Tank Cycling Advice

[Seal36]

Hello all

I'm currently cycling a new 10 litre tank without any fish in it. What I have done is to take 1/3rd of the filter media from my 70 litre tank and add it to this tank and the filters that came with it. I'm also adding fertilisers in daily to help the new plants grow.

So my question is in order to keep the bacteria on the filter sponge alive i only need to add a little bit of fish food in don't I?

Regards
Tom

 

[BettaBettas]

ive never heard, that you are supposed to add fish food to a bare tank at all for bacteria?

 

[nic1]

So you added some media from the old filter into a new filter with new media in the filter?
Just got my sunday brain on today!

 

[Seal36]

Yes that is right, I have taken 1/3rd of the filter media from my tank which I have had for 5 years and added it to the filter of the new 10 litre tank.

I thought that by adding fish food to the aquarium it would help the bacteria to survive and breed in the new tank.

 

[luca1980]

The bacteria need some form of ammonia to stay alive - either in bottled form (I use Dr Tim's) or fish food (although I've never used this method as it is a lot harder to control the amount of ammonia you are adding). If there is no ammonia from the tank, the bacteria will die and you will need to start the cycle again. The temp also needs to be at 25 degrees Celsius and your pH needs to be between 6.8-8.5.

 

[Seal36]

Ok thanks, I have Interpet filter start so should I add some of that to the tank. If so the packing doesn't go down to a 10 litre tank does anyone know how much I should put in.

Regards
Tom

 

[luca1980]

As I said, I have never used fish food to cycle a tank before and it is a lot harder to control things this way. To get a cycle going you want your ammonia to read 3.0ppm after your initial dose. Not sure how much fish food it would take to achieve this, you're just going to have to go slow and test it. Don't go over 3.0ppm - adding more ammonia doesn't necessarily make the cycle go faster and in fact can actually just complicate things. Use an API test kit with the drops (not version with the strips) - this will make life easier and take out some of the guesswork

 

[Seal36]

Interpet filter start is ammonia droplets rather than fish food but the booklet only goes down to a 48 litre tank. However it says that a 48 litre tank needs 2 mls of filter start so I would imagine a 10 litre tank needs 0.4 mls?

 

[Essjay]

From what I can gather, Filter Start is not ammonia, it is bottled bacteria. You need a bottle of ammonia to feed the bacteria in the old media. Yes, fish food will degrade to make some ammonia, though modern food is designed to make little ammonia.
 
Using ammonia is more precise as Luca said. You will know when you have grown enough bacteria to support the fish you want to get. Ebay and Amazon are the best places to look for ammonia, though I did find Kleen Off Household Ammonia in my local independent DIY shop.

 

[luca1980]

Hi Seal, sorry I just read your last post. I have never heard of Interpret filter start, so I'm sorry I can't be of any help. The ammonia I am currently using to cycle my new 4 foot axolotl tank is Dr Tim's. I am using it in conjuction with Seachem Stability and in my experience everything is going really well in terms of the cycle ticking along.

 

[Seal36]

Thanks for the advice I have got some stuff that I can use.

I'm on the 3rd day of cycling, on day 2 everything was at 0 and day 3 nitrate was 10ppm and ammonia was 0.25ppm so I have done a water change to bring those parameters down.

Regards
Tom