best way to cycle?

[jlieskovan]

so when i set up my first tank i lost a couple fish due to not understanding cycling.. now my tank is established and i have no more problems but, for future reference what is the best way to cycle a new tank?
thanks

[Mystus Redtail]

I used to cycle with small feeder fish to get the filters established, then add some larger fish and watch the rosy's disappear. Probably not the safest considering the potential diseases that feeders are known for. Now that you have an established tank you can help speed up the cycle of your next tank by pulling one of the cartridges out of this filter and rinsing it in the new tank. The bacteria that comes off of the cartridge will inhabit your new filter and substrate.

[jlieskovan]

awesome! ya i cycled the tank first with white clouds, but then put in a pbass and RTC, i think it was too quick of a bio load jump? agreed?

[Gill Blue]

ammonia

[Jc1119]

ammonia

And patience.


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[muskieboy]

I usually just use media from other tanks. Also just for the record you can simply drop in fish food instead of feeders to feed the bacteria.

[Drstrangelove]

This will sound too simple, but here goes.

A billion years ago (before I knew 10% of what I know now) I lost some fish due to over feeding. I hated that and I read enough about proper stocking and cycling.

After that, I cycled my tanks like this: I set up the tank with everything in it and everything running, except fish. Then I dropped ground up fish food in the tank a couple times a day, at first a little, then more, then more. After what seemed like long enough time (3-4 weeks) and when I was 'feeding the water' what I thought I'd be feeding the fish, I bought my fish and tossed them in. I never took a reading on ammonia, nitrites or nitrates, before, after or during. I didn't do any WC during the process even right before I added the fish. But I also was careful to add smaller fish that would be able to fully grow and never over stocked the tank.

Later on (after several successful starts), I learned to 'seed' the new tank with the old tanks bacteria. I reduced the process by about a week to 2-3 weeks.

I did this on 6 different tanks (sizes 50-180), plus others that my family asked help on and I/we never lost a fish due to cycling errors or ammonia spikes. At those times, I wasn't too much aware of why this worked other than the tank had to 'cycle.' I was just patient and after a while I got a kick out of seeing an empty tank, knowing soon I could put fish in it.

This isn't the "best" way if you want a tank with fish right away. There are a lot of other ways to do it.

[joe jaskot]

I always add aquarium plants to a new tank to cycle it. Plants are loaded with bacteria. The plants will use up the ammonia and nitrite in the water.

[Jc1119]

On a side note, I technically haven't cycled a new tank in years. You can cheat a bit when you run multiple tanks and multiple filters on each. I always run a good amount of bio in all my filters and stock pretty lightly, so when I want a new tank, I'll pull media from a few different filters on several tanks, put them in the new filter and add a few fish in the new setup. The established media has no trouble handling a light load and Im off and running....

But joe also brings up a great with plants as well. They are a great way to speed everything up in new systems....