Cycling

[berbie38]

Hi all
after my first endeavour into tropical fish keeping with the 60 litre Bi-orb, and a few disasters on the way, I have just invested in a jewel 180 litre tank and cabinet. I intend to keep Malawi Cichlids in the tank.U visited my local specialist aquatic store to buy rocks and coral sand for the substrate.To be honest I have been a bit shocked with the price of some rocks and sand and on top of this I have been told that I need a considerable amount of Cichlids in my tank to negate the dominant ones behaviour, which is all going to be quite a cost in a short space of time.
I dont really want to do the fishless cycle, I would rather do fish in cycle basically because I am going away for a week at the start of June. Ok my question is could I buy some cheap hardy fish to get the tank cycling i.e. standard community fish and then move them to the Bi orb once cycled and then put the ciclids into the jewel.Any advice on types of fish would be appreciated as well, I would like some cardinal tetras for my biorb, could I cycle the jewel with these?
best regards
john

 

[Noahs ark6]

if you want to fish-in cycle ur juwel 180, start of with a few danios, there hardy and a good fish to cycle with (but be carefull, they like jumping)

 

[berbie38]

if you want to fish-in cycle ur juwel 180, start of with a few danios, there hardy and a good fish to cycle with (but be carefull, they like jumping)

Thanks for your reply, How many would i need? would it be ok to transfer them into bi orb after then add cichlids to the jewel?
best regards
john

 

[BigbruiserAl]

To be honest if you want a tank of Malawi Cichlids and dont want to put the effort in of fishless cycle i would look at keeping something else, Cichlids need decent water stata. A fish in cycle is not only unfair on the fish it much more work then fishless cycle. Also cycling with a few hardy fish then increasing the bio load will lead to more problems and cost.

 

[Malawakiwhite]

I tend to agree. Can't you get someone to add ammonia while your on holiday? If not what are you going to do when you have fish? Not go on away ever again? The bioload of several danios compared with lots of bigger malawis doesn't even compare, you'll still likely see an ammonia spike and lots of hard work and fresh water to keep the malawis alive. Something to think about.

 

[berbie38]

ok thanks for all of your input im gonna look at the fishless cycle and give it some thought. Another reason why i didnt fancy the fishless cycle was that I sppoke to one of the guys in the aquatic shop who tried the fishless cycle and found it awkward. He gave me, with the aquarium, some nutrafin cycle biological aquarium supplement, has anyone used this?

 

[Malawakiwhite]

Go to the emergency forum and see how many are there who listened to their LFS advice it's crazy. If it works at all, it then only cotinues to work if you keep using it i.e expensive. Then you need to spend more on medication, new fish etc. Wonder why the LFS do that eh?

 

[Malawakiwhite]

Also I did a fishless cycle it took around 36 days, no problems. I can tell you what awkward is - having to do 50%+ daily water changes to keep toxins at 0 and I imagine sleepless nights wondering if the fish will survive the night. That's what happened to a friends mother.

 

[BigbruiserAl]

Take a look at how many fishless cycle logs are on this forum, i am on my 3rd tank after i made the mistake of listening to a local fish shop. people on this forum have nothing to gain and offer advise to avoid problems most have been through. Also regarding you fishless cycle if you add the ammonia the day before you go away you wont even see anything happen for 5-10days so being away during the 1st week of a fishless cycle is almost ideal

 

[waterdrop]

Hi berbie38 and welcome to our beginner section,

I realize you couldn't have planned it this way but it happens that the circumstances and wording of your post was kind of an eye-opener! I read it and thought that we finally have a perfect example of coming all the way back full-circle to the very thing and thinking that started fish-in cycling in the first place and then resulted in a way to not have to do it!

While we often talk about one of the main benefits of fishless cycling as a way to avoid the much more laborious work of many water changes (water changes to keep the fish alive that are providing the ammonia to cycle the tank) I personally think that another good reason for fishless cycling has been the gradual realization that just because humans can't easily see the effects of small amounts of permanent damage to gills and nerves that come from ammonia and nitrite exposure doesn't mean it isn't happening. In my own case I have followed up with emails to a few ichthyologists in the past and received confirmation that this is now better understood.

I guess an analogy would be if we were trying to adjust and fine tune some exhaust removal equipment for our car garage. Fish-In cycling would be kind of like locking a group of neighborhood kids in the garage as part of the process, under the assumption that their young lungs (hardy kids, we'd want) could "take it" a little better until the equipment adjusted. (Of course (to switch analogies), there's a wide range of behaviors still in the world, some still buying cartons of smokes while others are trying to protect their kids from second hand tobacco smoke, lol! Change in hobbies takes a long, long time, just like in health behaviors!)

The thing I found so exciting about Fishless Cycling was that we finally had a way to just take the fish themselves out of the equation altogether! And this regardless of whether they were the final display fish or simply some hapless "feeders."

Anyway, back to you! Glad to hear you're going to work on starting a larger tank. I always think those are a little easier and one meets with success a little more quickly. The larger amount of water is more forgiving of mistakes!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[berbie38]

ok geat thanks all I am now enlightened. Hope i didnt cause offence to anyone i wasnt aware how much damage this would causeb to the fish. I will use the fishless cycling and f i can add ammonia and not have to do anything for the first week that will be ideal, what with holiday. much appreciated
john

 

[OldMan47]

I have used Cycle and found it totally useless. When I cycled a tank with it my time was exactly the same as if I had used nothing at all.
A far better option, dealing with the LFS, would be to ask them for filter squeezings or even a sample of their filter media. Either one would put you well on the way to a cycled filter on your own tank. Another option you may not have considered yet is to check out the list of people willing to trade mature media for new media at the top of this section. I am one of the many people listed there. Anyone can give you some mature media with no real adverse response in their own tanks as long as they limit how much you are given from a mature filter. If I gave you 20 to 30% of the media from any of my mature filters, I would hardly notice the difference but you will be cycled in about a week or even less. Once you have a cycled filter, you could even pay it forward to the next person needing a starting clone.
I have a link to that thread in my signature area. It is called Donors there.

 

[berbie38]

I have used Cycle and found it totally useless. When I cycled a tank with it my time was exactly the same as if I had used nothing at all.
A far better option, dealing with the LFS, would be to ask them for filter squeezings or even a sample of their filter media. Either one would put you well on the way to a cycled filter on your own tank. Another option you may not have considered yet is to check out the list of people willing to trade mature media for new media at the top of this section. I am one of the many people listed there. Anyone can give you some mature media with no real adverse response in their own tanks as long as they limit how much you are given from a mature filter. If I gave you 20 to 30% of the media from any of my mature filters, I would hardly notice the difference but you will be cycled in about a week or even less. Once you have a cycled filter, you could even pay it forward to the next person needing a starting clone.
I have a link to that thread in my signature area. It is called Donors there.

With regards to this I have 2 tanks that are cycled; a 60 litre Biorb which contains community fish and another tank which contains golfish and is approximately 40 litres. I suppose i could use media out of these? how much and what media should i use? obviously filter, what about gravel/ceramic media, should I use this while fishless cycling??
best regards
john

 

[OldMan47]

A lot depends on the type of filtration in your mature tanks. If you are using an undergravel filter, the gravel itself is you filter media and a surface gravel sample would be your best bet. If you have a filter that uses a cartridge of some sort, clean it in your new tank. If you have an external filter or a similar filter with discrete filter elements, try to use one of those filter elements to jump start the new filter. I have lots of filters that use either a cartridge or a sponge and not much else. What I do is simply clean one of those filters in a new tank to give that new filter a jump start. Once you have used one of the cloning methods, do a fishless cycle just to prove that your approach has created a functioning filter. I have seldom seen one take more than a week to be ready for fish. Do not remove more than 30% of the biological media from any functioning tank's filter but both goldfish filters and community filters will work.

 

[Randi]

I used Nutrafin Cycle in a fishless cycle and it cycled the tank in 12 days. However, you must continue to add the product every week. Once I decided I didn't want to pay for it anymore and stopped adding it my tank went into a whole new cycle, at this point with fish. (not all of them made it )