Using Fishless For The First Time

[ShinySideUp]

I would recommend doing a big water change the day before adding fish. Your nitrates will likely be through the roof at that point.

I shall, this has been emphasised and I can see the point.

Actually, I'm quite enjoying doing it this way rather than constantly fretting over the health of fish using a fish-in method. I have time to mess about with the decoration, fiddle with the water stats, find the best position for filter inlet and outlet without stressing fish and generally progress with a laid back attitude knowing that when I've finished the water and aquarium design will be the best it can be when the fish arrive.

Yes, I thoroughly recommend fishless cycling.

 

[elmo666]

Common sense tells me that it will be a very simple equation. The nitryfying and nitrosomas bacteria will build up to a level equivalent to how much ammonia is being fed to them. Now, if your stocking level initially produces considerably more ammonia, it would then follow that the levels of bacteria may not be sufficient to cope with the load. Obviously that is only my opinion, but I would rather air (correct spelling??) on the side of caution and see how the tank copes, building the stock up gradually.

 

[ShinySideUp]

Common sense tells me that it will be a very simple equation. The nitryfying and nitrosomas bacteria will build up to a level equivalent to how much ammonia is being fed to them. Now, if your stocking level initially produces considerably more ammonia, it would then follow that the levels of bacteria may not be sufficient to cope with the load. Obviously that is only my opinion, but I would rather air (correct spelling??) on the side of caution and see how the tank copes, building the stock up gradually.

Err on the side of caution FYI.

Yes, that is a good point. The artificial cycling of the tank uses a known quantity of ammonia but it is not known exactly how much ammonia any fish or group of fish may produce. I am going to assume that 2-4 ppm of ammonia is an intermediate amount of ammonia in an intermediate-sized tank therefore the same amount of ammonia tends towards the high side of a smaller tank. If at the same time I introduce a shoal of small fish their ammonia output is likely to be less that the amount of ammonia I am currently introducing.

All the time I have been cycling the 120 litre tank I have been running a small internal filter in my larger tank. My plan when cycling is complete is to introduce ten black phantom tetra's and monitor the stats, should the ammonia rise a little I shall move the pre-cycled small filter to the smaller tank to take that out. If the level does not rise I shall add a further six tetra's and continue monitoring. That should give me an idea of how much ammonia a particular species emits and so be able to come up with some guidelines as to how much artifially-introduced ammonia is required for a particular stocking level.

Well, that's the theory.

 

[FishFanatic04]

1/2 to 3/4 stock is usually where I land. More because I have a hard time getting my whole stocking in one store or at one time.


The bacteria you are building will only take a day or so to double, if you haven't cultured enough in your filter.

 

[ShinySideUp]

I've had a thought regarding the addition of established media when cycling a new filter. I used some media from my big tank and the ammonia is now being taken out in about twenty four hours, however my nitrites are off the scale and show little sign of falling yet.

It has crossed my mind that since there are no nitrites in a new tank the fact that I have added media capable of recycling both ammonia and nitrites merely means I have kick-started the ammonia bacteria production, meanwhile my denitrifying bacteria are probably starving to death. By the time the ammonia has been turned into nitrite there is nothing left to deal with it and so the filter starts from scratch in denitrifying.

I wonder if adding a second batch of established media once nitrifying bacteria are established would move this phase on a bit?