Fishless Or Fish In?

[backtotropical]

I won't get involved in the name calling which seems to be tainting this thread because i've seen it all before and it gets a bit boring to be honest, but I would like to express my opinion on the issue in hand

Fish-In or Fishless could be argued to the death with no firm conclusion, so my approach is to base my decision on the ethics of each method.

Cloning is probably the best method as it can provide an instant cycle (or almost instant) and doesn't expose the fish to 'cycling' levels of ammonia or nitrite.

Continuous water change isn't a method i've tried but probably most closely mirrors the conditions the fish endure in the wild. It seems to be a very plausible method, although I imagine it takes some tweaking at the beginning to get the speed of the water change correct. So long as it keeps ammonia and nitrite at undetectable levels at all times, it gets my vote. This method however, is probably impracticle for an average aquarist and more suited to those with more experience in the hobby.

Silent cycling (with plants) is also plausible but relies heavily on keeping the plants alive and healthy, so probably isn't ideal for all but the 'green-fingered' amongst us. It must also be considered that plants won't use nitrite, so a silent cycle is in fact only half silent. The colony of nitrite oxidising bacteria would still have to be formed, so it's effectively half fish-in, half fishless.

Fishless cycling is a great method, and again keeps ammonia and nitrite at undetectable levels at all times when the fish are in the tank, so thumbs up!
Second only to filter cloning in my opinion, it is a very practical method for a beginner aquarist and provides 'Idle time' where the aquarist can research the nitrogen cycle and what fish are suitable for their tank / water.

Fish-In cycling, as has been mentioned, is probably the oldest and most well-known way (and unfortunately the most recommended by our LFS's) to prepare a tank for fish. Unfortunately, it exposes the fish to dangerous concentrations of ammonia and nitrite which can have a detrimental effect on the long-term health of the fish at best, and at worst, kill them.

A savvy fish-in cycler who knows of the need for frequent water changes to keep the level of toxins to a minimum can usually avoid deaths, but the threat of long-term health issues still exists. I'm sure Bignose cited a paper for us a while back which shows that even very low concentrations of ammonia can cause long-term damage which may have no visible signs. Unfortunately, some people don't realise that because the fish doesn't die doesn't mean it hasn't suffered.

Fish-In cycling has it's place, don't get me wrong. For example, for people who don't know of any other methods, or people who can't obtain any ammonia or mature media. It happens thousands, if not millions of times every day.

What I feel I need to question is people who are absolutely aware of more humane methods, but choose to ignore them. As I said above, which methods are right or wrong could be argued black and white with no firm conclusion, but if you conciously choose a cycling method which you know can damage the fish over a method which you know aims to eliminate that possibility, then surely you need to question if you should be keeping fish in the first place? For me, it's a simple question of do you want the best possible environment for your fish, or not?

I'm sure many people have had success with it over many years (as I did when I started in the hobby), but in the presence of the other, more humane methods, fish-in cycling is taking a permanent back-seat in my house.

BTT

 

[StatMan]

Hi StatMan

I'm sorry, I didn't realize your tank was still cycling. I thought you had fish already.

So seeing as I am now 10 days into cylcling my tank are there benefits to just adding Locker's filter into the same tank?

That's an interesting question. I've never thought about how the bacteria distribute themselves when they are just starting out. Why not start a thread in New to the Hobby about it?

Would we just add water, "safe" water, to locker's Tank then move the filter over?

If you do cycle both filters together, don't move it over until immediately before you add the fish. Without a source of ammonia, the bacteria will start to die off. There is very little bacteria in the water itself, but when I clone a tank, I use about 1/4 to 1/3 old water from another tank and fill it with dechlorinated water. It seems to keep the number of bubbles that form on the glass down.

Inchworm

I have got a 240L tank that is cylcing I also have a 60L with fish in a stable environment and a 54L third/ two thirds birthing/fry tank. My Daughter has a 50L community tank established and there is also a newly acquired tank 85L with Platties that is currently 2/3 full of water primarily brought from the source which will be moved into place this weekend. I started a fishless cylcle on the 240L as I was not in a hurry and it seemed to be the safest option, also I did not think that it was worth disturbing the smaller filters in the existing tanks due to the size difference.

The reason for asking the question was that my gut instinct, and I am very new to this, is that cycling two filters together might actually result in much slower production of bacteria due to such "efficient" filtering. i.e less than 50% efficency in both filters

Would we be better of putting some extra filter meida into my filter and using that for a clone rather than adding a second filter in its entireity?

I would start a thread, as you suggested but I am not sure how often people would be trying to cylce two medium sized tanks, so not sure of its relevance. If you think it worthwhile I'll happily kick it off.

StatMan

 

[backtotropical]

Silent cycling (with plants) is also plausible but relies heavily on keeping the plants alive and healthy, so probably isn't ideal for all but the 'green-fingered' amongst us. It must also be considered that plants won't use nitrite, so a silent cycle is in fact only half silent. The colony of nitrite oxidising bacteria would still have to be formed, so it's effectively half fish-in, half fishless.

Plants prefer to uptake ammonia, so if you get it right you won't need nitrite oxidising bacteria as the plants utilise ammonia and therefore no nitrite will form. This is the essence of the filterless planted aquarium. It can also be accomplished with Duckweed (which also deals somewhat with heavy metals too).

Fair point, but as you pointed out in a previous post, even with an efficient filter system (plants in this case) ammonia is always present, albeit in very small quantities. If ammonia is always present, then ammonia oxidising bacteria will thrive (given it will be a small amount of these bacteria). If the AOBs are present, then so is nitrite.

Even a filterless planted aquarium relies to some degree on the nitrogen cycle.

 

[andywg]

Fair point, but as you pointed out in a previous post, even with an efficient filter system (plants in this case) ammonia is always present, albeit in very small quantities. If ammonia is always present, then ammonia oxidising bacteria will thrive (given it will be a small amount of these bacteria). If the AOBs are present, then so is nitrite.

Even a filterless planted aquarium relies to some degree on the nitrogen cycle.

And the nitrite will be present at the sort of rates it will be in a cycled tank. If you have a large well functioning planted (or even better, algae) system then the available ammonia for AOB will be minimal, meaning their growth will be small enough that the nitrites will occur at such a slow rate that the NOB will be able to cope with it without the levels rising to those that will cause an issue.

 

[Inchworm]

Mod's note:

An argument on this thread got entirely too rough for a family forum. I'm sorry if I removed helpful content in the process of cutting it out of the discussion.

This could be an excellent discussion, so please continue to post in a friendly manner.