Odd info heard on tank cycling

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OrkyBetta

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Ok so as I've mentioned here before, I got my first tank yesterday. I just set it up and am letting it run, but I havent the first clue how to cycle it. I know that a lot of info you hear at pet shops should be taken with a grain of salt, but this just plain contradicted everything I had ever heard.

I asked the pet shop employee, who claimed she had 10 30 gallon tanks running smoothly and healthily at home, how she reccommended cycling the tank. She said, bring everything home, set it up, and let everything run for 48 hours, then put in 2 or 3 small fish, like tetras, and a week later gradually start adding in more fish. Does this sound right to you? Because that info was like nothing ive ever read on here.
 
Nope that's really not the way to do it :no: . Have you read the pinned topics on cycling? They are very good and will point you in the right direction :)

*Edit: spelling
 
what she might be describing is the process of cloning a tank... so long as you were to use bacteria seeded material from another tank, that could work.

wouldn't do for a brand-new tank, however.
 
If you had another tank you could add water from that take and put it in the new tank. Then what the person at your LFS said to do would work. But I wouldn't do it for a brand new tank.
 
That's the exact same advice that 3 different shops told me to do, and they knew it was not a cloned tank. The lfs people are horribly undereducated on fishkeeping.
 
gale said:
That's the exact same advice that 3 different shops told me to do, and they knew it was not a cloned tank. The lfs people are horribly undereducated on fishkeeping.
Yeah that's what I was told when I started fish keeping. It's sad really that most people ask somebody there for advice and they just get rumors or lies for an answer.
 
Read through the links in my signature and that should answer all your questions. Then ask if you don't understand something or need more help. Aim to fishless cycle your new tank. :) Good luck!
 
Sylvia, I always thought you had some great links in your signature :)
 
Hi OrkyBetta :)

The information you got from the lady at your lfs wasn't wrong, but it was very incomplete. There's a little more to the process than that.

When you start a new tank from scratch, it will take a few days for it to settle in before you add any fish. During this time you can check your equipment and make sure the heater and filter are working properly and that the tank itself doesn't leak. Once the little bubbles that form on the glass are gone you can begin adding fish.

So far, so good, but once you add a few fish, the process of cycling will begin. The fish produce ammonia in their wastes and that will attract the first kind of beneficial bacteria to your tank. These bacteria will eat the ammonia and produce nitrites which will attract other bacteria which will consume them and produce the less harmful nitrates.

Now back to what she told you. In a few weeks this will have begun and the cycling will be well on its way. But, you will only be growing enough beneficial to take care of the wastes of those few fish you started out with. You can then very gradually start adding more fish. Bear in mind however, that it will take time for the original beneficial bacteria to reproduce enough of themselves to consume their wastes. Eventually they will and you can then add a few more fish until you have your full number.

That's the bare bones of the process of cycling with fish, and it's the way we used to do it before we had ready access to chemical test kits. Now you are able to monitor the development of the bacteria through it's different stages and through water changes, slow it down so that it's relatively harmless to the fish. As long as you do this, and don't add too many fish too quickly, your fish will be fine.

So in other words, your lfs lady did get you headed in the right direction. :nod:
 
Wow, thanks guys this has really helped a lot. I looked over everything you guys sent me and I can use that to my advantage. Perhaps my LFS woman just didn't elaborate enough. All of the fish in her store looked really healthy ahd happy, and they had quarantine tanks and everything. I asked if I could test some of her water, and I tested from 3 different tanks, it all checked out, so maybe she does know what she is doing :fun:
 
she does her tank the way i did mine. thats how my dad always did it when he had tanks. as long as you dont add fish all the time i dont really think its a bad way to cycle a tank.
 
Yeah, am I missing something here, but the employee is just talking about cycling with fish. There are a grest deal of very experienced fishkeepers who wouldn't imagine not cycling with some zebra danios.

The problem is that ammonia is toxic at pretty much any level, it can be monitored via test kits but the only way to keep all fish completely from harm is to do fishless cycling. Lots of info on here and in a Google search about fishless cycling. The basic idea exactly as Inchworm discussed, except to mimic the biological processes of the fish by putting drops of ammonia in the tank itself. That way the bacteria grow in responce to the ammonia, but no fish are exposed to the high levels of pollution.
 

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