Fishless Cycle?

[Ps3Steveo]

Right after reading parc I'm wondering if this is correct, all you do is add substrate straight out the bag, plant it, fill it, start dosing ferts and CO2 and the heavy planting should prevent algae by using the ammonia???

Then how long does it take to get the ammonia down to a safe level for fish?

 

[PDSimon]

You're mixing up two different cycles I think. You don't have to have plants for fishless cycles. You add ammonia to help build up the bacterial colony. There will be no light getting to the tank so algae would be unlikely. It can take ages, if you have mature sponges you can pretty much instantly start it and ignore adding ammonia if you are comfortable with doing waterchanges incase there are ammonia spikes... but without them it can take months.

Plant wise, you don't have to worry about ammonia, just plant heavy as you said, with co2 etc and add some shrimp and some fish (very little i think) and then keep an eye on the water and do waterchanges frequently.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Well looking at the fishless cycle thing in parc the guy says about getting good plant growth from the start so doing the heavy planting should speed it along a bit as they use the ammonia and adding a bit of mature media to the externals should sort it quick then?

Doesn't ammonia come from the new substrate as well?

 

[PDSimon]

I think ADA substrate releases ammonia.

I'm not sure whether using ammonia and planting heavy is a good idea although it is possible... one of the others might have more of an idea.

I did a fishless cycle, but that was before i was interested in plants. Took ages as I had no mature media. To be honest, if you had a good chunk of mature media, you could put that in a good filter and lightly stock without any ammonia. Ammonia will kill fish unless its in micro amounts so you need to be careful!

Plants do use ammonia. On a fishless cycle, i think 5ppm is commonly used which is quite a lot, it might 'burn' plants... so not sure how you'd go across it. You wouldn't be able to fully stock unless you add the right amount of ammonia.

Weigh it up and think about what you want to achieve. You seem more interested in the plants, I would get mature media, give the additional ammonia a miss, heavily plant and have co2 and then lightly stock. Keeping an eye on ammonia and nitrite levels.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Yeah thats probably what I'm gonna do. Use mature media and heavily plant, use ferts and CO2 and test the water over a few weeks while adding 25 cardinals a week till I get to about 70 - 80. Then once I know its safe the Discus will go in.

 

[PDSimon]

Might have to be even slower than that. Not sure If you keep an eye on the water levels it should be ok, provided the mature media is sucessful.

What discus you getting?

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Dunno yet, was thinking of getting juvi's as my lfs has 4 I want and they're all about 2", I dont wanna mix adults and juvi's as the bullying will be stupid so I'm probably gonna go with about 7 or 9, as its 450 litres, my lfs has 2 super red melon's and 2 beautiful pure white, so may go for them but all their other reds are peppered so I'm preying the ones I want from them are good strains and dont end up peppered too.

 

[PDSimon]

Sounds good

 

[Ps3Steveo]

So you dont really need the whole cycle process if you have mature media in your filters, plant the tank, fill it, just stick some mature media in the externals for a few days and then the bacteria colony will be sorted???

I just wanna make sure as this is what I've always done since my first tank years back and its always worked lol.

 

[PDSimon]

Not necessarily. Its complicated. When I was a newbie I had a bit of mature media and it didn't make the slightist bit of difference, but i was dosing ammonia and the water chemistry is so much more complicated than that, there are loads of different bacteria and what not that develop. I think if you have atleast 1/3 (probably better off with 1/2 of your filter with mature media it will be fine! How much fish you can add, i'm not entirly sure, I was hoping someone else could help with that. Either way... if you keep up waterchanges, more if necessary it should be perfect imo. The waterchanges will help with the fish and the plants...

You don't want to leave the mature media for too long either as it needs to feed on ammonia, nitrite etc for it to survive... a few days should be fine. Maybe that would be a good time to put some shrimp in? not sure what substrate you're using though? If your dosing ferts there won't be much point testing the water so you will have to keep a good eye on the fish.

If its worked in the past no reason it shouldn't work now. The plants should help really

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Ahhhhh lol I hope so, well I think I'll dose some ammonia and use a bit of mature media that way it will hopefully get the cycle done quicker, I'll just test the water daily from day 1 to see what happens.

 

[PDSimon]

I would skip the ammonia! Otherwise you'll be there forever. Although I said I dosed ammonia, I don't think its worth it for someone with your experience... If the media was to be rejected, it could take weeks just to get rid of that first dose Its an evil process. Is it 5ppm that is meant to be dosed? It was almost a year ago since I did all that stuff lol.

If you're putting plants in whilst dosing ammonia, ferts..plants..ammmonia..light..test results will come out funny. I just think you could swerve the ammnia dosing but up to you! if you do want to use it, i would advise planting afterwards personally.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Hmmmm, well I could leave the ammonia, throw in some mature media, plant, start dosing and do the fish test, add 20 odd Cardinals after 3 - 4 days and see how they do as the bacteria will be in there, a small amount but will be present and the fish waste from 20 of them will be a nice small add to the process and I'll go up from there 20 a week maybe.