Cycle Without Water Conditioner?

[BeerShark]

Hey all, justa question, this is my first freshwater tropical setup, little 30 litre job thats hopefully going to have some chili rasboras and cherry shrimp.Im about to start fishless cycle, i just got some water from a friends tank to introduce some bacteria but i havent been to the shop to get any water conditioner yet, will the water i have in there from the tap hinder the cycle at all? i havent added it yet. my friends conditioner was some all in one stuff that put a coating of something over your fish and a million other things that didnt sound really good so i opted to wait and get my own.

so yea, add water now or after conditioning?

 

[tom130691]

Hey all, justa question, this is my first freshwater tropical setup, little 30 litre job thats hopefully going to have some chili rasboras and cherry shrimp.Im about to start fishless cycle, i just got some water from a friends tank to introduce some bacteria but i havent been to the shop to get any water conditioner yet, will the water i have in there from the tap hinder the cycle at all? i havent added it yet. my friends conditioner was some all in one stuff that put a coating of something over your fish and a million other things that didnt sound really good so i opted to wait and get my own.

so yea, add water now or after conditioning?

conditioner remove chlorine that kills bacteria, but chlorine evaporates in a few hours giving it a fair bit of time to kill what is in the water

 

[BeerShark]

Ok, so if ive had the tank running for a day or 2, it should be fine to add the friends water now?

 

[karin]

Yes, fine to add the water from friends tank now but it won't do much. The beneficial bacteria that you are going to cultivate with the fishless cycle, don't live in the water, they live on surfaces and particularly the surfaces inside the filter. It would be much better if your friend can give you material from inside his/her filter. Like a piece of a sponge, etc.

But do get water conditioner so that you can use your tap water instantly. Much safer and easier than having water sitting around for a day. Do you have a water test kit so you can track ammonia and nitrite and Ph and nitrate?

Good luck.

 

[BeerShark]

I do have a test kit with everything from a temperate salt water set up i had, will its on an island though i might just buy some new stuff. he was about to change the water of his tank, he stirred it up a bit too, so its got some particles etc in it. going into the shop tomorrow. thanks for all your help guys.

 

[waterdrop]

Any conditioner should do. Its safer to assume there are chloramines and use conditioner if you don't know whether chlorine or chloramine is used by your water authority. You'll need a test kit for whichever type of cycle you choose to perform. It takes about a month or two of work to cycle a freshwater tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Leaving the water to sit in the tank for a day or two will get rid of all traces of chlorine in your water. If your water supplier is using chloramine instead of chlorine, it will take well over a week to clear. That is the reason that many water suppliers are going over to chloramine instead of chlorine. Unlike aquarium keepers, most people look at having enough chlorine to prevent bacteria growth as a good thing so the chloramine being long lived is viewed as a good thing.
Almost any decent dechlorinator, often called a conditioner, is going to remove chlorine and chloramine. Some have added ingredients to "promote a healthy slime coat" but those additives are not needed. I use Prime, bottled by Seachem, because it is very concentrated and ends up being cheaper to use than many of the other brands. I find that even the brands that include things like aloe are fine although I do not find the added ingredients beneficial to the fish.
As far as using your friend's water, the water contains very little of the bacteria that we are trying to develop in our tanks. You would be better off getting a sample of the water from his filter cleaning bucket. When you clean a filter, you end up dislodging some of the beneficial bacteria and those will indeed speed up a cycle. I get even more extreme with my own tanks and use a new running tank as the cleaning bucket for one or two of my filters. The result looks a bit messy in the new tank but gets the new filter cycled in a week or so. I just did such clones on 5 filters and am having good results with the new fish that I added shortly after the clone was done.