Fishless Cycling
- Thread starter zennzzo
- Start date
Of course not...that would be a shameless plug for me and these zillions of scrubbies I have in stock...CHOMPERS;2670813; said:In all of this there is no mention of scrubbies as the ultimate bio-material???
Thanks CHOMPERS!!
Yo u might want to add that when the cycle complete's, you will have very high nitrates and not really give a number. Cause if a new fish keeper does all this and see's a 100ppm nitrate reading they may freak out. And like my self some people have 20+ppm right out of the tap. When i fishless cycled my last 75 it took about 3 weeks and the ending nitrate reading was brown colored on the API drop test kit and that means around 160ppm. 
So with that kind of NO3 I allways do a 80%+ water change before stocking. ----------just my .02
So with that kind of NO3 I allways do a 80%+ water change before stocking. ----------just my .02
When I first heard of fishless cycling, I thought it sounded really stupid. I didn't realize ammonia was added artificially, and so I wondered how the bacteria were supposed to magically grow with no food source.
I suppose if I still hadn't understood it when I read this thread, it would have been very useful.
I suppose if I still hadn't understood it when I read this thread, it would have been very useful.
Did you use 5 drops per 10 g then drop it to 3 drops per 10g after NitrItes were detected?hybridtheoryd16;2671615; said:Yo u might want to add that when the cycle complete's, you will have very high nitrates and not really give a number. Cause if a new fish keeper does all this and see's a 100ppm nitrate reading they may freak out. And like my self some people have 20+ppm right out of the tap. When i fishless cycled my last 75 it took about 3 weeks and the ending nitrate reading was brown colored on the API drop test kit and that means around 160ppm.
I have never seen over 40ppm using this method and amount of ammonia added.
At the end of the post I let everybody know to PM me if they need help or have questions.
It wouldn't be a bad Idea to test your tap water for practice if anything...who knows what it will read these days...
yes---5drops til nitrite sign and then 3drops til no ammonia or nitrite detected. per gallon -----------I am amazed that you only got 40ppm of NO3 after a few weeks of adding drops everyday. This would be like having a fully stocked tank and not doing a water change for a month and only seeing 40ppm of no3 at week 4. Most people do weekly water changes to try and keep there no3 under 40ppm. And like me, some people have 20+ppm at the tap. So that would be amazing to only get a 20ppm increase in no3 after a few weeks period with out WC's.
Hey, what about using stuff other than ammonia to start it with? I've read somewhere about people leaving shrimp in pantyhose or leaving a bunch of food in the tank to start the cycle. Never tried it personally. Does that actually work? 
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
It will break down and create Bio-load (ammonia) but there isn't a presise measurement you can make with it...That's why Liquid Ammonia works so well...pure and ready to be processed...skrefany;2674133; said:Hey, what about using stuff other than ammonia to start it with? I've read somewhere about people leaving shrimp in pantyhose or leaving a bunch of food in the tank to start the cycle. Never tried it personally. Does that actually work?
Just a thought.
I'm new to fishkeeping and that whole cycling process had me very confused.skrefany;2674133; said:Hey, what about using stuff other than ammonia to start it with? I've read somewhere about people leaving shrimp in pantyhose or leaving a bunch of food in the tank to start the cycle. Never tried it personally. Does that actually work?
Just a thought.
And don't forget the other lovely side effects of it...cloudy water and the stench of rotting shrimp!zennzzo;2674141; said:It will break down and create Bio-load (ammonia) but there isn't a presise measurement you can make with it...That's why Liquid Ammonia works so well...pure and ready to be processed...
This was used for S/W where it works faster.
There is also adding soil from your lawn/garden (poisons & ferts & other critters).
We won't go into the disgusting one (it's just multi-level wrong).
And cycling with fish (fish can die and you have to start all over with a clean tank (since you can't be certain what killed them) & the fish can introduce several plagues into the tank too).
Ammonia is so easy to find and administer why bother with anything else these days.
Dr Joe
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