Fishless Cycling

[BezsMaracas]

Finally some movement on mine, ammonia has finally dropped after almost a month! Now to re-dose and hope my nitrite eating bacteria isn't as lazy

 

[stacey3272]

Finally some movement on mine, ammonia has finally dropped after almost a month! Now to re-dose and hope my nitrite eating bacteria isn't as lazy

my ammonia has beendropping for a while now in 12 hours. Its this stupid nitrites. I just tested. its been 22 hours since I last tested i see blue. But when I put ammonia in it goes back up. Now to see how long it takes to get back to blue. i guess 22 hours is beter then nothing. I am hoping this is my last week and I get some double 0 in 12 hours cycle. It was 7 week or maybe 8 I have been doing this.

 

[BezsMaracas]

I hadn't tested for nitrates until late yesterday, was surprised to already see some so I guess the nitrites have been being processed for a while. Frustrating when it isn't an exact science but at least you know it's going somewhere.

 

[Ram8349]

Have you guys tried Tetra SafeStart?
It can instant cycle or nearly instant cycle your new fish tank.

I have tried it and it really work.

http/petskeepersguide.com/fishless-cycle-nitrogen-cycle/

 

[stacey3272]

DOing a big water change during cyle going to mess things up. I made sure water was as close as I could to tankwater temp. My ammonia and nitrites were cycling in 12 for A and 13 for Nitrites. Now after change no nitrites at all even when still adding Ammonia. My ammonia is cyclingin 12 or so still. I think it is time to try fish and seee if I sink or swim

 

[OldMan47]

A water change with dechlorinated water will have no effect except to remove the build of nitrates and let your pH recover from the acidity of the nitric acid that we measure as nitrates.
Ram, many of us have tried products like that and been totally disappointed. I am well aware of their advertising claims but that is all they are. They are not science in any way.

 

[L_ouise]

Hiya

I'm a total newbie and I'm trying to get my head around the whole cycling thing and I was just wondering at which point I would add plants when doing a fish less cycle.

Would I add them as soon as I start getting a decent amount of nitrates or would I wait until the cycle was complete and I'm ready to start adding fish?

Also, if I got my hands on some mature filter medium from somewhere would it be too risky and possibly introduce nasties into my tank or is it quite safe to do?

Thanks

 

[fluttermoth]

Hi, to the forum.

Plants are best added near the end of the cycle, but a week or so before you add fish, so they have time to root in a bit before the fish are added.

As long as the tank the mature filter media comes from is healthy, there's no risk in using it.

 

[kman5898]

hi everyone
i just started my fish less cycle in my new 75gal tank today. i added 3 teaspoons of pure 10% ammonia and took a reading a couple hours later. my ammonia level was around 6.0 ppm. is this a good start?

 

[fluttermoth]

That's a bit high. You want the ammonia level to be somewhere around 3-5ppm, so you probably want to do a water change to reduce it a bit. If you have the ammonia too high, you get the wrong sort of bacteria growing.

 

[OldMan47]

L_ouise, you can add plants at any time. The potential problem they present is not a real world problem as such but instead is our ability to discern what is changing in your chemistry based on your cycle and what we should attribute to the plants.If you use plants, please let us know about them so we can try to read your testing results with plants in mind.

 

[kudos1uk]

would adding a bit of weed introduce some of the bacteria your trying to produce and get things going a bit faster?

 

[fluttermoth]

It's extremely unlikely, IMO.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

There is good bacteria on plants as long as they come out of a cycled tank as opposed to from the wild. This is from Dr. Chris Cow one of the early proponents of fishless cycling:

Sources of Bacteria[font="Trebuchet MS] [/font]

[font="Trebuchet MS]While it is probable that the bacteria required for the conversion of ammonia and nitrite to nitrate exist at very low levels in most uncycled tanks, it greatly accelerates the process to inoculate the tank with a large dose of healthy bacteria to get things started. Good sources of beneficial bacteria are ranked from best to least: [/font]

[list=1][font="Trebuchet MS][*] Filter material (floss, sponge, biowheel, etc.) from an established, disease-free tank.[*] Live plants (preferably potted, leave the rockwool on until cycling is finished). Crypts or amazon swords are good choices, and not too demanding.[*] Gravel from an established, disease-free tank. (Many lfs [local fish stores] will give this away if asked nicely.)[*] Other ornaments (driftwood, rocks, etc.) from an established tank.[*] Squeezings from a filter sponge (any lfs should be willing to do this...)[/font][/list][/quote]
from [url="http/malawicichlids.com/mw01017.htm"]http/malawicichlids.com/mw01017.htm[/url]

 

[Nibs]

Well, after my disaster in my un-cycled tank, im doing this the right way now!

I started out with a betta in a 2gal. I had no idea about cycling and all that. All was well until I realized the tank needed water changes ALL the time! So i thought it was because of the size of the tank. I got a 10 gallon and put him in there. 3 weeks later everything seemed good so I got a few more fish. 6 neon tetras died within 3 days. After that I had an ich break out. My other 2 fish died few days later. My betta died yesterday.

Anyway I am completing my cycle now I guess. I already have a filter that is somewhat mature after everything it's been through.

Ammonium is .25ppm
Nitrites are super high (purple on the API kit)
Nitrates are between 5 and 10 ppm

So I'm hoping my existing filter is about half way through the process. Temp is set at 90F.

Thanks for the great write up!