Thoughts On Best Cycling In My Situation?

[Topazlizz]

Hello everyone!

I'm starting again after a long period of no time or energy for fish. In the meantime the hobby has moved on and I'm feeling very rusty on most things.
The situation - in short - is this. I've kept two medium-sized tanks (180 and 240 liters) very sparsely populated for the last couple of years but lost, and moved, the last of the fish in them in about August. I kept the water in the tanks as well as the gravel and filters and turned the heaters off, so they've been at around room temperature (21C). The idea was that it would be easy to start over again. The plants have done ok in the meantime and most of the algae (yes, I know, I was slipping badly) have naturally reduced.

Inspiration suddenly struck again in the voice of my five-year-old who wanted to buy some Mollies. Standing in the pet store I suddenly found I'd bought a new tank to replace my decrepit 240 liter tank (same size) as well as Mollies, fish food and some roots. (I dimly realized there was also a hole in my bank account, but that's another problem.)

I did a clean-up and large water change of the smaller tank and put the fish in there. Threw out the old large tank and set up the new, stupidly changing the old filter and cleaning gravel and all.

Now I'm sitting here wondering: are there likely to be any good bacteria left in the old tank or is that essentially also an uncycled tank? No new ammonia has been fed to the bacteria for ages though I've imagined there's likely to be a small colony left. The tank smells right.
If there were some bacteria left, would there still be some in the filter of the tank I threw out? I didn't actually chuck it in the garbage but when I found it today it was quite dry. Would bacteria survive that?
In the completely new tank, if there were any bacteria left in the old but cleaned gravel, would the tap water chlorine kill them? And if there's any good stuff left in the old tank - what should I use to speed up the new tank? Gravel?

I just counted 4 question marks. Will save some for later I think!

Rummaged in my old stuff and discovered an old Nitrite tester. Doesn't test for ammonia though, but thought I would try it on the old tank tomorrow morning before feeding. Will get a complete new test set as soon as I can.

Thanks for the great article on fishless cycling!

 

[SexyFishKeeper]

Chlorinated water will kill the bacteria.

I doubt that any will have survived in your old tank and even if some have then it wouldn't be enough to process enough.

You'd have to start the cycling process again. Try and get some mature filter media from a friend or the LFS.

 

[rabbut]

As said above, there is little chance of any bactiria remaining in your filter, as bactiria need a constant source of food to survive, or they die within hours. Also, drying out the filter media will kill the bactiria, so you now have no cycled tanks As a result, you will now be fish-in cycling. I wrote the following thread, to help people in your position see [topic="224306"]here[/topic]
for the thread. Also, see [topic="150631"]this[/topic] thread for a list of members prepaired to donate mature filter media to help cycle the tank quicker.

Cholrine is harmfull to fish and filter bactiria alike, so you should always use tap water conditioner to make new water safe for fish and filters alike. I should point out that a tanks smell does not always indicate that it is healthy. A water test and visual inspection of occupants is the only way to tell for cirtain.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Topazlizz]

As said above, there is little chance of any bactiria remaining in your filter, as bactiria need a constant source of food to survive, or they die within hours. Also, drying out the filter media will kill the bactiria, so you now have no cycled tanks As a result, you will now be fish-in cycling. I wrote the following thread, to help people in your position see [topic="224306"]here[/topic]
for the thread. Also, see [topic="150631"]this[/topic] thread for a list of members prepaired to donate mature filter media to help cycle the tank quicker.

Cholrine is harmfull to fish and filter bactiria alike, so you should always use tap water conditioner to make new water safe for fish and filters alike. I should point out that a tanks smell does not always indicate that it is healthy. A water test and visual inspection of occupants is the only way to tell for cirtain.

HTH
Rabbut

Thanks for this and the previous response! I had more or less arrived at the same conclusion myself but couldn't help hoping. The fish are in the tank with the unchlorinated water at least, so I spent a sleepless hour or two working out how to get both tanks cycled at as little cost to the fish as possible. Right now they're healthy and frolicking, but there isn't likely to be much of a build-up of anything yet. Will do very frequent partial water changes, and use the tank water to feed ammonium into the new one.
In my experience our Swedish tap water doesn't need a conditioner unless the fish are put in immediately. Our water is very good to begin with and is not heavily chlorinated.
Water tests still need to be done, but I won't be able to get to town to buy testers today, so I'll go with my plan and whatever I can pick up from your post which I will read directly. Thanks!

 

[rabbut]

Thanks for this and the previous response! I had more or less arrived at the same conclusion myself but couldn't help hoping. The fish are in the tank with the unchlorinated water at least, so I spent a sleepless hour or two working out how to get both tanks cycled at as little cost to the fish as possible. Right now they're healthy and frolicking, but there isn't likely to be much of a build-up of anything yet. Will do very frequent partial water changes, and use the tank water to feed ammonium into the new one.
In my experience our Swedish tap water doesn't need a conditioner unless the fish are put in immediately. Our water is very good to begin with and is not heavily chlorinated.
Water tests still need to be done, but I won't be able to get to town to buy testers today, so I'll go with my plan and whatever I can pick up from your post which I will read directly. Thanks!

Adding water from a mature aquarium will not supply a new tank with enough ammonia to cycle, so to fishless cycle, you will need to get some house hold ammonia with no suffactants

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Topazlizz]

Well, this is interesting...
To begin with, I couldn't beg nicely enough to get mature media from my LFS, but discovered the other day I had bacteria in a bottle (from Sera) so I've started dosing both tanks with that, according to prescription. I also conditioned the water in the new tank to be on the safe side.
What is interesting is the test reading of the older tank - I could only get the test stick variety that doesn't include ammonia/ammonium - but it's better than nothing. Anyway, the reading gave me 0 nitrite but detectable but low nitrate (between 10 and 25 according to the scale, whatever that is). Didn't test the new tank, there's no point yet.
Must admit it now, though, I just put a couple of fish in there, putting my trust in the bottled bacteria. The bottle said they'd be safe after 24 hours under continued daily dosage for a week. I will monitor everything very carefully, I promise!

One thing I've never paid any attention to before however is the measurement they call GH. KH I've heard of and know from experience and from this test that it's low in my water, but GH came out at the highest reading. Can someone tell me a little more about that, or should I maybe look in a different topic?

 

[rabbut]

Bactiria in the bottle products varely work. They won't do any harm, so by all means, carry on using it, but I would advise not buying them again, as most are a waste of money. I presume you can't get a bottle test kit on ebay either?

GH is a measure of water hardness. It is a measure of desolved magnesium and carbonate salts in the water. KH measures carbonate salts only, thus should always be lower then the GH measurement. GH isn't too important for general trops, unless you whish to breed them. GH and KH measurements in dip strips are rarely accurate, so a liquid drop test should be the way to go if you whish to be accurate
HTH
Rabbut

 

[Topazlizz]

Gladly agree on the liquid drop tests but I need to see about another way of buying them as I'd have to buy one test for each and they were horrendously expensive at the fish shop. Doing some very fast calculations, I make it around £16 per test. Must find a way of buying on e-bay or a net store or something.

As far as the bacteria in a bottle - we'll see. I vaguely remember using this before with good results and spoke to my favourite LFS owner as well as cichlid expert today about it, and he swears by it. He wasn't making a sale either, I already owned the stuff. I will keep testing and reporting my results here if anyone is interested. If I'm wrong I won't mind - I promise I'll admit it!

Thanks for the info on GH!

 

[rabbut]

£16 is pricy for individual test kits! You can buy master kits, with ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH tests for arround £25, plus like £12 if you which to test for hardness, which IMO is not necisarry, unless keeping things like discus

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Topazlizz]

£16 is pricy for individual test kits! You can buy master kits, with ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH tests for arround £25, plus like £12 if you which to test for hardness, which IMO is not necisarry, unless keeping things like discus

All the best
Rabbut

Thanks! It's good to have something to go on.

All the best to you too.

 

[Topazlizz]

Spent the weekend in a slightly larger town than the one I live in and found that one of the three specialised local fish stores had recently started stocking master test kits. The big one - huge! and expensive - turned out to have three months to go before expiry, which annoyed the store owner quite a bit, but there was also a smaller one which has given me something to go on. So I'll be checking, and posting, the levels as I go along, while using my bottled bacteria according to the manufacturer's recommendations.

My older tank, with some livebearers in it since 31st Dec, is 180 liters and currently showing barely detectable levels of ammonia, below 0,6, no nitrite, and nitrate between 10 and 25 on my test stick (no nitrate drop test in the kit).

My new tank, that I couldn't resist buying a few fish for on the 3rd Jan, is 248 liters, with ammonia below 0,6, no nitrite, and detectable but low nitrate.

I'm not sure if this is of any interest to anyone, but I'd like to know if the bottled bacteria actually work. A lot of people have been saying it doesn't, so I say - let's find out!

Naturally I'll also report water changes etc that will have an effect on it all.

 

[rabbut]

Spent the weekend in a slightly larger town than the one I live in and found that one of the three specialised local fish stores had recently started stocking master test kits. The big one - huge! and expensive - turned out to have three months to go before expiry, which annoyed the store owner quite a bit, but there was also a smaller one which has given me something to go on. So I'll be checking, and posting, the levels as I go along, while using my bottled bacteria according to the manufacturer's recommendations.

My older tank, with some livebearers in it since 31st Dec, is 180 liters and currently showing barely detectable levels of ammonia, below 0,6, no nitrite, and nitrate between 10 and 25 on my test stick (no nitrate drop test in the kit).

My new tank, that I couldn't resist buying a few fish for on the 3rd Jan, is 248 liters, with ammonia below 0,6, no nitrite, and detectable but low nitrate.

I'm not sure if this is of any interest to anyone, but I'd like to know if the bottled bacteria actually work. A lot of people have been saying it doesn't, so I say - let's find out!

Naturally I'll also report water changes etc that will have an effect on it all.

Will be interesting to follow. Please remember that you should not allow ammonia or nitrite to go above 0.25, or it may start doing lasting damage to your fish. I assume you are using the liquid tests for ammonia and nitrite?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Topazlizz]

Will be interesting to follow. Please remember that you should not allow ammonia or nitrite to go above 0.25, or it may start doing lasting damage to your fish. I assume you are using the liquid tests for ammonia and nitrite?

All the best
Rabbut

I am using the liquid tests for ammonia and nitrite. 0,6 was the lowest level on the colour chart for ammonia, but I really hardly noticed a colour change. I'm planning to do a 20% water change in a couple of days - want to see what happens with the ammonia first. Ph is steady at 6,8 for both tanks, so I'm not very worried about it yet.

Thanks for your interest!

 

[Topazlizz]

Latest update:
Both tanks still fine. Discovered that my ammonia reading was a kind of total of ammonium and ammonia, when taken together with pH the very slight colouring I get in my sample still means 0 toxic ammonia in both tanks. Do the liquid tests normally work that way?
Still 0 nitrite.
Didn't bother with nitrate readings today, hardly necessary after 2 days. Will do my scheduled 20% water changes after dinner.

Still dosing according to the bottle.

I would expect the tests to be showing something by now if the bottled bacteria weren't working, wouldn't you?

 

[Topazlizz]

Me again. Once again, a zero reading of nitrite on both tanks, and the slight tinge of colour on the NH3 test is now completely gone in the 180L. NH3 on the new tank is somewhere between completely clear and barely visible (I imagine it to be slightly coloured compared to the other bottle, but I really think it's mostly my imagination), so basically 0 too.
I started to think they sold me a test with fake substances, but I can fortunately second the nitrite findings on my strip tests. Nitrate is very low in the new tank, just below 10, and somewhere close to 20 in the 180L. Both tanks are well planted.

According to the bottle with bacteria, it's now time to stop dosing, the tank should be cycled. I can't find anything in my readings to contradict that. So unless something happens in the next week or so, I think the stuff works.

That's unless bacteria can survive in gravel without ammonia to feed on for a long time, and we've already established that to be impossible.

No spikes at all with fish-in cycling seems really strange to me, but perhaps it's helped to have planted tanks with low fish loads.

I'd be really interested to hear some feed-back and theories on all this. Thanks!