Fishless Cycling + "cycle"

[Minni3]

I've read alot of fishless cycling that requires alot of waiting and patience. So I was wondering if it's possible to use "cycle" in fishless cycling. I have to start all over again because my tank wasn't "properly" cycled. My fish is in a temporary home at the moment and I want to move him back to his tank a.s.a.p. I was thinking of getting pure ammonia and using lots of "cycle" to speed up the process. Has anyone done this? And if so, how long did it take?

All replys greatly appreciated!

 

[purplekaz]

I have just completed a fishless cycle on my 96l tank.
I didn't use "cycle", but I did use "StressZyme" which I think is similar.
I'm not sure it made much difference to be honest, so if you don't have anything yet I'd advise you to save your money.
It took me about 3 weeks for the cycle to complete, using pure ammonia which I kept topped up to 4ppm each evening.
Very quickly (within a week) the ammonia was being processed completely to nitrite, but it took 2 weeks or so for the nitrite to be converted to nitrate.
I think the best way to speed up the cycling process is to raise the temperature a bit (I set it at 30 degrees C) so the bacteria multiply quicker, and make sure you have plenty of gas exchange (I added an airstone and airpump, and point the filter outlet so it disturbs the water surface).
I also did a big water change (about 80%) after seeing the nitrite levels off the chart for over a week, and that seemed to help speed things up.
When the cycle was almost finished I added some mature media from someone elses well-established tank, just to make sure my cycle was well and truely complete before adding fish.
I you can, I strongly advise getting some mature media to help make things quicker from the start. Unfortunately I couldn't get hold of any when I started mine, but it definately helped once I found some.
And make sure you have a good liquid master test kit, I did tests daily or twice daily for 3 weeks while cycling, so that's a fair few tests!
And now the fish are in I'm testing every day or two so you'll get your money's worth from a decent kit

 

[jeej]

I've read alot of fishless cycling that requires alot of waiting and patience. So I was wondering if it's possible to use "cycle" in fishless cycling. I have to start all over again because my tank wasn't "properly" cycled. My fish is in a temporary home at the moment and I want to move him back to his tank a.s.a.p. I was thinking of getting pure ammonia and using lots of "cycle" to speed up the process. Has anyone done this? And if so, how long did it take?

All replys greatly appreciated!

If you manage to find pure ammonia in Brisbane, please tell me where you found it!

 

[Minni3]

I have just completed a fishless cycle on my 96l tank.
I didn't use "cycle", but I did use "StressZyme" which I think is similar.
I'm not sure it made much difference to be honest, so if you don't have anything yet I'd advise you to save your money.
It took me about 3 weeks for the cycle to complete, using pure ammonia which I kept topped up to 4ppm each evening.
Very quickly (within a week) the ammonia was being processed completely to nitrite, but it took 2 weeks or so for the nitrite to be converted to nitrate.
I think the best way to speed up the cycling process is to raise the temperature a bit (I set it at 30 degrees C) so the bacteria multiply quicker, and make sure you have plenty of gas exchange (I added an airstone and airpump, and point the filter outlet so it disturbs the water surface).
I also did a big water change (about 80%) after seeing the nitrite levels off the chart for over a week, and that seemed to help speed things up.
When the cycle was almost finished I added some mature media from someone elses well-established tank, just to make sure my cycle was well and truely complete before adding fish.
I you can, I strongly advise getting some mature media to help make things quicker from the start. Unfortunately I couldn't get hold of any when I started mine, but it definately helped once I found some.
And make sure you have a good liquid master test kit, I did tests daily or twice daily for 3 weeks while cycling, so that's a fair few tests!
And now the fish are in I'm testing every day or two so you'll get your money's worth from a decent kit

Wow topping up the ammonia every evening, that's a first, never heard of that before. Isn't the ammonia meant to be 4-5ppm at the beginning...and then as the ammonia decreases and the nitrites increases, you wait longer for the second type of bacteria to come along and break down nitrite into nitrate until it looks lik Ammonia: 0ppm, Nitrites: 0ppm and Nitrates: +160ppm....then you do a 80% water change to bring down the nitrates to about 20ppm...then you gradually add fish...starting with the smallest ones.

Maybe that's why it too so long.

 

[rdd1952]

Hi Minni,

I'm pretty much in agreement with purplekaz on the cycling products. They seem to be pretty useless. I've never understood how the bacteria could live without a food source while it sits on the shelf waiting to be bought. Ive tried bot Cycle and Stress Zyme and couldn't tell they did anything.

As far as the actual fishless cycling process is concerned, here is a link t the pinned topic (you may have already read it). Basically you are right in the steps but the reason you have to keep adding ammonia is that the nitrite processing bacteria takes longer to develop so you have to keep feeding the ammonia processing bacteria that are already present or they will begin to die off. The great thing about a fishless cycle though is that once it is finished, you can add all your fish at once rather than slowly. You will have plenty of bacteria to handle the waste of a fully stocked tank.

As jeej mentioned, you may have a problem finding ammonia in Australia. Not certain why but it seems that no one sells it down there. An alternative is t use fish flakes which will decay and thus produce ammonia. It takes a little longer and you need to put them in some type bag or filter pack and hang them in the tank to keep them from making a mess in the tank.

 

[purplekaz]

Yup, what rdd1952 said!

You don't need to add ammonia every single day to start with, but my ammonia was processed so quickly after the first couple of days that I had to add 4ppm each evening to keep the bacteria alive. As long as it's never at 0 ammonia for more than 12 hours or so you can add ammonia however you like (just don't go over 8ppm in total or the cycle may stall).
I began just by testing the tank water each evening, and just added ammonia when it got to almost zero, but this happened so quickly that I had to add ammonia daily, and towards the end twice daily, to make sure the bacteria didn't starve and therefore die off.

For me, and it seems the general trend, the nitrate took twice as long to process completely as the ammonia did. The second type of bacteria (that processes nitrite to nitrate) always seems to take longer to become established than the first type (processing ammonia to nitrite), but it's important you keep feeding the first type while you're waiting for the second, by adding ammonia daily.

Like rdd1952 mentioned, it's safe to add all your fish in one go because there will be more than enough bacteria to process their waste from the start.
I added my full stock (see sig) pretty much straight away, and they all seem happy and healthy so far.
If you add the fish gradually after a fishless cycle you risk the majority of the bacteria dying off before you fully stock your tank, and this may cause spikes as you add each batch and increase the rate of ammonia that needs processing.

It can be frustrating to wait for the cycle to complete, it seemed to take forever for me when I just wanted to add my fishies!
I hope all goes well