Cycling Aquarium

[westpoison]

I realise many people are confuse about how to cycle their aquarium. So i wrote something hoping can proved to be some help.

There are basically 2 ways of cycling aquarium, either with fish or without fish. In my opinion, it is easier to do without fish, but it will be dull running an empty tank for weeks.

Both way are essentially the same, the only differences is that the first way is feeding the fish with food so and they will produce ammonia for cycling. The fishless way is to add food the aquarium and let the food rot and thus produce ammonia.

Step 1: Do the necessary steps required to set up your tank (add water conditional, lay the gravel, lay down the decorations etc)

Step 2: Set the filter, thermometer running and leave the tank there untouched for 3-4 days. The water should be at the ideal temperature for your cycling fish (74° to 80° F(26° - 28° C)).

Step 3: Add in your cycling fish. Hardly livebearer is recommended. Wait for 24hrs allowing the fish to get used to the new environment.

Step 4: Start feeding your fish. Feed only once a day and the food must be consumed within 5mins. Be sure not to overfeed them or you'll prolong the cycling process since fish make waste.

Step 5: Use your test kit to check for ammonia level in the tank after 3-4days. The ammonia level will increase over the days. If the ammonia level is high when you take it, leave it be and do the test again every other day.

Step 6: When the ammonia level is low enough, start doing nitrite test. At this point of time, nitrite level should be higher than ammonia. Keep test for both ammonia and nitrite. Once both toxic reaches 0ppm, the cycle is complete.

Final: The whole cycling process will take around 6weeks to complete. Slowly introduce new fish into your aquarium and feed sparely allowing the bacteria to adjust to the new fish load.


For a fishless cycle that uses fish food, skip step 3. Do step 4 by “feeding your water” with food everyday. The amount of food you feed to the water should be slightly lesser than the amount of food if used for feeding the fish. The major draw back of using the fishless cycle this way is that other than adding ammonia and nitrite into the aquarium, it introduces other by product like phosphates as well.

Fishless cycle can also be done using ammonia. This way is done by skipping step 3. And do step 4 by feed the water with ammonia. The feed should be 3-5 drop per 10 gallons per day. This amount is roughly the same amount of ammonia produced by your cycling fish per day. Keep adding ammonia to the water until the cycle is complete and when new fish are introduce to produce ammonia on behalf of the ammonia solution.

In my opinion, the best way to cycle your fish that is by using the cycling with fish method. As I hate to see my fish tank empty for 6weeks!

 

[littlest]

hmmm... generally here fishless cycling is recommended as it is kinder to the fish and that's more important in a lot of people's opinions than having fish straight away. I'm not sure recommending fish-in cycling to newbies is a great idea, particularly as you didn't mention water changes at all in your guide. With no water changes you are knowingly exposing your fish to high ammonia and high nitrites - which is not good fishkeeping in my opinion.

A few disadvantages of fish-in cycling as I see them:

1. cruel to your fish
2. you have a choice between exposing fish to high ammonia and nitrite (risking disease and death) or doing large regular water changes (a lot of hard work for the fish-keeper)
3. You are stuck with the couple of hardy fish you cycled with (if they survive) and they may not fit in with your stocking plans
4. Once you are cycled, your filter only has enough bacteria to cope with the couple of fish you cycled with, so you have to stock very gradually (with a fishless cycle you can stock pretty much fully straight away - except for fish that need a mature tank).

there's a very good post written about fishless cycle stickied in the new to the hobby forum [URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-the-hobby/113861/Fishless-Cycling/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/[/URL]

personally I've done fish-in and fishless cycling and I will never do fish-in again. Too much stress, too painful to see your fish suffer, too much work doing the water changes to give them a hope of survival.

 

[westpoison]

hmmm... generally here fishless cycling is recommended as it is kinder to the fish and that's more important in a lot of people's opinions than having fish straight away. I'm not sure recommending fish-in cycling to newbies is a great idea, particularly as you didn't mention water changes at all in your guide. With no water changes you are knowingly exposing your fish to high ammonia and high nitrites - which is not good fishkeeping in my opinion.

A few disadvantages of fish-in cycling as I see them:

1. cruel to your fish
2. you have a choice between exposing fish to high ammonia and nitrite (risking disease and death) or doing large regular water changes (a lot of hard work for the fish-keeper)
3. You are stuck with the couple of hardy fish you cycled with (if they survive) and they may not fit in with your stocking plans
4. Once you are cycled, your filter only has enough bacteria to cope with the couple of fish you cycled with, so you have to stock very gradually (with a fishless cycle you can stock pretty much fully straight away - except for fish that need a mature tank).

there's a very good post written about fishless cycle stickied in the new to the hobby forum <a href="http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-the-hobby/113861/Fishless-Cycling/" target="_blank">http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/</a>

personally I've done fish-in and fishless cycling and I will never do fish-in again. Too much stress, too painful to see your fish suffer, too much work doing the water changes to give them a hope of survival.

sorry i left out the water changes in my post because i am assuming that water changes is a common knowledge. The water changes once a week rule still apply.

Whether to do it with fish or fishless, its completely up to the individuals. For me i prefer cycling with 2-3 hardy fish as the hardy fish will be part of my community fish in the end. Lets say if i am going to start another specific species tank, i will bring transfer my hardy fish from my old tank to my new tank. Once the new tank is cycled, i will put my hardy fish back into my old tank.

 

[aquila]

The water changes once a week rule still apply.

If you're cycling with fish then you would almost certainly want to change water more than once a week - possibly even every day while the ammonia and nitrite levels are elevated. Although you discuss checking the ammonia level regularly you neglected to say that water changes should be performed whenever ammonia is present. Obviously you want to have an ammonia reading in order to cycle the tank, but this should be kept to the absolute minimum for the safety of the fish.

Such is the advantage of fishless cycling!

 

[littlest]

sorry i left out the water changes in my post because i am assuming that water changes is a common knowledge. The water changes once a week rule still apply.

Whether to do it with fish or fishless, its completely up to the individuals. For me i prefer cycling with 2-3 hardy fish as the hardy fish will be part of my community fish in the end. Lets say if i am going to start another specific species tank, i will bring transfer my hardy fish from my old tank to my new tank. Once the new tank is cycled, i will put my hardy fish back into my old tank.

If you have established tanks already there is really no need to do a fish-in cycle. You've got plenty of mature media to hand, so just put some mature media in the new filter for the new tank, add some ammonia, check the levels for a few days, and you should be done pretty quick. I cycled a new tank in less than a week with mature media - that's hardly a long time to wait before adding fish. If you have enough mature media available (I only had a little spare) the cycling is pretty much instant.

and I agree with aquila, for fish-in cycling you need to be doing water changes more often than once a week.
you said in your guide:

If the ammonia level is high when you take it, leave it be and do the test again every other day.

I personally don't think that's good advice at all. If the ammonia is high that means your fish are exposed to high ammonia. The last thing you want to do (for your fish's sake) is "leave it be". You should be doing an immeadiate water change instead.

 

[westpoison]

I personally don't think that's good advice at all. If the ammonia is high that means your fish are exposed to high ammonia. The last thing you want to do (for your fish's sake) is "leave it be". You should be doing an immeadiate water change instead.

Since we are doing cycling, there definitely will be times where the ammonia level is high if you change the water at this point of time, your tank will end up not being cycled enough and it will affect your aquarium in the long run. Thus the 1 week per water change will be sufficient, a too frequent water change is definitely not good for your fish. And i said that the kind of cycling method used is purely up to the individual. Just that i personally prefer with fish cycle.

 

[raptorrex]

I realise many people are confuse about how to cycle their aquarium. So i wrote something hoping can proved to be some help.

There are basically 2 ways of cycling aquarium, either with fish or without fish. In my opinion, it is easier to do without fish, but it will be dull running an empty tank for weeks.

Both way are essentially the same, the only differences is that the first way is feeding the fish with food so and they will produce ammonia for cycling. The fishless way is to add food the aquarium and let the food rot and thus produce ammonia.

Step 1: Do the necessary steps required to set up your tank (add water conditional, lay the gravel, lay down the decorations etc)

Step 2: Set the filter, thermometer running and leave the tank there untouched for 3-4 days. The water should be at the ideal temperature for your cycling fish (74° to 80° F(26° - 28° C)).

Step 3: Add in your cycling fish. Hardly livebearer is recommended. Wait for 24hrs allowing the fish to get used to the new environment.

Step 4: Start feeding your fish. Feed only once a day and the food must be consumed within 5mins. Be sure not to overfeed them or you'll prolong the cycling process since fish make waste.

Step 5: Use your test kit to check for ammonia level in the tank after 3-4days. The ammonia level will increase over the days. If the ammonia level is high when you take it, leave it be and do the test again every other day.

Step 6: When the ammonia level is low enough, start doing nitrite test. At this point of time, nitrite level should be higher than ammonia. Keep test for both ammonia and nitrite. Once both toxic reaches 0ppm, the cycle is complete.

Final: The whole cycling process will take around 6weeks to complete. Slowly introduce new fish into your aquarium and feed sparely allowing the bacteria to adjust to the new fish load.


For a fishless cycle that uses fish food, skip step 3. Do step 4 by “feeding your water” with food everyday. The amount of food you feed to the water should be slightly lesser than the amount of food if used for feeding the fish. The major draw back of using the fishless cycle this way is that other than adding ammonia and nitrite into the aquarium, it introduces other by product like phosphates as well.

Fishless cycle can also be done using ammonia. This way is done by skipping step 3. And do step 4 by feed the water with ammonia. The feed should be 3-5 drop per 10 gallons per day. This amount is roughly the same amount of ammonia produced by your cycling fish per day. Keep adding ammonia to the water until the cycle is complete and when new fish are introduce to produce ammonia on behalf of the ammonia solution.

In my opinion, the best way to cycle your fish that is by using the cycling with fish method. As I hate to see my fish tank empty for 6weeks!

an interesting post, one however that is duplicated and a bit more accurate is pinned in the relevant section of this forum. my only comment on the post is the suggested temperature, during a in fish cycle the temperature should be that which suites the fish you have. messin with that just buts more stress on the fish, which imo should not be in a cycling tank anyway. and the temp you cycle a fish-less cycle, is important too. the hotter you can get the water, within reason, the faster the bacteria will grow, so upper eighty's is fine. lol just don't let it boil.

finally i do agree with littlest, the fish-less cycle is now the most talked about kind, on this forum, and, given there are no advantages to the in fish system, and it undoubtedly causes stress and harm to the fish, why would we suggest it? two weeks with an fishless tank, or two weeks of worry about the fish in the tank, i cant see a single reason to go for the latter.

 

[littlest]

I personally don't think that's good advice at all. If the ammonia is high that means your fish are exposed to high ammonia. The last thing you want to do (for your fish's sake) is "leave it be". You should be doing an immeadiate water change instead.

Since we are doing cycling, there definitely will be times where the ammonia level is high if you change the water at this point of time, your tank will end up not being cycled enough and it will affect your aquarium in the long run. And i said that the kind of cycling method used is purely up to the individual. Just that i personally prefer with fish cycle.

Bignose recently wrote a very interesting and informative post about why water changes are good during cycling. It uses experimentation to prove its point. you may be interested in reading it [URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/226664/Why-Water-Changes-During-Cycling-Are-Good/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/22...cling-Are-Good/[/URL]

personally, even if water-changes did prolong the cycle, I would rather change the water than knowingly expose my fish to high levels of ammonia and nitrite as I think the latter is cruel. This is one of the major problems with fish-in cycling though, you are left with the choice of exposing your fish to toxic levels or doing really regular and large water changes. Fishless cycling is just so much easier on the fish and the fish-keeper.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

If you have established tanks already there is really no need to do a fish-in cycle. You've got plenty of mature media to hand, so just put some mature media in the new filter for the new tank, add some ammonia, check the levels for a few days, and you should be done pretty quick. I cycled a new tank in less than a week with mature media - that's hardly a long time to wait before adding fish. If you have enough mature media available (I only had a little spare) the cycling is pretty much instant.

Why on earth would you add ammonia to a tank you've put mature media into? The mature media is cycled and would support the same amount of fish percentage wise to the ammount of mature media(does that make sense?) that is if you took a fifth of the original mature media it woud support a fifth of the bioload of the original tank(although a bit less of a bioload would be prudent), instantly without the need to start putting ammonia in!! I've cloned many tanks this way and IMHO its by far the best way.

 

[littlest]

Yeah you don't have to, it depends whether you want to stock fully straight away and depends on how much media you have available. I didn't have much mature media available so I added the ammonia to boost the bacteria numbers before adding fish.
personally I would always add a little ammonia just to check that things are working. it doesn't harm anything to do this.
also you might not have the fish straight away to add to the tank after setting it up, in which case you would need to add ammonia to provide a food source for the bacteria.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Yeah you don't have to, it depends whether you want to stock fully straight away and depends on how much media you have available. I didn't have much mature media available so I added the ammonia to boost the bacteria numbers before adding fish.
personally I would always add a little ammonia just to check that things are working. it doesn't harm anything to do this.
also you might not have the fish straight away to add to the tank after setting it up, in which case you would need to add ammonia to provide a food source for the bacteria.

Obviously you add the mature media and fish at the same time. Its silly to say put ammonia in to check things are working mature media is cycled and therefore working and of course when you've added ammonia you have to do a 100% water change before you can add anything. When you clone you simply don't need to do those things and from a newbe point of view they don't have to stare at an empty tank!

 

[angel-al]

Ive actually cycled all my tanks with fish Im afraid to say. I know everyone says its unethical, but I only put 6 tetras in a 120 litre tank for a month, wc weekly, tested every week and 2x a week at around week 3 and after week five introduced small amounts of fish weekly while keeping regular water changes, minimal feeding and occassional water testing. Just done a 70l tank with same method - no ammonia, no fish losses.

I do appreciate the ethics behind fishless cycling and it is really the best way to go, but this is the method I use - sorry.

 

[littlest]

Yeah you don't have to, it depends whether you want to stock fully straight away and depends on how much media you have available. I didn't have much mature media available so I added the ammonia to boost the bacteria numbers before adding fish.
personally I would always add a little ammonia just to check that things are working. it doesn't harm anything to do this.
also you might not have the fish straight away to add to the tank after setting it up, in which case you would need to add ammonia to provide a food source for the bacteria.

Obviously you add the mature media and fish at the same time. Its silly to say put ammonia in to check things are working mature media is cycled and therefore working and of course when you've added ammonia you have to do a 100% water change before you can add anything. When you clone you simply don't need to do those things and from a newbe point of view they don't have to stare at an empty tank!

why do you need to do a 100% water change if you add a little ammonia? assuming it is all cycled you'll only have a bit of nitrate, it wouldn't require a 100% water change. I've read threads on here about people having trouble when using mature media and going through mini-cycles, so I prefer to check. I don't think it's silly to err on the side of caution.
Also, in regards to stocking according to the percentage of media you used, depending on the desired stock that's not always possible. If it's a betta tank, cloned from a betta tank, you can't add a third of a betta. Likewise if it's a tank for one goldfish cloned from a tank with one goldfish you can't add a third of a goldfish.

I concede that in a lot (probably a majority) of cases it would be unnecessary to add ammonia when cloning, but there are some circumstances when it is a good idea. I probably worded my post poorly. I did say that if you have enough media the tank will be ready to add fish straight away, but probably didn't emphasise that enough.

 

[Gazoo]

I personally don't think that's good advice at all. If the ammonia is high that means your fish are exposed to high ammonia. The last thing you want to do (for your fish's sake) is "leave it be". You should be doing an immeadiate water change instead.

Since we are doing cycling, there definitely will be times where the ammonia level is high if you change the water at this point of time, your tank will end up not being cycled enough and it will affect your aquarium in the long run. Thus the 1 week per water change will be sufficient, a too frequent water change is definitely not good for your fish. And i said that the kind of cycling method used is purely up to the individual. Just that i personally prefer with fish cycle.

I don't understand this this logic when you are exposing your fish to toxic levels of ammonia. It will most likely take a longer amount of time to cycle with fish because of the necessary water changes but that is the responsibility you take on when cycling with fish.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Also, in regards to stocking according to the percentage of media you used, depending on the desired stock that's not always possible. If it's a betta tank, cloned from a betta tank, you can't add a third of a betta. Likewise if it's a tank for one goldfish cloned from a tank with one goldfish you can't add a third of a goldfish.

I concede that in a lot (probably a majority) of cases it would be unnecessary to add ammonia when cloning, but there are some circumstances when it is a good idea. I probably worded my post poorly. I did say that if you have enough media the tank will be ready to add fish straight away, but probably didn't emphasise that enough.

Now you're just being picky/trying to have the last word. I'm not trying to argue with you but you said you need to add ammonia when using mature media and that is just plain wrong.Sure it may not hurt but its not necessary.Your advising people to go out ,buy ammonia and put it in their tank when its not necessary. Sure you can think of exceptions but you're just doing this to argue/feel right.
So by your logic if you had a tank with one goldfish and had the room and wanted to add another you couldn't as the mature filter coldn't cope? It would ya know and cloning a tank is exactly the same thing. Again I'm not trying to get in an argument with you but this 'New To The Hobby' section is to help people new to fish keeping,if you give people advice they later find out to be wrong then they will be less inclined to listen to you again!