ok another noob here when it comes to the whole cycling thing. I had a 20 gallon, a 2 gallon, (both are down now). I currently have a 5 gallon (transfer from the 2), and a 55 gallon (transfer from the 20), and I have never cycled once i always just added fish the next day. I wasnt explained the whole cycling thing i guess but i just find it wierd its this big deal to do it with fish in and all yet me or my friend never had a probem. DONT get me wrong, take the advice of the people here.. im just sayin...
Murph
You are quite right to just say Murphyk, thats what this forum is all about, the members sharing their knowledge and experiences.
However, allow me to help you understand better. Cycling with fish produces ammonia in the water. The ammonia is excreted from the fish anus through poo and through the gills by respiration. Once a filter is cycled, it will transform this ammonia into nitrate, and for a very good reason.
Ammonia is lethal to fish, even in small doses. It will inflame the gills and make them red, irritating the fish, it will burn the fish (google ammonia burns, nasty!), and generally degrade the fish's health in many ways. Scientific evidence suggests that even in very small concentrations, ammonia has detrimental long-term effects on fish. With an uncycled filter and fish in the tank, ammonia will just build up, effectively poisoning the fish.
Once the fish in cycle gets going and the fish have been suitably poisoned by the ammonia, the ammonia oxidising bacteria start to colonise the filter and turn the ammonia into nitrite. Nitrite gets into the fish's blood stream and prevents the blood from absorbing oxygen from the water, effectively suffocating the fish.
After the fish has been burned, irritated and suffocated sufficiently, the nitrite oxidising bacteria will begin to colonise the filter and turn the lethal nitrite into relatively harmless nitrate. Nitrate can be detrimental to fish, but only in large concentrations, so to keep large concentrations from building up, we perform partial water changes.
This is the process for removing the waste products from the tank. Once the filter is cycled, it will remove ammonia and nitrite very quickly and we only really need to deal with nitrate by water changes.
Doesn't it seem better if we could cycle the filter without having fish in the tank to be poisoned by the by-products of the cycle? We can, it's called fishless cycling, and that is the reason many recommend it so eagerly.
Not all fish will die during the fish in cycle as it depends on many factors (water changes, how many fish, volume of tank, pH of water etc etc) and this is what you have experienced if you haven't had a fish die through fish-in cycling. I can assure you that your fish have survived despite the cycle and not because of it, and it will almost definitely have damaged the fish's long-term health / immune system.
An example i have used in the past is that i have a daughter. Now, i could tie her up, burn her with my lighter every day, beat her, feed her only on bread and water, and keep her locked in a cupboard for a couple of months. Would she die? Probably not, but that would be in spite of my methods and certainly not because of them. Would there be any long-term effects on her health? Yes, almost definitely so.
My explanation may seem harsh, but the reality of the fish in cycle is harsh, and this must not be overlooked.
Rant over, hope that helped you.
BTT
to the forum,
