Fishless or not Cycling

[spannerman]

Hello all, I would just like forum members views on wether to do a fishless cycling or not of my new tank, and what the pros and cons may be. S.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I would do fishless. It takes longer but you have a better estblished cycle to put your fish into and avoid stressing and killing them with the cycling process. Saying that, I have ever cycled a tank in my life (have had up to 6 going at once) because I just use filter media from old tank to run the new.

 

[CFC]

Personally im not a advocate of the fishless cycle preffering to stick with the old fail safe of using a few hardy fish like danios to get the biological filter going, but then i am the same as cheese specialist having only ever cycled my first tank years ago and then cloning all the others from the original mature filter media.
IMO the fishless cycle leaves too much room for human error of adding too much or too little ammonia or misunderstanding test results.

 

[Discomafia]

What's to stop you from misunderstanding readings from cycling the old fashioned way then?

 

[CFC]

Nothing, but cycling with fish isnt so dependent on watching the test results as fishless cycling.
Of course fishless cycling is the best method for the benefit of the fish but from what ive seen it causes more problems and confusion than its worth, just my opinion.

 

[spannerman]

Thanks for all your replies. I just wanted to know what the consensus of opinion was. As I currently have a tank running at the moment, I will probably use use some of the gravel, and water from that tank to wash the new filter material in. S.

 

[Bignose]

If you have a (disease free) tank running at the moment, just go any buy the filter for your new tank now and pop it in the current tank. In a week or so you will have grown enough bacteria from the old tank to effectively biologically filter your new tank. Just stock lightly to start and everything should be fine.

 

[spannerman]

I should really have remembered from my school days that plants take in CO2 and give off O2. Is there a way of introducing CO2 into the system? S.