I add gravel from existing tanks, transfer filter media, and add a bacteria booster like stress zyme. I also add a product called Aquarisol for a disease preventative. I also use activated charcoal, and a water conditioner (Prime) which will eliminate Ammonia and nitrite and detoxify nitrate. Good to go out of the box. If you are worried and have patience, cycle for two weeks or so.
how do you know when your tank is cycled?
- Thread starter Slim2634
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I add gravel from existing tanks, transfer filter media, and add a bacteria booster like stress zyme. I also add a product called Aquarisol for a disease preventative. I also use activated charcoal, and a water conditioner (Prime) which will eliminate Ammonia and nitrite and detoxify nitrate. Good to go out of the box. If you are worried and have patience, cycle for two weeks or so.
If I had to cycle a tank wihtout the benefit of ready-on-hand seeded media here's how I would do it:
Houshold ammonia added at 5 ppm every day
+ gravel from established tank
+ squeezings
+ BioSpira (as long as it had been kept refridgerated)
Once ammo crashes to 0 and your nitrites spike, you're almost there. Once your nitrites crash and your ammo is 0 also, do a 50% water change and add stock.
My reluctuance to cycle with hardy fish comes from not only the needless suffering of the fish (I also do not feed feeders), but the hassle and the waste. And the inequality.
Cycle the tank with 20 feeder goldfish. If they don't all die, you have to figure out WTF you're going to do with the remainder... give back to LFS? You have to catch them all and bag 'em up too. And who knows what residual parasites and bacterium they may have left in your tank.
PLUS, are 20 small feeder goldies equivilant to the mass of the stock you intend to introduce? If not, then you are really just going to have to deal with a mini-cycle anyway. If they are, then happy *insert common fish disease or parasite here* to you that your completely un-cared for feeders decided to bring along with them.
Houshold ammonia added at 5 ppm every day
+ gravel from established tank
+ squeezings
+ BioSpira (as long as it had been kept refridgerated)
Once ammo crashes to 0 and your nitrites spike, you're almost there. Once your nitrites crash and your ammo is 0 also, do a 50% water change and add stock.
My reluctuance to cycle with hardy fish comes from not only the needless suffering of the fish (I also do not feed feeders), but the hassle and the waste. And the inequality.
Cycle the tank with 20 feeder goldfish. If they don't all die, you have to figure out WTF you're going to do with the remainder... give back to LFS? You have to catch them all and bag 'em up too. And who knows what residual parasites and bacterium they may have left in your tank.
PLUS, are 20 small feeder goldies equivilant to the mass of the stock you intend to introduce? If not, then you are really just going to have to deal with a mini-cycle anyway. If they are, then happy *insert common fish disease or parasite here* to you that your completely un-cared for feeders decided to bring along with them.
This is my newest set up at the moment have use a load of Bio balls out off one of my mature filters tossed in 20 Zebra Danios and they are feeding fine in there I have used this method load of times and always within 1-2 weeks its spot on.I concur w/ thatonegirl, fishless cycling is the way to go, unless it's an emergency and you need to put your fish somewhere. Here's a summary of the process:
http://www.algone.com/fishless_cycling.htm
Fishless cycling time varies depending on the size of the tank, the amount of established bio media, temperature, etc. In general, larger tanks take longer. You can dramatically shorten the time to fully cycle, i.c., to get 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites, by using established bio media. By established media, I mean established filter media, not gravel from an established tank, which helps somewhat, nor water from an existing tank, which doesn't help at all. Also, up to a certain point in the mid 80s F when heat begins to kill bacteria, higher temps = faster cycle. Aeration also helps promote faster cycling.
I've used fishless cycling on a number of tanks. The fastest I've ever cycled a tank using a fishless cycle was 4 days in a 50 gallon using one established filter and one new filter. Cycling larger tanks take longer, especially in what I call "virgin" cycles, i.e., using no established bio media. It took me 3 weeks to fully cycle a 180 gallon and 5 weeks to fully cycle a 360 gallon, both virgin cycles.
http://www.algone.com/fishless_cycling.htm
Fishless cycling time varies depending on the size of the tank, the amount of established bio media, temperature, etc. In general, larger tanks take longer. You can dramatically shorten the time to fully cycle, i.c., to get 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites, by using established bio media. By established media, I mean established filter media, not gravel from an established tank, which helps somewhat, nor water from an existing tank, which doesn't help at all. Also, up to a certain point in the mid 80s F when heat begins to kill bacteria, higher temps = faster cycle. Aeration also helps promote faster cycling.
I've used fishless cycling on a number of tanks. The fastest I've ever cycled a tank using a fishless cycle was 4 days in a 50 gallon using one established filter and one new filter. Cycling larger tanks take longer, especially in what I call "virgin" cycles, i.e., using no established bio media. It took me 3 weeks to fully cycle a 180 gallon and 5 weeks to fully cycle a 360 gallon, both virgin cycles.
I use fish and seeded filters but I go slow and only add a couple fish each addition to the stock, that way I can start with the least agressive fish and get to have fish in the tank starting the 2nd day.
