Cycling With Fish Flakes

[erk628]

Has anyone ever done this saw it on another site and was wondering if anyone here has everdone this.

 

[onebto]

Yep I have heard of it. Basicaly it is a primative and inacurate form of fishless cycling, all the fish food is a supply of ammonia.

I think you will find a good majority of regular users of this forum use a pure ammonia source instead of fish food.

In my hummble opinion I see it allows for a more accurate dosing of Ammonia and possibly a much more efficent fishless cycle with much stronger and stable bacteria but then I am no expert on this matter.

I would always recommend a fishless cycle using a pure Ammonia (or as close to pure as possible) source as recommended in the beginners resource centre else were in this forum.

 

[Haych]

i had to use fish food as i didnt have any ammonia to feed my matured media.

it does take a while to break down though.

 

[AdAndrews]

anything that acutally rots in an aquarium, is much better for cycling purpose, the problem with ammonia in a bottle is that it doesnt encourage certain types of bacteria to grow, as there is nothing to rot, as apposed to fish food, or if fish were in the tank..

fish dont produce pure ammonia as in bottled form, ok, they do excrete some out of their gills, but still, good olde fish flake for me, from now on

It admitedly takes a little longer to break down, but thats part of the game.

 

[OldMan47]

There are many ways to cycle a tank. We usually prescribe the ammonia route because it is easy to control and the results are predictable in terms of concentrations you can expect and safe stocking levels when you are done. Other ways that are fairly common include rotting fish food, and prawns allowed to rot in the water. These methods all work and the end result is a cycled tank. I personally clone filters because I have some to clone and it takes much less time to reach the end.