Fishless Cycling Help Please

[OldMan47]

TTA, sorry if I didn't fully understand where you were going with your methods.
I simply support the fishless add and wait cycle and the fish in cycle and, for experienced plant people, I find a silent cycle equally valuable. I have never heard of the need to wait 3 weeks to stock a freshly planted tank and I do not do it. A heavily planted tank can indeed be used without any cycle, a silent cycle, as I have done on occasion. Since I have many cycled filters in my home, I usually just seed a new filter by using my new tank as a cleaning bucket for an old filter. I then do a fishless approach and often can finish up in about a week.v I have never seen anyone have much luck with the add daily approach so I simply do not suggest it. Before I use a piece of my existing filter in a new filter to seed it, I would make sure that I don't set things up to bypass my biological filter in my old tank. As an example, a basket that holds 4 layers of sponge, like this one, lends itself to swapping a sponge with a comparable sponge in a new filter.

After any such swap, I would monitor both tanks to make sure things were still running OK. After all, who needs to have trouble in an existing cycled tank just to jump start a new filter?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

OldMan- I believe I said with a high light tank it is often advised to plant and wait a bit before adding fish and for some good reasons. But they basically boil down to allowing the plants to get a grip in the substrate before adding fish that will uproot them. Most high tech tanks have some really neat foreground palnts that can almost be blown out of the substrate by a decent current until they settle in (root).

It will also depend on the fish one is planning to keep. The plants will be safer with a few tetras than with corys, plecos, even sword tails can can yank up a plant trying to eat something off of it. I have been through this. The situation/stocking should dictate the prcoess.

Now a tank full of annubias and ferns and maybe some moss and a few stems is another story. Those plants are pretty mi\uch fish safe from the get go. But they are also the planting schemes likely to require help from some bacteria to make the tank able to handle a full bio-load. A combination of seeding and planting, even in a low light tank, will normally work pretty fast. If you are setting up a 50 gallon and plant it so the plants can only process 50% of the load, you only need enough bacteria for another 25 gallons or less. If you are willing to stock over a few weeks, you can forget about any ammonia dosing.

If you can only seed 15% of the total needed bacteria for an unplanted 50 gal., that is enough to be 30% of what is needed for 25 gals. in the "half planted tank". How long will it take for 30% seeding to double to 60% and less than another full double gets it done? And if you are starting at higher seeding levels..... You get close to instantly cycled pretty fast. Just stock mostly at once and two small add over 3 or 4 weeks and its done with no need to dose at all.

My reference to 3 weeks referred to the OP's exact tank plans and what could have been done. I said from start to being fully stocked it could have been about 3 weeks. A day or two to get it set up and planted. A couple of weeks to let the plants root/establish and a week to stock it. Remember, its high tech co2 added well planted tank. This beats the heck out of the typcal fishless cycle which is fast at a well seeded 2 or 3 weeks, average at 4-6 and done wrong when longer. Andthen planting and waiting a couple of weeks for plants to root. Even the mixed plant and seed method in a low light tank will beat most of these times. The only drawback is you have to want live plants. So it isnt a real good appraoch to rift lake cichlid tanks, for example. Bear in mind that live plants are also seed material since they will have bacteria on their roots, especially, but other places too.

I have run 15-20+ tanks for years and have only actually cyled a tank in once in the past couple of years- for incoming wild altums (had to use bottled bacteria for that). I normally just set up a tank and then add as many fish as I want (within reason). Plants and seeding = instant cycle when you have enough.

I also agree that cutting up a sponge isn't usually a great idea, borrow a whole sponge. If you can't, use something else rather than cut it. Its much easier to divide other types of bio-media or to use some substrate.

Here is something to think about. It is suggested to test the fishless cycle, one dose ammonia in the amount it first took to get to 2 ppm or even 4 ppm and see if that goes to 0 in 12 to 14 hours. How much ammonia is being processed an hour? Asume its consumed at a level rate which is isnt (normally more is produced and consumed during daylight hours). 2ppm/12hours = .17 ppm/hour, 4ppm/12hour = .23 ppm/hour (at 14 hours the amounts are lower). So why not just put in between .17 and .23 ppm and test in 60 to 90 minutes? You can do the nitrite test as well to confirm there are none as is done with the 1/2 day method. It works for me.

 

[OldMan47]

Sorry TTA, I do not use a high tech approach. Instead I use the NPT approach to plants and that includes adding fish immediately, along with a large number of a variety of plants as is described by Diana Walstad in her book. For me CO2 and fertilizers is a non-starter since it requires far too much attention for someone maintaining as many tanks as I do.
As you suggest, I also never start a new tank from scratch. With 26 tanks running, there is seldom a need to start without a bacterial starter from an existing tank's filter. One thing I have found quite helpful when I don't have time to cycle a filter is to use the inlet sponge that I normally use to protect fry in my tanks. It ends up with tons of the right bacteria and can instantly cycle a new tank for a low population situation. I just move the inlet sponge to the new filter and voila, I am done with a great cycle. This is a sponge in place for about a month on my Heterandria formosa tank.

 

[Flubberlump]

Just to update my record, tonight, the nitrite is 0.8 after 12 hours, ammonia 0, pH 8.

Nitrite was 0.1 when I tested this morning, and has been 1.6 the last few nights after 12 hours, so making progress again now

 

[Flubberlump]

Nitrite was 0 this morning! pH is still 8. Really shouldn't be long now!

 

[JDs4me]

my nitrites are reducing to 0.25 in 14 hours...lets hope we pass the finishing post soon!

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds like you are getting close now.

 

[JDs4me]

I'm also dosing 2ppm ammonia now and its < 0.25 after 12 hours and zero on 14 hours.

Perhaps low light does help prevent algal/bacterial blooms - my ambient light levels are very low for the tank, and the lights have remained off.

I am planning fish in this sunday and have a portion of frogbit going in as I really feel I will be close enough to done by the weekend...

 

[Flubberlump]

Sorry I haven't replied for a while! Been really busy. Nitrite was about 0.3 last night, 14 hours after dosing, so I'm a little bit behind you but not much! I'm being really careful to keep the KH up until I do the water change at the end of the cycle, and the pH stable at 8. Hope mine carries on progressing as quickly as yours has! Keep me updated. Fingers crossed your fish can go in this week

 

[JDs4me]

Sorry I haven't replied for a while! Been really busy. Nitrite was about 0.3 last night, 14 hours after dosing, so I'm a little bit behind you but not much! I'm being really careful to keep the KH up until I do the water change at the end of the cycle, and the pH stable at 8. Hope mine carries on progressing as quickly as yours has! Keep me updated. Fingers crossed your fish can go in this week

I have considered my tank cycled sufficiently (time will tell!) as I am not going to stock my tank to full capacity. One thing I missed here was that if you are not going for 100% stock capacity then its probably not necessary to go for a 12 hour turnaround. I can't get all of the fish that I want so feel happy with the 14 hour turnaround that I have based on an approx. 40-50% capacity initial stocking...unfortunately there is no calculator for that one!

I hope yours completes soon; I applaud your patience! It does seem that you are very nearly there

 

[Flubberlump]

Thank you! I don't think I've ever had to be so patient for so long haha. Once it's done, it's done though; it'll be worth it. Mine will be fairly fully stocked, but also heavily planted, which is why I haven't dosed right up to 5ppm, but to about 2.5 instead. Hopefully it'll only be a few more days now.

Hoping to get my plants ordered next week! are you getting your fish tomorrow?

 

[Flubberlump]

Tonight, nitrite is 0.1 after 14 hours!

 

[JDs4me]

Tonight, nitrite is 0.1 after 14 hours!

yes, getting some schooling fish in there to start with - cats next week! Sounds like you are going to be right behind me, what are you going for?

 

[Flubberlump]

Lamp eye killies, tetras, corys, kuhlis and a pair of apistos.

0.1 nitrite tonight after 13 hours.

Love your ilyodons!

 

[JDs4me]

Me too!...settled in really quickly; lets see what they think of the addition of postal catfish today. You will have some beautiful colours in that tank when its stocked -

Going to do a little photo thread of the delivery and introduction of the cats today; hope the little blighters have travelled well...

You are sooo close to done now!!