Fish Shop Telling Me To Fish In Cycling...

[Colonials66]

Hi all,

Firstly I'm new here and quite new to tropical fish keeping all together, so please help

. I have and have had set up a 60l tank for about 6 months, fully stocked and everything has been good with it with no deaths or diseases during its entire time. But I have just bought a new tank, 240l and want to set it up. After reading through many articles on this forum I've decided I want to have a go at fishless cycling in setting it up. My other tank I did a fish in cycle as it was what I was told to do at the time.

I have read up on fishless cycling and understand how to go about it. However, I can't find where to purchase ammonia in bottled form in the UK. So, I went into my lfs and asked if they had it and was barraged with questions as to why I'm I want to do this, telling me its a bad idea, and to start by adding some tetra's etc. Should I follow their advice? Or carry on with my plan of fishless cycling? And where can I get some from in the UK?

All help is appreciated

Thanks

 

[techen]

Don't listen to any LFS, There main job is to sell fish and make money so no. I'd never really follow what my LFS said. Anyway, It's quite hard to get ammonia now as most stores are removing it and going "Green". If you ebay ammonia I believe theres something called kleen off tha would do for a cycle. Worth a look into.

 

[cuda]

I have never done fishless cycling, but have heard it works well. I have always cycled with fish, slowly building up stock starting with the hardiest ones. I have never had losses. As long as you change the water a little more than usual the first three weeks, and watch the ammonia level, you should have no problems. Besides I wouldnt want to look at an empty tank for this break in period, but to each there own. I dont see any benefit to fishless cycling other than the ability after breakin to stock the tank more completely which you can do the other way in the same amount of time. I would be careful with some tetras as initial stock, some are sensitive. Start with danios or hardy barbs.

 

[techen]

I have never done fishless cycling, but have heard it works well. I have always cycled with fish, slowly building up stock starting with the hardiest ones. I have never had losses. As long as you change the water a little more than usual the first three weeks, and watch the ammonia level, you should have no problems. Besides I wouldnt want to look at an empty tank for this break in period, but to each there own. I dont see any benefit to fishless cycling other than the ability after breakin to stock the tank more completely which you can do the other way in the same amount of time. I would be careful with some tetras as initial stock, some are sensitive. Start with danios or hardy barbs.

The benafit of a fishless cycle is too not let the fish suffer, Sure you have a empty tank but it sure is much better than a fish swimming in it own waste for a few weeks :3 that and when you are ready you can shove any fish you want in and not worry about a random ammonia spike or something. Am gald you're goin down the fishless cycle, Good on ya

 

[JenJ]

Whereabouts are you? I have an unused bottle of Kleen Off (bought a second hand running tank instead of new so didn't need to cycle at all) if you want it?

 

[Colonials66]

Im in the midlands, Leicester

 

[JenJ]

I can post it to you if you want? Say, for a donation of £5 to your favourite charity? Message me your address if you want to go ahead...

 

[Nightfall]

You can always tell if a LFS is any good by their recommendations for cycling. Most of my local shops specifically ask if you have a cycled tank ready when you buy fish, and will tell you to cycle the tank before bringing in any fish if you say no. If you have no choice but to go to that store then you have no choice, but if you DO have a choice try to find a place where the staff ask questions and make recommendations based on what's best for the fish rather than their bottom line. In my experience it's worth finding these shops as they go the extra mile - they'll order in fish or plants they don't usually stock, give you solid advice and will often give you discounts if you're a frequent customer.

 

[KCB]

Should I follow their advice? Or carry on with my plan of fishless cycling? And where can I get some from in the UK?

Never follow their advice without doing some research before hand

. Obviously you've looked into fish-less cycling and it is the BEST way to go unless you would like sickly fish. I don't know what that guy was playing at, but there's nothing negative about fish-less cycling. He was probably just trying to get you to purchase something

.

I got my bottle of ammonia from Robert Dyas in the cleaning aisle. The bottle has a blue and yellow stick on the front and did the trick perfectly

. Some people have found some in Boots and Homebase but can't vouch for them peronally.

 

[Mikey1]

of course they suggest fish in cycling,

the fish die, and you come back to buy more,

makes sense from a business point of view

 

[Tuxyu3]

I have never done fishless cycling, but have heard it works well. I have always cycled with fish, slowly building up stock starting with the hardiest ones. I have never had losses. As long as you change the water a little more than usual the first three weeks, and watch the ammonia level, you should have no problems. Besides I wouldnt want to look at an empty tank for this break in period, but to each there own. I dont see any benefit to fishless cycling other than the ability after breakin to stock the tank more completely which you can do the other way in the same amount of time. I would be careful with some tetras as initial stock, some are sensitive. Start with danios or hardy barbs.

They may not die but there is a good chance any fish exposed to high levels of ammonia, no matter how hardy they are, will die early due to the long-term effects of poisoning, even if they appear to make a full recovery.

 

[daizeUK]

I had the same problem finding ammonia and ended up buying a bottle of BioMature, £6.50 off Ebay.

 

[DrSlackBladder]

I used Kleen Off for my cycle, bought on Amazon UK.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Why do you need to find ammonia for the new tank? You mentioned you have an established tank for 6 months. Go for the fish-in cycle route, but rather than starting from scratch, you have the benefit of being able to move some of your filter media from the mature tank to seed the bacteria into the new tank.


Your 60l tank probably has a half dozen to a dozen fish. You can safely move 1/3 of the media out of that filter and immediately add 1/3 of the bioload to your 240l. Start with small numbers of fish, and you'll be fine. No ammonia or nitrite spikes, no waiting around to get the tank going. Its perfect. A fishless cycle is really only necessary for your FIRST tank. Once you have a tank, and assuming it remains stocked and up and running, you are in business.

If you want to stock the 240l a little more, you could add half of the media from the 60l tank. You'd need to be a little more cautious with the 60l tank at that time for a few days, but the bacteria colonies will bounce back quickly and you'd be looking at no more than a couple of days with any type of reading on the tank, and if you drastically cut your feeding right before you do this, you may not see any readings even then.

You can also add a bit of fish food to provide a bit of ammonia, and just smear the brown stuff from your old filter onto the new filter... same idea... You will be seeding the filter with the bacteria and you will be able to move things along quickly. Once it starts, the process takes off quickly.