Cycle In A Bucket

[alchemist]

I was thinking about fish-in cycle situations and was wondering what people thought about the following method:

For whatever reason you are in a fish-in cycle situation.
So rather than going through a fish-in cycle - load your existing filter up with Zeolite (ammonia remover) and completely kill the old cycle. Maintain the existing tank ammonia free using Zeolite - still checking regularly that you haven't overloaded the Zeolite and dont get an ammonia spike.

Then - go purchase a new filter - and do a proper fishless cycle in a bucket using your new filter.

When the fishless cycle completes and you confirm 0 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - presence of Nitrate - (which would probably happen before the Zeolite saturated) - simply drop the new cycled filter into your tank and remove the old filter with the Zeolite in it. (or media swap?)

Thoughts?

 

[Loony Fish]

I would do that with hardy fish like my tetras but deffinetly not with my sensitive fish like my discus.

 

[OldMan47]

I don't understand the benefit of killing the existing cycle, even if it not yet complete. It is certainly further along than a brand new filter with no bacteria will be. If you intend to rely entirely on chemical treatment to keep your fish healthy while doing a remote cycle of a filter, why not at least transfer the partially cycled media to the new filter to give it a jump start? Another concern I would have would be the small volume used to cycle the new filter. Since the concentration needs to be held down to around 5 ppm to prevent growing the wrong bacteria, you will only have a colony capable of processing enough ammonia to cause 5 ppm in a bucket the size you have chosen. If you have chosen a large bucket, like maybe 5 gallons, you will be able to process the ammonia it would take for 5 ppm in 5 gallons. Even when you had that colony of bacteria firmly established, it would be quite small compared to a real world tank's ammonia load.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah the bacteria needed to process 5ppm of ammonia in a small bucket is a lot less than that needed to process 5ppm in all but the smallest tanks.

even with something relativley small like a 15/20 gal tank you'd end up with a fish-in cycle when you added the media back to the filter.

 

[alchemist]

ok with you - this also explains why maintaining the bacteria in a small tank is difficult.

Is there an opinion on which point the ammonia is so high that the bacteria are killed? is 5.0 ppm the max?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's around 8ppm that you'll start to see problems.

what actually happens above this level is a different species of bacteria will grow, they'll do the same job so you think the tank is starting to cycle, but then when the ammonia level starts to drop this other species will die off and you effectively start the cycle all over again.

so it's not liek you could cycle the filter in a bucket with a higher level of ammonia to grow more bacteria really.