Starting My Fishless Cycle Tomorrow

[drobbyb]

Agree with Truck. Ammonia + light = algae. You don't really want to give algae the upper hand before your plants really start to flourish. If you wait until your cycle is done to add your plants, there is less ammonia for the algae to feed on. This gives your plants the chance they need to starve out the algae before it even gets started.

 

[waterdrop]

It sounds like danb has worked through to a good start. Clay cat litter should be a good addition below the substrate, I believe a fair number of non-co2 planted folks give this a go. Leaving the plants til after the cycle is a good idea because of algae (keep the lights mostly out.) As mentioned, good to give the ammonia a shake and make sure it doesn't foam in addition to observing that it doesn't have any dyes or fragrances. When using the ammonia calculator its best to use it to "come in low" on the desired 4ppm concentration and then test your way up to what looks like 4 or 5ppm. You don't want it to get up to 8ppm or that promotes the wrong species of autotroph. The early days of your testing logs can be just ammonia and the occasional pH reading, then later you'll add nitrite(NO3) and the occasional nitrate(NO3) reading. You won't really need to go to twice a day testing until after the nitrite spike phase of the cycle. You only ever add ammonia once in a 24 hour period.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[danb]

going to put it off for a few days now, the filter i have wont be able to handle the load, its just the basic juwel one. Im thinking of tetratec ex1200 or eheim 2215. Preferences?

 

[waterdrop]

I'd go with the big external cannister any day of the week. The Tetratecs have a tiny percentage more reports of plastic breaking but are usually much cheaper than the Rena or Eheim equivalents. The Tetratec and Renas are only a tad more noisy than the Eheims probably. Yes, I'd probably go with the 1200 (haven't looked at what vol tank you have) in your case.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[danb]

i have 180l tank

 

[waterdrop]

180L would be 900L/H at 5x. An Eheim ProII 2026 or 2028 would be perfect at 950/1050 L/H spec. Tetratec is 1200L/H and Rena XP3 is 1325L/H, so those are same range too. WD

 

[danb]

ok to back to my fishless cycle now, i have a tetratec ex1200, have the tank steralised, sand washed and ready to add my cat litter. Now, its 100% Clay cat litter; but its 'clumping' will this be okay?

 

[cybergibbons]

The cat litter I have for my cat say "100% clay" but is clearly perfumed... so I'm not sure what that means really. It also doesn't clump.

I think there are people on here that would be able to tell you for sure. I'd mix some with some water in a container and see if anything untoward happens like permanent cloudiness or a film on the surface of the water.

 

[Truck]

Clumping cat litter is fine, as long as you cover it with sand.

 

[danb]

Clumping cat litter is fine, as long as you cover it with sand.

Oh done, added water and sand and its crystal clear. A little bit of cat litter came to the top? Would this matter? Im just going to wait for the temperature of the tank to get to 30oC and then add some ammonia tomorrow

 

[Truck]

Pull out the little bit of cat litter if you can.

 

[danb]

I thought id update with a few pics; here's the tank setup, dosed with ammonia today. I was buying a chinchilla about 3 months ago and the guy had this fish tank which he just gave me. I just need to change the beading that doesnt match!

Im moving the fish from the below tank into the new tank once its cycled. Stock = 6 neon tetras, 6 glowlight tetras, 6 zebra danios, 2 blackwidow tetras, 2 neon gouramis, 2 golden gouramis, 2 opaline gouramis and 1 silver shark. His friend died i will be rehoming him at some point.

 

[danb]

Day 1 - Ammonia = 4ppm
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0
PH = 7.6

 

[waterdrop]