Lil Help And A Thank You.

[mr2essions]

Cool well ive taken what you have all said and taken in what 3 friends who have fish and 2 shops close to me have said today and they advised i leave the tank with water in adding double pinchings of food in every other day? also keeping the pump on 24/7. then after a week (will be sunday) check with a test kit and hope its at a high (red) then start adding strest zyne every other day untill it hits 0 on another test? does this sound about right? so im looking about 3 weeks till lift off? lol hope this sounds ok? cheers.
i also have these which i was given by a friend however he doesnt know what they are because hes never had tropical fish and was made to buy them by a shop for goldfish.

amquel+ plus - Says - Removes Nitrate, Nitrite , Ammonia, chlorine and chcloraminies - when should i add this? if at all is this actualy ammonia? should i be adding this now to make the tank go toxic? - http/www.novalek.com/kordon/amquel+/index.htm

also i have 1 x bottle of sera nitrivec - "a special mixture from different bacterial cultures that in a very short time, develop a natural micro life and consequently, a functioning nitrogen cycle in the freshwater aquarium"


1 x NO2 test kit

and 1 x NH4 / NH3 test kit im guessing i use both of these to check in about 6 days time?

Cheers guys sorry to me such an arse.

Thanks you

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ha ha your not being an arse don't worry! if we didn't wanna answer your questions we wouldn't be here.

i think you need to take a step back from all these conflicting methods and advice and decide which you want to follow. truth is there's many different methods of cycling a tank and making an amalgamation of all of them probably won't work. you need to find a method, read up all the details and then stick with it.

my personal recommendation is the add and wait method described in the fishless cycling thread. the basics of it are you get some pure ammonia add it to the tank until the test reading is 5ppm, keep testing every day and whenever the ammonia reading drops down add some more to take it up to 5ppm, you'll see the ammonia reading start to fall after a week or so and the nitrite start to rise. keep on with adding ammonia to keep the tank at roughly 5ppm all the time. the your nitrite will start to fall, when you get to the point you can take the tank up to 5ppm ammonia in the morning and 12 hrs later ammonia and nitrite both read 0 then you are ready for fish. you do a big 90% water change then add nearly all your fish the same day.

the method of adding fishfood is basically the same thing however there's two main problems with it

Firstly it's not accurate, fish food takes a while to decompose and give off ammonia so you can't get an accurate measure of how much ammonia you are putting into the tank at any one time, it's much harder to tell when you are actually ready for fish. If your ammonia reading goes significantly over 5ppm then the cycle will stall because the bacteria can't cope, with no accurate measurement it's easy to either swap or starve the bacteria you are trying to grow.

Secondly growing your bacteria to a point they can deal with 5ppm of ammonia will mean you can safely add a full fish load as a fully stocked tank will produce a little less than 5ppm of ammonia, if you can't accuratley measure what ammonia you are adding you don't know how full a fish load your tank can cope with and could then put fish in danger when you add them.

I hope that's enough to convince you to do a 'proper' fishless cycle, it'll work out much better, i promise you! It doesn't matter that you've already started adding flake food you can change over now and it'll work fine.

regarding the two products you have

amquel+ is not ammonia, it's a product to remove ammonmia, nitrite, nitrate and chlorine. Now what you are trying to do is grow bacteria, you measure bacteria by testing the levels of ammonia nitrite and nitrate, if you remove all these levels from the water so you can't test for them then how are you going to know if your cycle is done? Simple answer, you can't, so dont add this for now. However it may be handy to keep around so if at some point you detect levels of ammonia or nitrite in the tank when you have fish in you can use it then.

sera nitravec is a load of rubbish, it's developed on the wrong species of bacteria. the idea behind these products is that they contain the good bacteria that you are trying to grow, however what you need is the nitrospira species of bacteria, nitravec is developed on nitrosomna (think i've got those spellings right!) so it's no good to you. also if it's been sat in your mates cupboard for god knows how long anything that was once alive in there has long gone. as mentioned earlier the only beneficial bacteria products that are any good are bio spira (USA) and Bactinettes (UK) but only get these if they are refrigerated in the fish shop, otherwise the bacteria is all dead.

hope that clears things up a little bit.

 

[mr2essions]

ok brilliant, ill buy some ammonia today then and get cracking, with regards to adding x amount untill it hits 5, once it hits 5 i still want to be adding / checking daily as in thoery im guessing my bacteria will be "eating the stuff" faster then it can spread being a good thing right? so in thoery i want to add add and add daily till the ammonia makes no change to the tank and it stays at 0?

Cheers

Scott.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the frequency you need to top up the ammonia will change as the cycle progresses. Initially there's very little bacteria there and it may take a few days before the 5ppm of ammonia drops down at all, but when you are nearing the end of the cycle you'll need to add it every day. just test every day and add as appropriate.

the ammonia will always make a change to the tank, when your right at teh end of the cycle you add until it goes up to 5ppm, then give it 12 hrs and if it's all been eaten up and therefore dropped to 0 (and nitrite has as well) then your good to go.

 

[mr2essions]

the frequency you need to top up the ammonia will change as the cycle progresses. Initially there's very little bacteria there and it may take a few days before the 5ppm of ammonia drops down at all, but when you are nearing the end of the cycle you'll need to add it every day. just test every day and add as appropriate.

so maybe every other day for now then in say 7 days time everyday?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

as appropriate

fishless cycling can be affected by a lot of factors so timescales are nigh on impossible to give. add it to 5ppm initially, wait for it to drop down to about 1ppm testing it every day, when it does then bring it back up to 5ppm wait for it to drop down then bring it back up.

 

[mr2essions]

kool then ready to roll once it gos to 5 by morning 1 by night. wicked sorry i been "acticting thick" lol i think its the bloody shop that confused me! lol plus its always easyer talking to someone about these kinda things than reading... ahh how easy it woulda been to keep goldfish lol... by the way i can use the same thing for them too right? so hopfully im not cleaning them so much...

wicked..

Thanks again hun.

sure well speak again!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup 5 by morning 1 by night then add some more ammonia, when ammonia is 5 by morning then ammonia and nitrite are 0 by night your ready for some fishies!

no worries, it takes a little while to get your head around it all, that's why were here to help. i find it easier to talk to someone than just to read as well.

the theory is exactly the same for goldfish, you need to do all the same stuff. goldies are one of the most commonly mistreated animals on the planet, if cared for properly they grow to over a foot and live for 40+ years!

 

[mr2essions]

Damn, you know what i could actualy agree and say ive misstreated mine... till now...

I guess its a case of without looking into it you just presume there fine because there active / swimming..

ive started a new leaf and will care for them on a propper basis now so fingered crossed they will enjoy there new world

Thanks again and maybe in a week or so ill be back to tell you whats going on / make sure all is well.

Cheers.

Scott.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Damn, you know what i could actualy agree and say ive misstreated mine... till now...

I guess its a case of without looking into it you just presume there fine because there active / swimming..

ive started a new leaf and will care for them on a propper basis now so fingered crossed they will enjoy there new world

Thanks again and maybe in a week or so ill be back to tell you whats going on / make sure all is well.

Cheers.

Scott.

your on the right track now and that's all that matters, do come back and let us know how your doing

 

[mr2essions]

sorry one last thing.

regarding buying ammonia.

is this correct to buy

Homebase - J.Arthur Bower's Sulphate of Ammonia 1kg.
893432
£2.29
A rapid source of nitrogen for green leaved crops.

Main period of use: March to August.



B&Q

Goulding Sulphate of Ammonia 2.5Kg
Now £5.00
Brand: Goulding
Size/Qty (ML/L/G/KG): 2.5Kg
Product Type: Composts & Fertilisers
Specific Product Type: Fertilisers

 

[Miss Wiggle]

nope, you want pure liquid ammonia, can get it from boots or homebase sold as a cleaning product. make sure there's no colourings, fragrances etc etc

 

[mr2essions]

this is what im after right?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup i've heard of people using kleen off sucsessfully before

 

[mr2essions]

any idea of the brand they sell in boots as i have a boots real close.