Fishless Cycling

[Skins]

Hello everyone,
I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread on members experiences after they finished there fishless cycle. Hopefully this will influence new members to have a go.

I have had my 240ltr tank 100% stocked for, coming up 4 weeks after the completion of my fishless cycle and have had two fish losses. The first fish, oddessa barb jumped clean out of the aquarium(water change) and later the same day died of shock. The second fish, chequered Barb was in bad shape when i got him due to what looked like injury(I had her for 2weeks). In my opinion these deaths are not related to my tanks water chemistry.
I have done parameter checks twice a week whilst tank has been stocked and have not yet shown any ammonia/nitrite levels. I know i am only a newbie but shorly this information shows that fishless cycling works very well and for for me personally has ticked all the right boxes.

Enough from me lets hear your experiences(good or bad).

Keith.

 

[Aqua Tom]

Will let you know how the cardys get on.

 

[Skins]

Will let you know how the cardys get on.

I'm sure they will be fine Tom. You strike me as like myself you will be keeping a close eye on things.

Keith.

 

[Uriel]

Finished my fishless cycle about a month ago. Have been lucky and not lost a fish from this tank so far. I feel especially priveledge as i have tetra's and had been told to expect about 10% losses at best. Water chemistry in tank has stayed stable from day 1 and I wouldn't start a tank any other way now.

 

[Si_B]

Finished mine about 2 weeks ago. Added 6 Bronze Cory's and 6 Silvertip tetra. After a week the Tetra were very agressive, so I added 6 more. They didnt get any better so I changed them for neons on Saturday. The neons are currently doing fine (touch wood).

Water quality is fine, not a trace of Ammonia or Nitrite to be seen.

Lost 1 silvertip, who got stuck behind the backing (I've now removed it), and 1 overly adventurous cory, who somehow managed to swim up the outlet if my Jewul filter and wedge the impeller (finding Nemo style). I came down in the morning, saw the pump was stopped, took it out and got the fright of my life when I saw his little face in the impeller housing!

I'm wondering (and hoping) that the lore regarding tetras and 'mature' (i.e. 6 months) tanks dates from pre-fishless cycling days. My silvertips were fine for 10 days, and I'm hoping the neons will prove tougher than they look too.

 

[waterdrop]

It is my opinion that the lore about neons has very little to do with cycling. It just seems to be a persistent observation among experienced aquarists that neons do a -lot- better in tanks that are 6 months mature or more. It seems basically unrelated to cycling and noone has any idea what it is.

It is a separate observation that neons also have a lot of trouble with transport. I go so far as to sometimes recommend that people expect it and up their numbers (for instance buying 10 to ensure that 8 will make it home and through quarantine and finally into the display tank. I feel the transport difficulties are unrelated to the need for a 6-month tank.

But both of these things are statistical and any given neon will either make it or not, so plenty will make it just fine through both these problems. It's just that if you do have neons that make it through transport and acclimation and you introduce them to a sufficiently mature tank, they almost never die. I currently have a batch like this that have been vibrant and healthy for 3 years.

OK, on to the original fishless cycling topic: my family's main tank which I fishlessly cycled has had great stats ever since the big water change and all the original fish are still doing great. We lost one harlequin who jumped, but otherwise the fish have all lived and done well for three years or so. Same for the quarantine tank, which was also fishlessly cycled. As I've said many times before, I certainly wish I'd fully understood biofilters and that fishless cycling had been invented back years ago when I had lots of tanks!

For the record, I -have- noticed a trace of ammonia once when I'd been away on vacation a long time and then did a big gravel clean afterward, so I've seen what that can be like (when a gravel clean stirs up debris from a too-dirty tank.) It can definately happen even on a normally well-maintained tank!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Aqua Tom]

The Cardinals are still healthy & are showing amazing colours. They eat their dinner in seconds flat, dashing about like mini torpedoes all over the tank chasing my finley crumbled flake.

I tried them with frozen bloodworm this morning but the bw was too big to fit in the cardys mouths & the majority of it ended up stuck in my mossbed. I hade to vac all the bw out again, but hey, we live & learn.

I have some red crumb that i bought from ebay that i will try to feed them with tomorow.

Water stats have remained constantly double zeros.

The next fish will be some corys, i would love some adolfo's but i am having trouble sourcing them & also they prefer a ph of 7ish & mine is 8.2 so may have to go with bronze corys.

 

[anon02]

I fishless cycled my 55 ltr q tank and my 215 ltr community tank with no post cycling blips. After introducing a second batch of fish to the community tank I tested the empty q tank with ammonia and I was surprised at how quickly the bacterial colony had shrunk to match the bioload, however this reduced colony still easily copes with a stocking in line with the recommended inch per gallon guide

 

[Aqua Tom]

My cardinals are getting over their shyness now. They are still slightly timid but spend a lot of time in the centre front of the tank, untill I walk up to them then they are off amongst the plants like a shot.

 

[Skins]

My cardinals are getting over their shyness now. They are still slightly timid but spend a lot of time in the centre front of the tank, untill I walk up to them then they are off amongst the plants like a shot.

Its all looking good Tom. I think both of us did not have a straight forward f/less cycle but imo this method has so many benefits.

Keith.

 

[Aqua Tom]

My cardinals are getting over their shyness now. They are still slightly timid but spend a lot of time in the centre front of the tank, untill I walk up to them then they are off amongst the plants like a shot.

Its all looking good Tom. I think both of us did not have a straight forward f/less cycle but imo this method has so many benefits.

Keith.

Agreed mate. well we both got there in the end

 

[waterdrop]

It's been a pretty long period now where nearly all the cases where we ended a fishless cycle despite it still stubbornly showing blips at 12 hours saw it still resulting in a "blipless" initial biofilter after the big dropdown.

The number of cases where the initial stocking caused a blip have been tiny compared to the vast majority who have reported solid double-zeros. In fact, the one case that stands out clearly in my mind was a case (no mature media, so standard beginner fishless cycle) where the total fishless cycling time was only 3 weeks. This case strongly biased me toward increasing my skepticism about non-mature-media fishless cycles that seem to end in less than a month.

When I and MW and BTT settled in on the qualifying week concept (MW (Miss Wiggle) and BTT (BackToTropical) were very active in the subforum here when I was just settling in) we had experienced a rash of cases where people went ahead and performed their big water change and introduced their first stocking right after they got their first 12 hour double-zero reading or a couple of 24 hour double-zero days. This wasn't working. I remember that member dorsey was of the opinion that we should hold out for double zeros at 8 hours, so in my mind he gets credit for being the toughest task-master around. Eventually we settled on the 12 hour double zeros being watched for the better part of a week to take you down to your fish purchase weekend (which has simplified out to calling it a week for ease of communication.) It could be that statistically the 12 hour double-zero week is too stringent, but it has clearly taken us out into the higher 90% success territory I believe and I think that's where we want to be. For those of you carrying the methodology forward, I think that OK-ing and fishless cycle ending when it has gotten in to a final period of trace nitrite blipping seems a reasonable thing to do, as long as the total fishless cycle has reached a month or more.

(Anyway, just trying to repeat the lore once again because a forum is a very in-exact place to carry foward information. We both get and hear different things! )

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Skins]

One of the benefits i got from doing the fishless method was how much you learn about the waters chemistry, yes there is a lot more for me to learn but imo this has started my fishkeeping hobby on a strong positive note.

Keith.

 

[symon_say]

I think every fish tank owner should go trough a fish-in cycle for the first tank they, if they are committed to the hobby, you learn a lot more from this experience than from fishless cycle, but to do this you'll have a lot of work to every day, taking care of water parameters to keep everything under control until bacterias can do their work.

For the 2nd or any other tank fishless cycle is the way to go, you have already learn about the cycle itself, about fish behavior during cycle, about how to have things under control in case something happens, and you don't have the problem of getting fish into your aquarium.

I have to kind of both in my tank, cause media i get from my neighbor works as soon as i put in my tank, but then it restart when i add the fish, don't know if is the noob felling i have but i love to do water changes to my tank, to keep things under control, i know later i'll love more that i won't have to do it this often to keep things under control, but now i know how to deal with a fish tank out of control with fish, in case of something happening later with bacteria or any other thing that can go wrong down the road.

 

[Skins]

I think every fish tank owner should go trough a fish-in cycle for the first tank they, if they are committed to the hobby, you learn a lot more from this experience than from fishless cycle, but to do this you'll have a lot of work to every day, taking care of water parameters to keep everything under control until bacterias can do their work.

For the 2nd or any other tank fishless cycle is the way to go, you have already learn about the cycle itself, about fish behavior during cycle, about how to have things under control in case something happens, and you don't have the problem of getting fish into your aquarium.

I have to kind of both in my tank, cause media i get from my neighbor works as soon as i put in my tank, but then it restart when i add the fish, don't know if is the noob felling i have but i love to do water changes to my tank, to keep things under control, i know later i'll love more that i won't have to do it this often to keep things under control, but now i know how to deal with a fish tank out of control with fish, in case of something happening later with bacteria or any other thing that can go wrong down the road.

If the new fishkeeper is in a position to fishless cycle then imo this is the best method of cycling simply because there is less stress on the new aquarist and proberly the fish.

Keith