Fishless Cycle With Fish Food

[Airbend3r]

Sorry for another question but could anyone give me a link or a detailed discription on how to do a fishless cycle with FISH FOOD seeing as im having trouble finding ammonia. I more or less get the concept of fishless cycling but dont fully understand how to do it. Please and thank you

 

[nmonks]

It really couldn't be simpler, which is why I usually recommend this method to absolute beginners.

First, set up your tank, plug everything in and get the water running.

Next, add a pinch of flake food equivalent to what you'd add for your first batch of fishes. Let's say you're going to start with six danios or six bronze/peppered Corydoras, either of which would be SUPERB choices for "first fish". For these, a small pinch of food would be fine.

Repeat this once every day or two, just as if you were feeding your fish.

The flake will quickly rot, stimulating the growth of filter bacteria. One advantage over plain ammonia is that flake also feeds non-filter bacteria that help with the nitrogen cycle, what are called saprotrophic bacteria.

By the end of the first week you should detect non-zero levels of ammonia and nitrite. Within 3 weeks ammonia should be dropping close to zero, and nitrite will not be far behind. Once ammonia is zero and nitrite close to zero (ideally, zero) you can add your first fish.

That's it! Couldn't be easier. Because you have to wait for the flake to rot, this method takes a few days longer than using plain ammonia, But the end result is just as good, perhaps better.

Cheers, Neale

Sorry for another question but could anyone give me a link or a detailed discription on how to do a fishless cycle with FISH FOOD seeing as im having trouble finding ammonia. I more or less get the concept of fishless cycling but dont fully understand how to do it. Please and thank you

 

[waterdrop]

Neale,

I believe you that this is a good method. I think, at least in the short time I've been here, we've not quite known how to *teach* this method. The only stumbling block, I feel, has been imparting enough information to rank beginners on what a correct pinch of fishfood feels like and how often to feed it to the tank. On the one hand I don't think the amount is overly critical but on the other hand we do sometimes find that people who have never done it before can do things that might seem pretty far off the expected.

Anyway, you've made it seem pretty clear in this post to add daily for the most part and hopefully the size of a pinch would just not be that critical. My guess in the past is that people we've had try this have not added quite enough fishfood, if anything.

We do have quite a few cases, especially from Australia and New Zealand it seems where members report a lot of trouble finding aqueous ammonia and it would make sense for us to try and save them a long fruitless search and just get them started with this method right away.

I completely agree with you that saprotrophs are a present and necessary part of a balanced aquarium environment, breaking the larger organic debris (fish waste, excess fish food, plant debris) down into ammonia. I've just never read or seen evidence that there's much trouble finding them present in sufficient numbers. The fact that they can be visibly seen in a bacterial bloom often only a few days after a tank is first filled with tap water has always given me the impression that they virtually never present a problem by "not being there."

I'm ready to accept though that this might be lack of experience on my part. Perhaps there are certain symptoms in an ammonia fishless cycle that are not going as well as they could and I don't realize its due to a lack of saprotrophs.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[nmonks]

Yes, you're right, some people misunderstand what a pinch might be. A good rule of thumb for small fish like tetras is they need 2-3 flakes about the size of their eyeball. Within reason though, a bit more won't do any harm. Filter bacteria will quickly accommodate small excesses of food.

As for the role of saprotrophic bacteria, I agree that they're not difficult to cultivate. But with that said, there are enough people who find the fishless cycle method unreliable in certain situations. Often these are the people keeping big, predatory fish, so perhaps saprotrophic bacteria come more into their own when the amount of solid waste dumped on the substrate is considerable. I don't know for sure.

On the other hand, the flake method is pretty idiot-proof. If you add the amount of food you'd add for the fish you want to keep, it matters not whether that food goes through a fish or through saprotrophic bacteria: either way the same amount of ammonia is being "fed" to the filter bacteria, so you're creating just the right amount of filter bacteria. Much easier than messing about with ammonia! It is perhaps a bit messier though, and possibly you're more likely to get bacterial blooms through the first few days.

Cheers, Neale

 

[doresy]

Sorry for another question but could anyone give me a link or a detailed discription on how to do a fishless cycle with FISH FOOD seeing as im having trouble finding ammonia. I more or less get the concept of fishless cycling but dont fully understand how to do it. Please and thank you

Where in the world are you?

 

[Airbend3r]

Sorry for another question but could anyone give me a link or a detailed discription on how to do a fishless cycle with FISH FOOD seeing as im having trouble finding ammonia. I more or less get the concept of fishless cycling but dont fully understand how to do it. Please and thank you

Where in the world are you?

I live in Sacramento,CA(USA). I added some flakes yesterday and my ammonia level is around 4 or 5.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Airbend3r.
If you are already showing 5 ppm of ammonia, do not add any more fish food. You are one of the people that they were talking about that does not judge fish feeding amounts the way an experienced fish keeper would. A lack of experience with feeding fish means you really have very little to judge things by. Instead of adding more food, give the ammonia a chance to drop down to 2 ppm or less before you add any more. You have added more than you will want to with the next feeding in a few days or a week.

 

[Airbend3r]

So I should hold out on the "feedings" for a few days until the ammonia level drops to around 2? Guess ill just go search through these forums for some more cycling/stocking info.

 

[OldMan47]

Yes indeed. With your present ammonia levels, you need to let them drop back some before adding more fish food. A reading of 8 ppm of ammonia or more will mean that the ammonia processors that develop in your tank will be the wrong ones. In a waste treatment system that is trying to take sewage waste and process it, the other bacteria would be just right. They will always be exposed to high levels of ammonia. For us, we need to encourage the bacteria that will thrive at near zero ammonia levels. Those bacteria will be out-competed by the wrong kind at concentrations of anything near 8 ppm. By holding back for a bit with your fish food addition, you will hold the ammonia into a more optimal range and get the right bacteria working for you.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with OM47. By using your ammonia testing kit you can augment Neales advice about judging the amount of fishfood and the frequency of putting them in. You can avoid the wrong species that come up at about 8ppm sustained ammonia levels.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Gilli]

Great thread - this is how i cycled my tank 2 years ago - couldnt be easier!

 

[chrisbassist]

Since I posted it on another thread, I thought i'd post here too,

one way of getting the amount of food about right would be to use pellets instead of flakes, flakes can be hard to get the amount right.

say you just wanted a single betta in a tank, you could get small pellets, and add 1 per day. that way you can actually count out the correct amount of pellets rather than judging "pinch size"

like these http/www.warehouse-aquatics.co.uk/index.php?p=product&products_id=3681&cid=1

makes thigns much easier.

 

[K-Holed]

During the course of doing a little research a while back, I came accross a few articles that suggested using fishfood (to a lesser extent) or shrimp to cycle a tank, could increase the chances of introducing a Saprolegnia infection into the aquarium. I was wondering if anyone else had had any experience of this.

 

[nmonks]

It's a pointless worry. Saprotrophic fungi and bacteria are latent in all aquaria and do good work, right up to the point where our fish are weakened. That's when saprotrophic bacteria and fungi become pathogens. So long as we keep our fish healthy, these things are not dangerous, and keeping them out would be impossible (and probably undesirable) anyway.

Cheers, Neale

During the course of doing a little research a while back, I came accross a few articles that suggested using fishfood (to a lesser extent) or shrimp to cycle a tank, could increase the chances of introducing a Saprolegnia infection into the aquarium. I was wondering if anyone else had had any experience of this.