Question About Fishless Cycle

[kmur]

I've been reading about fishless cycles for the past two or three weeks, and I have pretty much everything down. Just one detail that I didn't pick up, and since I hope to start tomorrow, I want to make sure everything is right!

I'm doing the project on a monthly budget, and my budget for the month is met - I have the filter and filter medium, HALF of the substrate (I intend to do one inch of gravel and one inch of sand on top, and I have just the gravel,) the lighting, and the heater. I do NOT have the plants/decorations. Will adding plants and decorations during the cycle have a large impact on the cycling process? Can I not start until plants and everything are established? Or will the cycle still go as normal with just an inch of substrate and no other items in the tank? I'll hold off if I need to, but I'd really like to start tomorrow (going in the morning to get the test kit, filling the water today) and I want to make sure I'm not going to do anything to detriment myself in the future by starting before decorating.

I went just overboard on just about everything, since I read that it's generally the best move - It's a 30 gallon tank, and I've got a filter rated for 45 gallons, and a heater rated for 40 gallons. It's an over-the-top filter with a 2-part carbon based filtration system. Nothing fancy.

If it's important at all, I tend to use driftwood and quite a heavy live plant load when I get the budget back, probably about a month from now.

Thanks!

 

[Gvilleguy]

Hi Kmur, and welcome to the forum! It's good that you are doing your research up front like this. It can avoid a lot of headaches.

I would go ahead and start your cycling. The great majority of the helpful bacteria reside in your filter media, so by starting you will get going on growing good stuff in your filter.

Regarding the plants, one of the forum planting experts recommends that you just hold off on live plants until after the cycle is done. Here is a link to that thread:

Cycling with plants

Regarding your filter media - I am a little concerned about the "2 part carbon based" description. Other users can chime in with opinions, but I've been reading threads on this forum for months now, and carbon is generally only needed on special occasions to filter out medicine/chemicals that have been added to the tank for a specific reason. I recommend you avoid using the carbon media and substitute something else instead.

I started out using the carbon media that came with my filters, and after about 4 weeks the carbon would saturate and cause the water to hit the overflow. I would then have to replace the carbon pack, and my tank would enter a mini-cycle because I had to throw out helpful bacteria that had colonized the carbon mesh.

If you post up the brand and model number of your filter, or perhaps just a picture showing the media tray capacity, we could then probably make specific recommendations of alternatives. Items such as sponges, plastic scrubbing pads, ceramic bio-pellets, pre-filter pellets, etc. are all good at mechanical filtration as well as harboring bacteria.

 

[drobbyb]

You are rally cycling your filter. A fishless cycle will work in a bare tank just as well as a tank with lots of substrate and decorations, so no worries there. Just be careful to clean anything added to the tank very well to avoid contamination (you never know if your gravel has had anything spilled on it that might hurt your cycle).

If your filter uses those carbon inserts, you can simply cut along the top edge of the cartridge and empty out the carbon, and then replace it with some bio-media like ceramic rings, sponges, etc.

 

[kmur]

It's certainly not a fancy filter. I got the cheapest one that didn't look like a complete POC. I decided not to buy anything super-fancy, since I figure there's at least a 20% chance I'm going to do something wrong or get something wrong and have to replace it.

It is a Tetra Power Filter 40 gallon, with a 210 GPH flow rate.

This #28### here. - http/www.amazon.com/Classic-Whisper-Power-Filter-40/dp/B0002DHY6I

It has a pretty simple design, so I imagine I could easily retrofit any type of filter medium. I have the benefit of being pretty crafty.

I am really glad to hear that someone recommends not adding plants until after cycling. I love it when I accidentally do things right!

//edit Also, I think it just tried to swear-filter a word that wasn't a swear. Maybe it's a swear overseas and I just didn't know. At least that is what I assume the '#28###' that jumped in to my post it. Huh. You learn something new every day!

 

[kmur]

My mom's coworker apparently is a fish keeper and has some mature filter material he can donate! That is exciting.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with GVG and Robby (very nice writeup GVG!) You can do a bare tank fishless cycle, even a blacked-out bare tank fishless cycle and avoid algae problems with both the plants and decorations, which makes for a nice start. Just don't turn on the lights unless you are doing your testing and need to see what you're doing (ammonia + light is what triggers algae spores.) Be very careful if wrapping the tank in black plastic garbage bag material or cloth to be sure you don't create a wick for water to seep out or a fire or electrical hazard.

There are many things the fishless cycling articles don't tell you. First of all its really helpful to start an aquarium notebook. Each aquarium you have (well, a quarantine/hospital tank can be included in your main aquarium notebook) should have its own notebook/log. A simple spiral-bound school one will do (or your computer if you really trust yourself to do backups, lol.) There are times during a fishless cycle when you want to look back and acutally trace the day-by-day numbers of a particular type of test and you sometimes can't know in advance which of those you'll wish you could look back and see.

Although we don't test for every substance during every phase of fishless cycling, you can look around at other fishless cycling threads and see the various types of log entries that people have used. I'll try to list my thought of it as follows:

Day# - This is the numerical day of your fishless cycle entry, starting with Day 1 being the day you put your ammonia in for the first time. This number is of greater importance than date, when forum members checking your log.

Hour# - This should say either "12Hour" or "24Hour" simply to show whether this log line of results were performed 12 or 24 hours after the ammonia was dosed to the tank. This is more important than time of day so that forum members don't have to waste time doing mental calculations and can simply see and understand your log.

"5ppm added" - Simply noting that ammonia was actually dosed by you to the tank is a simple but important notation. (5ppm, 2ppm, whatever.) (Ammonia is only ever added at a 24Hour mark and only if ammonia dropped to zero ppm at some point in the prior 24 hours.)

Ammonia(NH3) - The ammonia reading in ppm (parts per million.)
Nitrite(NO2) - The nitrite reading in ppm.
Nitrate(NO3) - The nitrate reading in ppm.
pH - X.X

Temperature - XXF/XXC format (we are heavy on both European and USA members, so the both format notation is helpful.) (I recommend 84F/29C for fishless cycling.)

Bicarb teaspoons - If the members have advised you to dose some baking soda and you've done it on this day then that fact and the amount should be noted.

Water clarity and other observations - A log line often needs a comment here and there and of course the notebook itself is to contain little diary entries to yourself (we don't need to see these) of virtually -everything- you do to the tank, especially the major actions eventually like adding a fish or doing a certain type of maintenance. For people who are not used to this sort of thing it can easily seem tedious after a bit but if you're able to sustain the habit, your notebook becomes extremely interesting and valuable to you later.

The first post of the actual fishless cycle thread here in the beginners section should list the tank basics (volume, dimensions, filter type, tap water stats, type of test kit, type of household ammonia, whether or not you have mature media in there, heater type, light wattage, etc.).. all that sort of baseline info so that members can refer back to it later if they need to.

Ideally, each log line should be a single line, for example:
DayX,HourX,Temp,pH,NH3,NO2,NO3,observations,Dose/NoDose

This way, a vertical glance at the lines can clearly show a multi-day trend to anyone looking, including yourself. Our two species of beneficial bacteria do not necessarily do thing in smooth trends (the result numbers can bounce around) but a long week/multiweek view greatly helps to detect an actual trend.

Good luck. If your mature media "takes" you may have a short fishless cycle!

~~waterdrop~~