Cycling A 5-Gallon With Fish Food

[GuppyGoddess]

Couple questions:

I just set up a 5-gallon to be fishless cycled and am wondering how much fish food to put in to start the cycle and how often I should add more food.

What temp should the tank be at?

Also, how long until a small tank like that will be cycled? The guy I talked to said it wouldn't take as long since the tank is very small.



(I do not want to use ammonia b/c the tank is in a bedroom.)

Thanks!

 

[The Noob Fish Shepherd]

I don't know much, but when I cycled my tank I did not put much fish food in (Maybe 2 grains every 3 or 4 days) because I didn't want it to rot or result in an algae explosion...

Also, tank temperature varies between fish species. Depending on what your planning on keeping, you can easily google the species name and optimum temperature and score a few hundred thousand hits.

I cycled my 30G tank for a about a month before I put anything in. As soon as I saw algae growing I put plants in to compete with it, then I put 3 Bristlenose Pleco in to completely rid the algae after about anouther month. Then anouther week before I put my next set of fish in.

I hope this helps at all, tell me how it all pans out!

 

[everlastingspirit]

Im doing this too so would also be keen to fin this out

Ben

 

[OldMan47]

The optimum temperature for cycling a tank is a bit warmer than you would use for fish. It is around 84F which is 29C. The final amount of fish food needed is the amount you intend to feed the ultimate occupants. As the Noob Fish Shepherd said, it will rot in the tank and smell bad but it will need to rot to produce ammonia. I would start feeding the tank slowly to avoid a nasty rotting mess but recognize that as you near completion, you will be feeding daily, just as if you had fish in the tank.

 

[Twinklecaz]

Is this a way to cycle the tank without adding Ammonia then? Also I read that you have to be careful with such a high temp if you intend to cycle with the plants in (which I do). Is this true? I'm hopefully going to be starting today!

 

[waterdrop]

I do not usually think of fishless cycling with fishfood as "just another way of cycling." I think of it as a fallback method that gets used when one just can't seem to find the right kind of simple household ammonia needed for the modern method. As OM47 mentions, it can stink up the house sometimes and the more difficult thing about it is that its hard (for beginners at least) to control the amount of ammonia that gets created. Control is helpful when trying to make the cycling go as quickly as possible.

One potential advantage of fishfood cycling that has been mentioned is that it also encourages and helps build up the "heterotrophic" bacteria needed to break the fishfood down into ammonia. The questionable thing about this to my mind is that we've never really observed much problem in getting these heterotrophs, they always seem to be around and waiting in abundance!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Truck]

Can I ask why you're reluctant to using ammonia?

 

[jmiller]

(I do not want to use ammonia b/c the tank is in a bedroom.)

I'm on the last few days of a fishless cycle, using ammonia, on a 5.5 gal tank in my bedroom. You'll only notice it while you're dosing it but then the smell goes away quickly. Not noticable any other time.

 

[Twinklecaz]

Can I ask why you're reluctant to using ammonia?

Who me? I'm not. I'm just still learning and trying to explore every opinion and option to find the best method like any intelligent person would.

 

[Truck]

Sorry, was aimed at the OP.

 

[waterdrop]

(I do not want to use ammonia b/c the tank is in a bedroom.)

I'm on the last few days of a fishless cycle, using ammonia, on a 5.5 gal tank in my bedroom. You'll only notice it while you're dosing it but then the smell goes away quickly. Not noticable any other time.

Yes, GuppyGoddess, this may be a misunderstanding of the amount of ammonia involved. We are dosing the tank to 5 parts PER MILLION, think about it! Its so tiny you could never taste it or smell it or anything once it gets in the water. The bottle of household ammonia could (and should, with children below a certain age) be kept in another place. WD