Setting Up A New Tank - Bactinettes!

[Gilby77]

Hello everyone

My new 76 gallon tank arrived yesterday and I have a couple of questions - would appreciate any advice!

Firstly, I went to my LFS yesterday evening with a view to buying some ammonia and plants as I wanted to carry out a fishless cycle of my tank before adding the fish from my current aquarium. They don't stock any ammonia, but they do stock Bactinettes. After a lengthy conversation (and me reading the leaflet), I bought four doses, sufficient for my tank size. I also bought a load of plants and a couple of rocks (already have driftwood).

I set the tank up last night, rinsed all the gravel (very fine gravel) thoroughly, planted the tank, added the rocks and driftwood whilst filling with water. I also set up the filter, airstone and heater. I added safe water to the tank and drained the bactinettes from the ammonia solution and distributed them between the layers of the filter, as instructed. The tank is now up and running (minus the fish of course!).

I didn't get a chance to test the water last night, by the time I had set up and filled the tank, my bed was yelling rather than calling! However, I will do a full water test tonight, including water hardness levels and ph, as well as the usual ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

My LFS advised that I could add fish within 24 hrs of introducing the bactinettes, but this seems too soon to me.... would you suggest I test the water over the next couple of days and monitor the results? Also, I don't have any available filter medium from the current tank that I can put in my new tank, but am hoping to put the wood and plants from my current tank (15 gallons) into my new tank - would this a) help colonise the bacteria and B) be a good idea?!

In the meantime, should I be 'feeding' my new tank with flake food to help with the cycle? Sorry if this seems like a silly question!

Finally, the filter (Rena XP2) has numerous sponges and fibre filters, along with a carbon type filter as standard, but it doesn't have any bio rings or similar - this is an 'optional extra'. Would you suggest that I should purchase bio rings for this filter?

Apologies for the long post, I just really want to get this right!

Thanks

Gilby

 

[BigIan]

Erm where to start......

Firstly, I went to my LFS yesterday evening with a view to buying some ammonia and plants as I wanted to carry out a fishless cycle of my tank before adding the fish from my current aquarium. They don't stock any ammonia, but they do stock Bactinettes. After a lengthy conversation (and me reading the leaflet), I bought four doses, sufficient for my tank size. I also bought a load of plants and a couple of rocks (already have driftwood).

never heard of this product before but i would be very wary of its shelf life. if your transfering the fish from your old tank why not transfer the filter aswell and alow them to run in tandam? this will seed your new filter and you then remove the old one after a month or so.

My LFS advised that I could add fish within 24 hrs of introducing the bactinettes,

if these bactinets do harbour the bacteria then yes you have 24 hours to add the fish or the bacteria will be dead, as they can live for a max of 24 hrs without amonia

In the meantime, should I be 'feeding' my new tank with flake food to help with the cycle? Sorry if this seems like a silly question!
this is a very messy way of adding ammonia to the tank and will take several days for amonia to build to sufficint levels for the bactera and so your bacternetts will have been wasted,

Finally, the filter (Rena XP2) has numerous sponges and fibre filters, along with a carbon type filter as standard, but it doesn't have any bio rings or similar - this is an 'optional extra'. Would you suggest that I should purchase bio rings for this filter?
i would get rid of the carbon filter as that won`t help with the cycleing as it will mop up ammonia nitrate and nitrite. and replace it either with bio rings avalable at any lfs.
you could also add more sponge but the biorings provide better water flow whilst still having much greater water flow....

hope that helped

 

[OohFeeshy]

Bactinettes is the best UK equivaltent of Bio-Spira- if kept properly the LFS workers should have been feeding it, and it should hae been refridgerated. In case they hadn't been though, pick the hardiest of your stock list to add.

 

[Gilby77]

Bactinettes is the best UK equivaltent of Bio-Spira- if kept properly the LFS workers should have been feeding it, and it should hae been refridgerated. In case they hadn't been though, pick the hardiest of your stock list to add.

Thanks OohFeeshy... I put it in the fridge as soon as I got it home (as advised by the LFS), but agree that you never know how well it has been stored and 'kept' up until that point!

My stock list is as follows, 4 abino barbs, 2 tiger barbs, 1 green barb, 3 emperor tetras, 2 balloon mollies, 2 ruby sharks, 1 black marble angle, 3 yellow fish (look like tetras but can't remember what they are called ) - would you say the barbs are hardiest of my stock, or the sharks? Am keen to put my sharks in the new tank asap as 'George' has grown considerably in the last month and needs the additional space... my stock list is perhaps not the best (poor advice)

Thanks, Gill

Thanks BigIan, really appreciate your response, okay will add a couple of fish tonight and see how they get on, will monitor very carefully over the coming days - absolutely do not want to put them under any undue stress!

Gill

 

[BigIan]

just add a few fish. 2 or 3, and monitor the ammonia ect, if you notice any rise in ammonia do small frequent water changes (10% every other day or so depending on how high the level gets) then once its stable add anothe couple of fish and monitor the levels well.

good luck and keep us informed mate

 

[Bloo]

Out of interest, there a long topic about Bactinettes

 

[Gilby77]

Out of interest, there a long topic about Bactinettes

Hi Bloo

Thanks for posting a link to the thread - really helpful!! I have read the whole thread but unfortunately the member using the Bactinettes didn't post any follow up comments after he had been using it for 10 days... so now I am not sure what to do, I don't really want to use my established fish as guinea pigs for this stuff, so am thinking of buying some household ammonia on the way home and using this instead for a while and recording the water test results daily for at least 14 to 21 days... am a little concerned about the reported nitrite spikes - 0.8 seems very high and I don't want to inflict that on my fish

If anybody is interested, perhaps I should post the results daily (on a separate specific Bactinettes thread) in case anybody decides to use them??

Out of interest, can anybody tell me how I should work out how much ammonia to add and what ppm I should be aiming for??

Thanks

Gill

 

[Bloo]

Thanks for posting a link to the thread - really helpful!! I have read the whole thread but unfortunately the member using the Bactinettes didn't post any follow up comments after he had been using it for 10 days...

No probs Gill

I see he's still a fairly active member and was last online only a few days ago. So if you're really interested - just drop him a pm and perhaps he can update the thread out of itnerest to others too

 

[scubadoo]

When doing a normal fishless cycle you aim for about 4-5ppm ammonia.

add it a bit at a time to get to the right concentration and test between adding, or you could do the maths to estimate how much is needed to save on tests. My tank is 50 US gallons and it takes about 6-7 ml of ammonia solution (at a concentration of about 10%) to get a reading of 4-5ppm.

if your tank is processing this down to 0 in about 12 hours, then you can pretty much cope with fully stocking the tank.

 

[Gilby77]

When doing a normal fishless cycle you aim for about 4-5ppm ammonia.

add it a bit at a time to get to the right concentration and test between adding, or you could do the maths to estimate how much is needed to save on tests. My tank is 50 US gallons and it takes about 6-7 ml of ammonia solution (at a concentration of about 10%) to get a reading of 4-5ppm.

if your tank is processing this down to 0 in about 12 hours, then you can pretty much cope with fully stocking the tank.

Hello again

Well I am not sure what to make of all this... so the tank is now up and running and I decided to add ammonia, rather than fish, to cycle the tank. The bactinettes are in place and have been since late Thursday night. Late last night (Friday) I added 10ml of household ammonia (9.5% strength) to my 76 gallon tank, this brought my ammonia reading to between 2.4 and 4.9 (upper end of the scale) - I am using Nutrafin liquid testing kit - but it is hard to be more exact as the colours are pretty similar. This morning I checked the ammonia again and perhaps it had dropped a little, but not much! I checked the ammonia levels again tonight and there is no change! So does this mean the bactinettes aren't working? I would have thought that if they were then the ammonia would be significantly reduced by now or am I expecting results too soon? I am rather glad now that I haven't added any fish!

In case it is useful, below are the results of my water straight from the tap and from the tank before adding ammonia. I haven't bothered to do a full profile on the tank since putting the ammonia in as I am assuming it won't have changed much (apart from the ammonia reading!);

Tap Water

Ph = 8.0
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0.1
Nitrate = 10/20
GH = 260 (very hard)
KH = 110 (excellent)

Tank Water (pre-ammonia)

Ph = 8.0
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0.1
Nitrate = 10/20
GH = 220 (very hard)
KH = 90 (excellent)

Tank Water (post-ammonia)

Ammonia = 2.4 - 4.9 (upper end of the scale to start with (say 4), now perhaps 3.5).

So the million dollar question is this, do I add another 10 ml of ammonia tonight and check the readings again tomorrow? The tank also came with a sample of Stress Zyme, is this stuff any good? Alternatively I could put the current filter from my established tank into the new tank to 'seed' it and perhaps kick start the cycle. I will be going back to the LFS tomorrow, do you think I should question the effectiveness of the bactinettes? I spent £22 on the stuff and would hate for other people to be wasting their money!

Any thoughts, advice etc would, as always, be much appreciated!

Thanks

Gill

 

[Gilby77]

... and have checked the ammonia this morning and guess what? No movement from yesterday!

So am pretty convinced the Bactinettes aren't working and will be telling my LFS today! As for the tank, I am going to seed it with the filter from my established tank but not add any more ammonia until the reading becomes zero, then add more to create a nitrite spike (as in the add and wait method of cycling)...

All good fun eh?!

 

[nukeonekitty]

Okay I don't mean to highjack your thread, but I just want to ask a question that really has been bugging me! Now when doing a fishless cycle you are adding the amonia (WHY!?) and what does the bacteria do!?

 

[voo]

The ammonia will start the bacteria growing in the filter. These bacteria will convert the ammonia into nitrites. Then another type of bacterial will start growing in your filter, which will convert the nitrites into nitrates.

Fish waste will create ammonia in the tank and the bacteria in your filter will convert it. By using ammonia from a bottle when doing a fishless cycle you are recreating the same effect as having fish in the tank, except there is no fish that can be harmed by the high ammonia levels.

Ammonia and nitrites are harmful to the fish, that's why you need the bacteria to convert them into nitrates, which are a lot less harmful. Without the bacteria the fish would be in big trouble and you would have to do water changes daily.

This information on fishless cycling might help you understand further
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=73365

 

[nukeonekitty]

Thank you very much!

 

[Gilby77]

Well, it is now day five and I think maybe the Bactinettes are working afterall (along with a little help from my established filter which I added on Sunday!).

To summarise, I filled the tank on Thursday, added Bactinettes on Friday along with 10 ml of household Ammonia (9.5% strength), the levels of Ammonia have dropped steadily ever since so added 5 ml of household Ammonia on Sunday night and a further 5 ml last night... my Nitrite levels have increased slightly to 0.3 and are holding steady at this mark and Nitrate is between 5 and 10, the same as my tap water.

I guess I need to see an increase in my Nitrate levels before I can assume the cycle is in full swing. Equally I am assuming that my ammonia levels need to drop to zero and nitrite to 0.1 (my tap water is 0.1 as is my established tank so assuming it will be hard to bring it to zero!?) before it is safe to add actual fish... perhaps someone can just confirm that I am understanding this correctly!!

Thanks

Gill