Just Started My First Fishless Cycle

[fatheadminnow]

Maybe print off the article of fishless cycling here, and show it to them?

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

So what did you end up doing? Are you back to feeding the bacteria with ammonia? If you have not put fish in there then you'll need to do that. If you did a much smaller stocking than you intended then then that's a bit of a loss of the work done in the fishless cycle.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[theshadowinc]

i am well annoyed i went to my LFS today and i told them about my fishless cycle and they said that they wouldnt sell me nay more than 6 fish to start with as doing what i have done will have made no difference and this is coming from the place that sold me that API filter start and told me if i wanted malawis that i should put that in leave it a week and come and get 15 fish!!!

Looks like A5 aquatics is going to get my business when the tanks ready

Can always tell them you don't care about there warrenty, and that you don't believe in fish in cycles is why you are doing a fishless cycle. They are kinda right in a way though you stock that tank all at once you might hit a mini cycle, better off having little stocking for about a week than add more later that way it doesn't shock the filtration system all at once

 

[joshybjoshy]

So what did you end up doing? Are you back to feeding the bacteria with ammonia? If you have not put fish in there then you'll need to do that. If you did a much smaller stocking than you intended then then that's a bit of a loss of the work done in the fishless cycle.

~~waterdrop~~

I have now got my fish in the tank and the bacteria is going ok i have got 16 Malawis in there so im going ot leave them for a bit then add a few more later on i have a problem tho now can you still add bi carb if the fish are in the tank?

I have posted a video on youtube of the fish in the tank

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHfwqBROhiI

 

[LilyRose Tank]

congratulations, your tank looks beautiful and so are your fish. well done good job x

 

[waterdrop]

No, its not ideal (its not terrible in a pinch, just not ideal) to use baking soda once you have fish in the tank. Using baking soda is really just something best used for the bacterial growing soup (partly because its dumping all that sodium in your tank!)

If you have made the (difficult!) decision to alter your baseline water mineral content (and this should not be taken lightly) then the method of choice is to use crushed coral (CC) in a mesh bag in the filter. You can do a search and find an article that drobbyb and I wrote about how to do this.

Its important to realize that the water parameters that you were seeing during fishless cycling will likely not be what you get during normal tank operation. During fishless cycling things get farther off from your baseline tap water parameters than they will during normal operation. I think you should review both your tap parameters and the needs of your cichlids (they may very well need something more extreme) with the members...

~~waterdrop~~