Started My Fishless Cycle Yesterday

[kindeke]

Ok, so I put my tank up in the alcove, the missus hates it but she'll come round when I get the front looking more attractive...

I used sand substrate from the aquatics shop, it was pricey at £13 but I didn't want to use play sand as I thought it would be too white, this is a bit darker and looks more natural.
I rinsed it profusely in an overflowing bucket for about 10 minutes, and I only needed half the bag.

I replaced all the filter media in my second hand Rekord 96, as I didn't know how long the tank had been empty, and filled it up with dechlorinated water.
This was, as you all know, very exciting ( and scary, as I had visions of 30 gallons of water flooding my lounge...)

Switched the heater and pump on, and set it to just over 28 degrees. Temperature this morning was a touch over 25 and yesterday i started adding ammonia from Boots.
I used the calculator and added just over 5 ml. This didn't quite get my ammonia level up to 5ppm, so I added a bit more and tested late last night.
The color chart on my test kit ( Nutrafin) showed pale orangey color, which should be about 4.5, so I left it at that.

I will test again thsi afternoon after work and see if it has dropped at all.

There is another chart on the leaflet, which you use to compare the values read by the colour chart to your Ph level, and it shows green, yellow or red.
This is a bit confusing, as the level of 4.5 combined with my Ph level still shows green, thus safe for fish.

I'll do a PH test this afternoon as well, and logically this will have gone up, getting my ammonia level into the red figures I would think.

To clarify, i cycle my tank like described in the pinned topic and don't do any water changes, and at the end I do a 75% change ?

By them the water will be murky and I'll have algea and stuff, so do I clean the tank with the algea scraper and put fresh dechlorinated water in? Can I start aquascaping my tank at that point with caves and terraces? What about plants?

I assume I wait another couple of days for the temperature and dirt to settle?

Can I add some fish after that?

Can i start with my peppered cory's or should I put in some Zebra Danios or something else in first?


I really really want a shark in there, but I've been told this isn't a good idea

 

[Miss Wiggle]

wow, exciting day!

don't worry about the pH comparison thing, it's clearly rubbish if it reckons 4.5ppm of ammonia is safe at any pH level! I think I know what they're getting at though, the toxicity of ammonia varies depending on the pH so that's all they're trying to get at, but in all honesty the varience in the level of toxicity is like being stabbed as opposed to be shot.... ok it might be better but that doesn't make it good!!

The general idea is you keep adding you 5ppm of ammonia, initially you'll only need to top up the tank to 5ppm, once you've passed the first stage of cycling and the ammonia drops to 0 each day you'll need to add 5ppm each day. when ammonia and nitrite both drop down to 0 in 12hrs then the cycle is done, you keep adding ammonia for around a week afterwards as sometimes you get a little blip just after cycling, then when it's been steadily dropping to 0 for a week you do a massive water change and then add around two thirds of the final stocking of fish.

there are some circumstances where you should do water changes when cycling, not necessary but won't hurt the cycle if you need to.

re-read the fishless cycling article a good few times until your confident with it, then hop over to the scientific section and have a read of the topics on cycling there which are a bit more in depth and will give you some food for thought while the cycle is taking place.

good luck, remember to make a note of your readings every day, if you do have any problems being able to give us the full history of your test readings will be invaluable.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, you're off to a good start and I agree with everything MW says there. I would maybe go ahead and tweek the temperature up to 30C based on your thermometer. Remember, your goal here is to create the right soup for growing bacteria, its not a fish tank yet, so you want ideal conditions for each bacterial species in turn, not for fish, which is one of the things that gets people confused sometimes.

You can experiment with your aquascape during fishless cycling and you can begin to grow plants during fishless cycling. In hindsight, I've starting liking water changes -more- during fishless, especially if the cycling is taking a long time. Seems like eventually getting some gravel cleanings in during water changes actually helps to keep a more controlled environment for fishless cycling, where its easier to interpret what's going on if your 5ppm ammonia adds are as close as possible to being the only thing creating ammonia (a dirty tank is more likely to be adding a small steady bit of additional ammonia along with your big morning 5ppm add is the way I think of it.) (stuff I'm talking about is all at a much later stage than where you are now!)

Also, besides asking questions here in your thread, I suggest you be curious and read other fishless cyclers threads if you have time as the "science" of fishless cycling is still not set in stone and there are the odd bits to learn still outside the pinned article. Reading different perspectives can help you "get it" more easily.

~~waterdrop~~