Fishless cycle with fish food?

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Amy123

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Hey, I am currently doing a fishless cycle (trying to anyway) before getting my Betta, I bought some fluvan enhancer but have decided against that and to do it with fish food instead, today I put a few decent size flakes in to get it to 3ppm, how long should i leave it before testing for ammonia / adding more flakes? I know pallets are better for betta fish but i am using flakes just for the cycle. How long roughly will the cycle take? Also I have added some gravel and water from my friends tank and have placed the gravel next to the filter, I have set the heter to a higher heat too as i have read it helps with the bacteria? Any other hints and tips would be much appreciated
 
I'm just starting out and tried to do the same, the person in a local aquarium shop suggested it wasn't working too well as modern food has a lot of addivtives to prevent decomposing and hence create the ammonia. Don't know if they are right but I'm using ammonia solution instead now.
 
I'm just starting out and tried to do the same, the person in a local aquarium shop suggested it wasn't working too well as modern food has a lot of addivtives to prevent decomposing and hence create the ammonia. Don't know if they are right but I'm using ammonia solution instead now.
Yeah, i am going tomsee if i can find any pure ammonia, what solution are you using?
 
hi. im new to this forum and started a fishless cycle about 15 days ago. didnt know much about cycling when i bought a 34l tank and the guy at the pet store wasnt much helpful. he suggested that i start out with goldfish immediately and all of them died. went to ask for help and they suggested other fish which also all died. everytime i went there for help they only suggested more fish, so later after i dont know how many dead fish i stumbled upon a article about fishless cycling. went to the store again and told him i wanted to do a fishless cycle and he told me that was the old way of doing it. i left the store with 5 guppies and a bottle of bacteria solution, which according to him will sort out my problem. after dosing tank as suggested weekly, three weeks later all 5 died. went back, bought a 60l starter tank with filter and lightning, airstone and got plants which they couldnt give me the names of, got chlorine solution, tetra plantamin, ammonia and test kit for no2, no3, gh, kh, ph and cl2. couldnt get pure ammonia so decided to cycle using fish flakes in pantyhose, left it in untill water got cloudy then removed it untill water was clear again. doing water test every 2nd day and since then i could tell that cycle started. after 1st day nh3 0.25, no2 0 and no3 10. day8 nh3 1, no2 2 and no3 25. went to pet store again and was told that the plants have effect on figures. every few days i add fish flakes.day 10 nh3 1, no2 5 and no3 100!! did few water changes of 20% per day on day11,12 and 13. tested levels this evening(day15)and nh3 0, no2 0 and no3 about 17.5. sprinkled fish flakes again tonight and will test water levels on sunday again. when no3 was 100 i saw plants started to fade in colour so i started with water changes. i know i didnt get ammonia levels to optimum levels but am i still on the right path with cycle? will add fish flakes on every other day until i see nh3 and no2 staying at 0 before thinking of adding fish. long post i know but want to get levels just right this time with no fish dying. am currently struggling with small snails that started to pop out from the plants that i didnt even realise that were there but taking them out the moment i see them. plants are getting heir colour back tho.
 

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