Fish-in Cycling

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this is still very usefull 2 years on to newbies like me although one thing has changed the api master kit is ow £30 got one today :p
also how quickly should you see ammonia after adding fish its been 4days and i have closer to 0 then .25 and definitely no nitrites but 10 nitrate although tap water is the same?
 
Well I tried this and the fish died within a couple hours and I don't know why... Then after being assured by a knowledgable fish seller that the new fish I bought would be ok it happened again this time quicker. Any ideas?
 
Well I tried this and the fish died within a couple hours and I don't know why... Then after being assured by a knowledgable fish seller that the new fish I bought would be ok it happened again this time quicker. Any ideas?
Hi there. Its hard to tell what might have been wrong without collecting a lot of information from you. I notice you had a thread in the "Your New Freshwater Tank" section and I guess you could add on to that if you really wanted to get into it and try to figure out what went wrong, or you could start a new topic on the subject.

Personally, I think of most Fish-In Cycling as a kind of urgent "patch" for a situation where a beginner just wasn't familiar with how to prepare a real "biofilter" before exposing the fish to the unfiltered water. That's probably because I hang out so much in the beginner section that I get a biased number of cases like that. If one performs a "planned" Fish-In cycle, there a greater likelihood the fish can live through it and perhaps not sustain as much damage to their gills and nerves (which unfortunately is more or less invisible to us, so we don't really know when this is happening to them via seeing symptoms or such.) In a "planned" Fish-In, you try to have few enough fish that the water changing will be easier, making it less likely that you'll slip up and have the poisons go above 0.25ppm.

Does that make sense?

~~waterdrop~~
 
Well I tried this and the fish died within a couple hours and I don't know why... Then after being assured by a knowledgable fish seller that the new fish I bought would be ok it happened again this time quicker. Any ideas?
Hi there. Its hard to tell what might have been wrong without collecting a lot of information from you. I notice you had a thread in the "Your New Freshwater Tank" section and I guess you could add on to that if you really wanted to get into it and try to figure out what went wrong, or you could start a new topic on the subject.

Personally, I think of most Fish-In Cycling as a kind of urgent "patch" for a situation where a beginner just wasn't familiar with how to prepare a real "biofilter" before exposing the fish to the unfiltered water. That's probably because I hang out so much in the beginner section that I get a biased number of cases like that. If one performs a "planned" Fish-In cycle, there a greater likelihood the fish can live through it and perhaps not sustain as much damage to their gills and nerves (which unfortunately is more or less invisible to us, so we don't really know when this is happening to them via seeing symptoms or such.) In a "planned" Fish-In, you try to have few enough fish that the water changing will be easier, making it less likely that you'll slip up and have the poisons go above 0.25ppm.

Does that make sense?

~~waterdrop~~



Yes thank you. I took my fish and a water sample back to him and the ammonia was high but he gave me a refund. I'll probably make a topic when I get the chance, thanks again. (I'm pretty sure it was just the high ammonia that killed them though)
 
To me, seeing that the Nitrogen Cycle played out and was for real right in my own tank was enjoyable and it was easier to put a couple of squirts of ammonia in on most days rather than do water changes. Meanwhile I busied myself learning other new things on the forum and learning how to create a good stocking list that fit both what I wanted and that would be good for the fish. To each his own I guess.

~~waterdrop~~
 
I have added my own comments to your thread Fish-Fry.
I must admit that having fish in a tank from the beginning requires much less patience but do not agree that it is a good approach. I have used a large number of different approaches to starting a new tank over the last 50 or more years and have come to the conclusion that, for me, the fishless approach is by far the best approach. I now do clones of my filters using a fishless approach because I have the raw materials in my own fish room to do that. If I had to start from scratch, knowing what I have learned over the years, I would be torn between a fishless cycle and a low population fish-in cycle, but I am not a beginner fish keeper. It is far safer in the long run to do a fishless cycle, although experienced fish keepers can often navigate a fish-in cycle with success.
 
I have added my own comments to your thread Fish-Fry.
I must admit that having fish in a tank from the beginning requires much less patience but do not agree that it is a good approach. I have used a large number of different approaches to starting a new tank over the last 50 or more years and have come to the conclusion that, for me, the fishless approach is by far the best approach. I now do clones of my filters using a fishless approach because I have the raw materials in my own fish room to do that. If I had to start from scratch, knowing what I have learned over the years, I would be torn between a fishless cycle and a low population fish-in cycle, but I am not a beginner fish keeper. It is far safer in the long run to do a fishless cycle, although experienced fish keepers can often navigate a fish-in cycle with success.

So how long does one have to wait to consider a fish tank successful? "Dangerous" chemicals can always present themselves in any tank after a cycle is complete whether it was done with or without fish. Controlling that is called routine maintenance.
 
In my opinion, the whole first 6 months of a newly started tank are quite interesting in this regard. There seems to me to be a subjective point, somewhere around 6 months, when a tank and its inhabitants just seem to "sync." The water seems crystal clear, all the traces of start-off algae, fungus, biofilm etc. are gone and the fish seem vibrant and fully situated to their habitat.

I feel its during these first six months that one usually sees fish show signs of disease and filters stumble into mini-cycles if any of those things are going to happen in a way that's related to the cycling and startup of the tank.

Good maintenance becomes immediately important from the moment one shifts over from the cycling of the tank.

~~waterdrop~~
 
In my opinion, the whole first 6 months of a newly started tank are quite interesting in this regard. There seems to me to be a subjective point, somewhere around 6 months, when a tank and its inhabitants just seem to "sync." The water seems crystal clear, all the traces of start-off algae, fungus, biofilm etc. are gone and the fish seem vibrant and fully situated to their habitat.

I feel its during these first six months that one usually sees fish show signs of disease and filters stumble into mini-cycles if any of those things are going to happen in a way that's related to the cycling and startup of the tank.

Good maintenance becomes immediately important from the moment one shifts over from the cycling of the tank.

~~waterdrop~~

On 6/7 week water changes and at 7 months. I don't even bother to test the water much except maybe when I do the changes or something doesn't seem right.
 
Yes, my son's tank is working towards its third year and I rarely do water tests, although just like you there is the occasional one.

At 6 or 7 weeks between water changes you are probably changing often enough to catch the buildup of heavy metals and minerals before you get a dramatic shock to the fish. I suspect that most of cases of total stock loss that we hear about from old tank syndrome are cases where water was not changed more on the order of a year.

I prefer to try for significant weekly water changes with the occasional two week delay. I like the effect on my tanks as compared to what I did years ago.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Anyone? Members who have just read this, did you find it easy enough to understand?

All the best
Rabbut
I'm new here and no I didn't findit easy to understand. I have a Biorb 15L (I can hear the goans from here) and the nitrite is reading 0.25mg/l which I know is too high. The nitate tests just fine. I have 6 guppys in it which are doing really well. I have 2 moss stones and 6 small Amazon Sowrd plants. Is it the plants (as some of the leaves are turning pale) that is adding to the Nitrite do you think?. All I am looking for is a straight forward answer to the question - Is this amount too high and if so what do I do about it?

Thanks

Gazea
[email protected]
 
Im kinda confused. So basically I should do water changes until amonia and nitrite have been 0 for a while?
 
Yes, that's it. If you see any reading for ammonia or nitrite, you'll know that your filter isn't yet cycled enough to eat all the waste.

Normally a week of 'double zeros' is how we know the filter is fully cycled.
 
I didn't know about fish-in cycling until my tetras started dying and white spots are appearing :(

I'll be changing the water tomorrow and trying to get a test kit ASAP to check the water daily now onwards.

About growing the bacteria in the filter, is there anything I can/have to do after changing the water?
 

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