Fishless Cycling From Newbie

[grammaton]

Can someone please help. I have a 60l tank which I am currently doing a fishless cycle. I have have followed all the brilliant advice from this wonderful forum but I have a couple of questions. I have a elite 15 stingray filter and want to know if this filter is ok for cycling my new tank? I have added ammonia using the homebase ammonia following the guide and I have just took delivery of my nutrafin mini tester and my ammonia readings are 6.9 ppm. I will test again in 2 days to see if everything is going good. I have been cycling since only last staurday. Should I stick to the elite stingray or change to the fluval +2? Please some advice please. Also I have'nt tested for anything else yet as I believe it is too early. Am I right? And finally can someone give me an idea of how many tropical fish I can keep. I think it depends on which fish I want but if anyone can suggest what fish and how many it will be helping me out big time. All I would like are colourful fish.
Thanks for your time.

 

[fatheadminnow]

What is the elite 15 stingray's rated GPH (Gallons per hour) or LPH (litres per hour)?

As long as there is water flow past/through a suitable surface (like your filter media) bacteria will colonize on it. The only limiting factor is size and flow rate. You want a turn over rate of at least 4-5 times per hour. Also, the size of your filter is also going to determine/limit how much bacteria will colonize on your filter.

-FHM

 

[grammaton]

What is the elite 15 stingray's rated GPH (Gallons per hour) or LPH (litres per hour)?

As long as there is water flow past/through a suitable surface (like your filter media) bacteria will colonize on it. The only limiting factor is size and flow rate. You want a turn over rate of at least 4-5 times per hour. Also, the size of your filter is also going to determine/limit how much bacteria will colonize on your filter.

-FHM

I have looked everywhere for the flow rates but cannot find them. I have looked at the flow from the outet and it looks pretty powerful. The only bit with sponge/media in the filter is at the bottom "fin" like bit. Their are also 2 filter cartridges with carbon/zeolite whatever that is. I have read another post which says to remove the cartridges and place sponge media instead to increase the size of filters. How do I do this and what sponge do I use and will this be better in the long run.
Thanks

 

[fatheadminnow]

I agree with taking out the carbon and replacing it with foam.

The only thing carbon/zeolite does is take out discoloration, odor, meds etc..., so you dont need it until necessary.

Just go to your LFS and they should have some foam you can buy, than cut it to the shape you need and put it where the carbon was.

Does it say anywhere on the filter box what size the tank the filter is for?

-FHM

 

[grammaton]

I agree with taking out the carbon and replacing it with foam.

The only thing carbon/zeolite does is take out discoloration, odor, meds etc..., so you dont need it until necessary.

Just go to your LFS and they should have some foam you can buy, than cut it to the shape you need and put it where the carbon was.

Does it say anywhere on the filter box what size the tank the filter is for?

-FHM

I have searched some websites and it is for tanks upto 75l and I have found the info about flow rates. The website says 300l per hour. Do you know if it is easy to open the cages which store the carbon/zeolite?

 

[fatheadminnow]

That filter will give you a turn over rate of about 5, so that is good.

I never used this type of filter before so I do not know how hard it is to open to the cage.

If you can, I would just take the whole cage thing out and throw foam in there without the cage. But I do not know how the filer its self is set up, so I do not know for sure.

You are just going to have to play around with it.

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

No, I think we'd be most lucky here to have a stingray-experienced member come and help us. I'm remembering some recent horror-stories where the zeolite problem seemed really bad. I hope another member can help out with this as I don't want to exaggerate too much, I just seem to remember at least one other person going through some long problems, eventually throwing up their arms and springing for a different filter. I'm wondering if it was near impossible to get a decent amount of good biomedia into the thing.

~~waterdrop~~