Fishless Cycling Qeustions I Should Know By Now

[One_Trick_Pony]

Hi all I have recently reset up my tank, and now need to do a fisheless cycle. – I Havant before as I have always been able to simply run my filter media in my now ex girlfriends father’s tank for a month prior to starting my own – I now of course can’t.

I have read about Bio Spira and Soll Bactinettes as ‘instant cycle products’ but from here and other forums understand they may just give it a good jump start, I fancy giving them a try so can someone confirm I have understood this.

1. Add the correct amount of Bio Spira / Bactineets
2. Add enough ammonia to raise my level to 4ppm (using an online calculator to roughly work it out)
3. Test daily, wait for ammonia to drop to 1ppm
4. Add enough to bring back up to 4ppm – do I add this amount each day regardless now or wait for it to drop back to 1ppm each time? (this time getting shorter as we go along)
5. Test daily,
6. Wait til it drops form 4ppm to 0 in 12 hours (eg add before work and test when I get home.)
7. Add the 4ppm amount each day
8. Test for NitrAte monitoring until this too drops to 0
9. Add full load of fish?

I assume I can just keep adding daily ammonia to keep it cycled indefinitely if I haven’t been abel to source the fish at this point?

Apparently these two aforementioned products can cause the cycle to go quite fast, this being the case can all the above steps still be identified? I assume they can but over say a week or 2 rather the months?

I need to perhaps artificially raise my ph and hardness for my tang chilids, should I start this before or after the cycle? (chiclid forum has given me a good recipe for this)

Many Thanks

(a back to the beginning OTP)

 

[OldMan47]

Well you have a small problem. They stopped making Biospira so it is not available unless you find some that is greatly out of date. I have not heard the same about bactinettes so it may still be available. Your process was almost right but you will never see a drop in nitrates, instead you will eventually get a drop in nitrites. (NO2 not NO3) Tang cichlids liking for high pH is shared by the nitrifying bacteria. They actually expand faster at around 8.4 pH than at lower values. If you get a good colony of bacteria to jump start your cycle, it can sometimes be done in a week but that is not a frequent experience. I manage to get there quite often using an existing tank's filter to get a new one going but that is also not a universal experience by any means.