How can i cycle my aquarium quickly?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I prefer convicts over store bought feeders to do a fish cycle. They are hardy and cheap. I wouldn't put any expensive africians in for at least 4 weeks, it's been my experience they can't handle it as well.

You said the people you knwo don't know anything about BB, that doesn't matter, if you can get your hands on some filter media just rinse it in a bag and dump the dirty water crud an all in your filter/tank. It will look like crap for a day but you'll be up and running fast.
 
Buy a bottle of Safe Start made by tetra. Buy your complete stock list at the same time.

Aclimate the new fish to the new tank and dump them in.

Add the safe start 10-12 hours later and your done.

I have used safe start 13 times now and everytime the process goes like this.
  1. Day 1 add complete stocking of fish
  2. 10 hours later add complete bottle of safe start.
  3. Day 2 test water. Find that you have zero ammonia and around .25ppm nitrite and a slight increase in nitrate level.
  4. Day 3 still no ammonia present and only trace amounts of nitrite testable if any at all.
  5. Day 4 test reveals zero ammonia again and zero nitrite again. And a raise in nitrate levels.
  6. End of day 4 the cycle is comeplete.
What this tells me is that safe start contains enough live bacteria to 100% complete the 1st stage of the cycle.
Ammonia converted to nitrite
And that it also contains 90% of the 2nd stage of bacteria needed to complete the cycle.
Nitrite converted to nitrate
And getting such a extremely large jump on the cycle process means that the 2nd stage of bacteria can raise there population numbers to meet the stock level in about 1 day.

If you are skeptical like most feel free to add liquid ammonia to your tank as if you were doing a fishless cycle. Add enough to get a 4ppm ammonia reading on your test. Then add the bottle of safe start sized correctly for your tank size. Then test the water after 24hrs and see for your self.

Just remember to keep adding the 4ppm of liquid ammonia daily until you get your fish so that you can keep the bacteria colony alive and thriving.

Report back on your findings if you choose to use safe start.

Good luck
 
i did a fishless cycle in 11 days with pure ammonia and Seachem stability. i was very successful. however, i did seed my filters with old media from my other set up.

it would be faster to use pure ammonia over fish because, with fish u have to wait for them to produce waste and then wait for that waste to decompose and produce ammonia. if u just add pure ammonia u skip the Sh!itty parts..lol

plus a gallon jug of ammonia cost about $3 and will last alonggggg time.
 
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