Fish-In Cycling Queries

[Fishkeeper4567]

Hi everyone. I know by now that it is advised to cycle your tank for 6 weeks with no fish in. I am, knowing I'm new to the hobby and have not read the essentials, doing a fish-in cycle. Does it still mean after 6 weeks your tank is mature or is it different with fish-in cycling? As it is coming up to 6 weeks since the tank got started up. I am reading the instructions carefully and am only purchasing one small fish every 28 days. Thanks.
P.S My tank is a biube.

 

[SensesFail]

<br>Hi everyone. I know by now that it is advised to cycle your tank for 6 weeks with no fish in. I am, knowing I'm new to the hobby and have not read the essentials, doing a fish-in cycle. Does it still mean after 6 weeks your tank is mature or is it different with fish-in cycling? As it is coming up to 6 weeks since the tank got started up. I am reading the instructions carefully and am only purchasing one small fish every 28 days. Thanks.<br>P.S My tank is a biube.<br>

<br><br>Their is a link in my sig to the beginners resource centre which details fish in cycling and what to do. The best thing is to do the Fishless cycling using the add and wait method where you add 5ppm of ammonia and leave it until the ammonia drops to 0 then add again and within time nitrite will appear and spike and then start to decrease with the overall aim of adding the ammonia and 12 hrs later having 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. <br><br>If you go for the fish in cycling then you need to add a few fish and build up gradually dont throw loads and loads of fish in otherwise greater amounts of ammonia will be produced. It follows the same line where your wanting the ammonia to be processed along with the nitrite within acceptable levels so that its not even noticed and goes from ammonia straight to nitrate as quickly as possible. With fish in cycling you need to be testing te tank twice a day and if you get readings of ammonia or nitrite you need to do a water change to get rid of it so you have 0 on both or at a psh 025ppm anything above that will be very harmful to the fish. This could mean 2 water changes a day otherwise the readings will get too high and possible damage the fish or even result in fatalities. Its alot more hard work but within time the filter will process the ammonia and nitrite and all you will need to do is carry out a water change every so often to clear away the nitrate which is the finished product of the nitrogen cycle. <br><br>That is it in a very very basic nut shell please do check and read the beginners resource centre and if you have any questions or problems please post there are very experienced people on here who will help you every step of the way. Also keep a log of your test results and if possible invest in a good test kit such as an API master test kit.

 

[Fishkeeper4567]

Thanks. Trouble is I'm already doing a fish-in cycle. But in the future I will definitely do a fish-less cycle.

 

[SensesFail]

How are your readings for nitrite and ammonia? have you been doing water changes regularly?

 

[Fishkeeper4567]

I have got one male fancy guppy in at the moment.

 

[SensesFail]

I have got one male fancy guppy in at the moment.

If your readings for nitrite and ammonia are 0 then id say you could add another id maybe add abit more than one but ill let a more experienced person come and give some info on that. Id say maybe 3-4 guppies if thats what your sticking with? or even add 2 see what the readings are and if you get 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite after a week add a few more and so on.

 

[Fishkeeper4567]

Yes. All seems fine. Guppy is feeding well and am adding one guppy every 4 weeks.

Thanks but I think I might play safe and stock very gradually. Thanks for all the advice.

 

[SensesFail]

Yes. All seems fine. Guppy is feeding well and am adding one guppy every 4 weeks.

Thanks but I think I might play safe and stock very gradually. Thanks for all the advice.

Maybe add 2 and see what the readings are after a week and so on? or even stick with one and if you get the readings add another. Just build the filter up slowly as it will be catering for one at the moment. Id say 2 but we will see what others say and if readings are 0 every day for a week you will be fine to add another

 

[Fishkeeper4567]

Yeah that is what I might do. I'm getting one more this weekend though as it has been 4 weeks since I got the 1st male fancy guppy.

 

[SensesFail]

Yeah that is what I might do. I'm getting one more this weekend though as it has been 4 weeks since I got the 1st male fancy guppy.

Should be fine i cant imagine they produce waste a small guppy. Its always better to be safe than sorry as they say. I added 16 cichlids and a few cats at once and so far fingers crossed to nitrite or ammonia but its not been a week yet. I did the cycling fishless but it took me 4 months! ageeees lol

 

[ATK!!!]

im doin the same with my buibe apart from ive already almost fully stocked it but.... my pH is 8.1 and rising.. and i have Cardinal tetra

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with SF. Since the tank has been running a lot of weeks and the fish were built up very slowly we have every reason to believe it's a successful Fish-In Cycle.

As SF said, the way to tell the end of a fish-in cycle is when you can go a whole week without needing a water change, measuring zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) each day. (Usually we measure twice a day the first two days and if all those are zero readings then drop it to only one set of tests the rest of the days.)

All test results need to come from a good liquid-reagent based test kit. Most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, but there are other good liquid test kits around. The important thing is to not trust paper strip tests.

Any good cycled filter will usually allow you to add 2 or 3 medium to small fish with the bacterial colony sizes in the filter catching up to the new bioload (new bioload meaning more fish) very quickly (in a day or two) such that your fish are never really in danger. Then it's good to give the filter a week or two so that the colonies can re-adjust before you do it again (assuming you still have stocking capacity with respect to the total water volume per the inch guideline roughly.))

In small tanks such as this it's also good to scale these usual guidelines down somewhat and it sounds like you've already got the right attitude about it: maybe only one fish at a time and lots of time between additons and then you ultimately want to end up understocked or barely fully stocked (per the rough inch guidelines) so that you have some leeway if there should ever be a power outage (fish start dying fast when overstocked tanks lose power!)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Fishkeeper4567]

Thanks for the info. Everything seems fine and the cycle is nearly over.

 

[OldMan47]

If you are cycling without testing your water, as it seems to me you are, you will simply need to take things slower than someone who actually knows by testing what is going on in their tank. I would stay with your minimal fish level for at least 6 weeks and then add fish very gradually after that. The first addition should be no more biological load than your cycling fish and would be best kept to half that amount. After that first addition, wait at least 2 weeks and better yet 3 weeks before adding in half of that new stocking level again. As long as you proceed with great caution, you should only lose less than half of the fish you add. Do not add any fish you really care about for at least 3 months and you should be OK. It is how we did things before we had the ability to test and it often worked out fine as long as we were aware that we could expect to lose up to half of our original stock.