Hello,
I don't use TFF much anymore as I have moved on to sites that more specifically address my interests in this hobby. However, this forum is where I got nearly all of my information when I was first starting out.
I figured I could come back here and post some pictures and a log of starting a new tank with seeded media, as I'm setting up a new quarantine tank.
This information can be used to help jumpstart a new hobbyist with media from a friend, a fish store, or a local hobbyist.
A little background - I have a 20 gallon tank which was fishlessly cycled over a year ago using this site as a resource, and a 40 breeder heavily planted tank with CO2 injection, plant specific substrate, lighting, etc. Warning to the wise - this hobby has the ability to grow from you learning what the heck ammonia has to do with fish tanks into multiple tanks in several rooms of your house, in a very rapid time frame.
I'm planning on adding new fish to my 40B soon (more cardinal tetras, and probably a South American cichlid species) and decided to do a fishless cycle on my new quarantine tank.
The tank:
This is a 10 gallon tank, with an Aqueon 50 watt heater and a AquaClear 20 hang on back filter. I spraypainted the glass (on the outside) on the bottom and back with textured black Krylon Fusion. I won't have substrate in it while it's being used as a quarantine tank, so the painted glass darkens the substrate area for the fish comfort as well as being aesthetically pleasing. I like the painted on background because this tank will be moved around a bit when going in and out of usage, so I won't need to worry about ripping and replacing taped on backgrounds, or water droplets between the glass and background, etc. The PVC pipes and plants are easily cleanable decorations provided again for both fish and aesthetic appeal.
I ran the tank for 24 hours with dechlorinated water (I use SeaChem Prime) to ensure everything was in working order.
Here, I took the media that came with the new filter, and doubled it with some other dry old media I had, just to get an idea for the volume I had in the AC20 to fill with "mature media" from my other tank. I can fit in double what it came with, because I am not using the carbon that it also came with.
Here is the filter (an Eheim 2213 canister) on my 20 gallon tank. I will be raiding media from this filter.
First I drained out the water from the filter through the bottom tap into the QT. This should flush out some mulm into the tank.
The next few pictures show me taking the media out of the filter, including some pillow floss (couple dollars for a lifetime supply at Walmart) which I use for fine particle filtration, and shaking out the mulm into the tank.
Now I removed some old media from the filter (I used the bowls to compare the volume)
Placed it in the provided bag and into the filter media section:
Finally, using the calculator on this site (http
/www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm), I added 4.75 mL of 4% ammonia to my tank to achieve a 5 PPM concentration.
All done...low water level for aeration and increased temp (low 80s) to increase cycling time:
I will continue to update this post with ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings to demonstrate the effect of cycled media on a new cycle.
Day 1 - 1/23/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 2 - 1/24/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 3 - 1/25/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 4 - 1/26/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 5 - 1/27/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 7 - 1/29/2012 17:00 - 4 PPM Ammonia - 0.25 PPM Nitrite (I have been measuring nitrates as well, and it appears that they are also rising. Believe that the nitrite population may have been keeping up with some low level nitrite production until now at which time the A-bacs are increasing faster than the N-Bacs can keep up)
Day 8 - 1/30/2012 20:00 - 2-4 PPM Ammonia - 2-5 PPM Nitrite - 40+ PPM Nitrate
Day 9 - 1/31/2012 19:00 - 1-2 PPM Ammonia - 5+ PPM Nitrite - 40+ PPM Nitrate
Day 10 - 2/1/2012 19:00 - 0.25 PPM Ammonia - 5+ PPM Nitrite - 40+ PPM Nitrate - Dosing 4 mL of 4% Ammonia to bring ammonia back up.
I don't use TFF much anymore as I have moved on to sites that more specifically address my interests in this hobby. However, this forum is where I got nearly all of my information when I was first starting out.
I figured I could come back here and post some pictures and a log of starting a new tank with seeded media, as I'm setting up a new quarantine tank.
This information can be used to help jumpstart a new hobbyist with media from a friend, a fish store, or a local hobbyist.
A little background - I have a 20 gallon tank which was fishlessly cycled over a year ago using this site as a resource, and a 40 breeder heavily planted tank with CO2 injection, plant specific substrate, lighting, etc. Warning to the wise - this hobby has the ability to grow from you learning what the heck ammonia has to do with fish tanks into multiple tanks in several rooms of your house, in a very rapid time frame.
I'm planning on adding new fish to my 40B soon (more cardinal tetras, and probably a South American cichlid species) and decided to do a fishless cycle on my new quarantine tank.
The tank:
This is a 10 gallon tank, with an Aqueon 50 watt heater and a AquaClear 20 hang on back filter. I spraypainted the glass (on the outside) on the bottom and back with textured black Krylon Fusion. I won't have substrate in it while it's being used as a quarantine tank, so the painted glass darkens the substrate area for the fish comfort as well as being aesthetically pleasing. I like the painted on background because this tank will be moved around a bit when going in and out of usage, so I won't need to worry about ripping and replacing taped on backgrounds, or water droplets between the glass and background, etc. The PVC pipes and plants are easily cleanable decorations provided again for both fish and aesthetic appeal.
I ran the tank for 24 hours with dechlorinated water (I use SeaChem Prime) to ensure everything was in working order.
Here, I took the media that came with the new filter, and doubled it with some other dry old media I had, just to get an idea for the volume I had in the AC20 to fill with "mature media" from my other tank. I can fit in double what it came with, because I am not using the carbon that it also came with.
Here is the filter (an Eheim 2213 canister) on my 20 gallon tank. I will be raiding media from this filter.
First I drained out the water from the filter through the bottom tap into the QT. This should flush out some mulm into the tank.
The next few pictures show me taking the media out of the filter, including some pillow floss (couple dollars for a lifetime supply at Walmart) which I use for fine particle filtration, and shaking out the mulm into the tank.
Now I removed some old media from the filter (I used the bowls to compare the volume)
Placed it in the provided bag and into the filter media section:
Finally, using the calculator on this site (http
/www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm), I added 4.75 mL of 4% ammonia to my tank to achieve a 5 PPM concentration.
All done...low water level for aeration and increased temp (low 80s) to increase cycling time:
I will continue to update this post with ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings to demonstrate the effect of cycled media on a new cycle.
Day 1 - 1/23/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 2 - 1/24/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 3 - 1/25/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 4 - 1/26/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 5 - 1/27/2012 19:00 - 5 PPM Ammonia
Day 7 - 1/29/2012 17:00 - 4 PPM Ammonia - 0.25 PPM Nitrite (I have been measuring nitrates as well, and it appears that they are also rising. Believe that the nitrite population may have been keeping up with some low level nitrite production until now at which time the A-bacs are increasing faster than the N-Bacs can keep up)
Day 8 - 1/30/2012 20:00 - 2-4 PPM Ammonia - 2-5 PPM Nitrite - 40+ PPM Nitrate
Day 9 - 1/31/2012 19:00 - 1-2 PPM Ammonia - 5+ PPM Nitrite - 40+ PPM Nitrate
Day 10 - 2/1/2012 19:00 - 0.25 PPM Ammonia - 5+ PPM Nitrite - 40+ PPM Nitrate - Dosing 4 mL of 4% Ammonia to bring ammonia back up.
