Confused With Tank Cycle

[SXI - Matt]

Just filled my rio 125 and have left it 24 hours with just the saturate and gravel in to let the tempreture settle in the morning im going to add some stress zyme to it will this start my cycle if so what else do i need to do if not how do i start it? Oh and im also putting in some living plants in the morning and a large piece of bog wood.

 

[Matt_northants]

With Stress Zyme i fed my tank a flake a day to give it a source of ammonia. Before you add the plants make sure that the water temperature is right about 25C. Before you add the bogwood make sure that it has been soaked to remove any tannins which will colour the water. To do this soak it in water and change this every couple of days until the water remains clear.

 

[SXI - Matt]

The water temprature has settled and the bog wood has been soaked for a few weeks and the tannin has been removed, how long does this metho take and is it the same as adding amonia?

 

[Matt_northants]

Yeah the only difference is that the source of ammonia is from a natural source, which is what they'll be processing when your fish are in, rather than a synthetic ammonia. The choice is yours but I know some people who's tanks have crashed using an ammonia solution, but then again using it seems to be the norm on this foum and all these people cant be wwrong. So I think its just a case of personal preference. It took about 2and half weeks for the cycle to complete.

 

[SXI - Matt]

Right think im going to use your ideah it seems more sensible to me so add my stress zyme and a flake aday then after a week another dose of stress zyme and keep adding a flake aday whilst checking my levels and it should peak and drop on all 3 then ready for fish?

Oh and how do i dechlorinat my tap water iv put in my tank

 

[Matt_northants]

Just add the amount of dechlorinator that it says on the bottle for the volume of water that you have. In my case it was ok to add a small few fish on day21, but every tank is different. The ammonia will peak and drop to zero first. As the ammonia starts to drop the nitrite will increase, then as the nitrite starts to drop the nitrate will increase. Both ammonia and nitrite need to be at zero before adding any fish. Once they are at zero leave it couple of days, whilst checking they stay at zero and feeding the tank, to ensure that the cycle is complete and that it is safe to add fish.

 

[Mikaila31]

I suggest you read through this thread on fishless cycling. IMO the stress zyme is not going to do anything to the cycle and is just a waste of money. You can use fishfood instead of pure ammonia, but there isn't any predetermined amount of food you have to add. This amount will change depending on the type of food, size of tank, and level of ammonia you are trying to reach. I highly suggest that you try to find some mature media from a already cycled tank. This will greatly speed up the cycle. A tank can crash or stall when cycling if the ammonia level stays at zero for too long, or if the ammonia level get above 8ppm the cycle will stall.

 

[backtotropical]

Both methods are valid. However, using food is difficult to judge and will generally not establish such a large colony of bacteria in the filter. Using a bottle of ammonia is more measurable and the best option in my opinion.

The cycle will only stall if you don't do it correctly. Make sure there is always detectable ammonia in the tank during the cycle, make sure the PH stays above 6, and that the ammonia level stays below 8ppm and it will work like a dream.

Read the thread in the link above and it's quite easy. I agree that Stress Zyme is a waste of money and is certainly not required. Mature filter media will definitely help, and you should get some if possible.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[Hollymolly4]

Can you boil bogwood to speed up the process?

 

[Matt_northants]

Can you boil bogwood to speed up the process?

Not sure if you can boil the bogwood, but you can soak it in hot water. And this does remove the tannins quicker.

 

[backtotropical]

Can you boil bogwood to speed up the process?

Hi Hollymolly,

You can boil bogwood and it actually works rather well. Usually the problem is finding a pot big enough.

Cheers

BTT

 

[SXI - Matt]

Ok guys thank you is a big help, i just need to find some dechlorinator to sort that out then start my cycle, i have a freind who used some tablet form of ammonia he got it from pets at home and this worked fine, im just abit unsure about the pure ammonia cycle i no it sounds fairly simple and easy to do im just not sure how easy.

 

[Gazpug]

I cycled my tank by adding pure ammonia getting the level upto 2ppm. i turned up the heater to 29 deg C (helps the bacteria grow) then i was lucky enough t get sme old filter pads from a friends tank which will speed up the procees because the right types of bacteria already exist.

From there i added the same ammount of ammonia every day, for my tank it was 2 pipettes of the stuff. I then tested the ammonia levels every few days. eventually the ammonia levels reduce dramatically over night. Then you can start testing for nitrIte whilst adding daily the ammonia. Eventually the nitIte will reduce too. You then should have lots of nitrAte in the water. At this point i did a nice big water change to reduce the nitrate levels and hey presto my tank was cycled.

This is called the add daily meathod. There are other meathods out there and you can always look at the pinned subject on on this site.


My tank took about 3 weeks to process both Ammonia and NitrIte. Make sure these are both at zero before adding fish. The bonus with this meathod is you can stock your tank nicely without the worry that the filter medium cant process the waste.

Regards

Gaz