with a quarantine setup apart from my display. Last week it looked to be completely cycled.
Ammonia at 0, Nitrite at 0 and Nitrates had gone up to about 5-10 ppm.

I now have my RO/DI system and I wanted a better water quality foundation for the system. (I set it up with just RO). The carbon was filthy and I clearly ghost fed too much. I changed just about all of the water and put in new carbon before I realized that I may have screwed everything up. My cycle was complete, but by doing this have I completely set myself back? Does the tank now need to cycle again? I was considering getting my first fish this weekend, but after matching the salinity with the LFS I had changed quite a bit of the water doing that and removing the Nitrates. Do I have to cycle again?

Thanks for the advice!

 

[OrQidz]

This is your QT tank, so no live rock? What's your filter like? If the carbon was your only biofilter then yep, you tossed it all out. Do you have filter sponges or any other media? Or if you have live rock, then you're ok. The bacteria aren't really in the water, more in the live rock, or whatever media you're using for a filter.

 

[Chris918]

Yeah bare bottom no live rock. The only filter is a built in one in the sump that is built into the side. And yeah I threw the old carbon away. It was gross lol.

 

[CarrieB]

The water doesn't matter. The bacteria is on the surface of the filter media (basically all the surfaces in the tank.) The question is what percentage of the bacteria was on the carbon that you threw out. You can test it by putting another ammonia source in and seeing how long it takes to be completely processed.


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[billdogg]

What Carrie said. You could do a 100% water change and not affect the denitrifying bacteria.