Fishless Cycle

[ycycle]

I have just set up my 100 litre tank. With rocks, gravel, 2236 Ecco filter, 150w heater. I am preparing to begin a fishless cycle. I plan to add the driftwood in 2 days time and plants in the next 48 hours.

Firstly I installed my carbon filter to help remove any excess debris after newly washed gravel installed.

MY question is do I remove the carbon filter before I begin adding the ammonia. At present I have added nothing. Should I run with carbon filter for the first week

I am priming this tank to take my molly fry (5) approximately 6 weeks old. I will then add the Tetra's (14) from my husbands 125gallon tank.

I'm not in a rush and want to get it right without causing distress to the fish.

 

[Def]

Remove your carbon, this will do nothing at the moment. Add enough ammonia to get the water to about 3 or 4ppm. Do nothing, test daily. Wait until ammonia level drops to about 1ppm, bring it back up to 3 or 4ppm. Repeat this, and begin testing for Nitrite. Eventually you will find that ammonia will drop to zero in 24hrs - at this point, add ammonia every day. Keep doing it until nitrite spikes and goes to zero, then stays at zero even when you're adding ammonia every day. Finally do a 100% water change and you're done.

Lots of topics about fishless cycling around. My technique differs slightly in that I don't add ammonia every single day, I only add it when it drops.

 

[ycycle]

I have begun my cycling today. I added the driftwood and plants. Removed the Carbon Filter. Added some suspended gravel from a existing tank which has cycled. I added the ammonia until it read 4ppm. Readings were PH-7.8, NO2 - 0.5ppm, NO3 - 40ppm, Ammonia - 4ppm. Now I cross my fingers and hope it goes right.

 

[juiceball1]

I don't think that you should do a 100% water change. You should try not to distrub the gravel once your cycle is finished. If your Nitrates is less than 40ppm you should do a 20-50% water change. If Nitrates are greater than 40ppm the most you should do is a 90% water change.

 

[Def]

The bacteria "stick" to the gravel and live in your filter media, they are not free-floating. Siphoning off the water won't cause any harm. If you are doing a fishless cycle with pure ammonia, the odds are your nitrate will be through the roof when you're done.

 

[ycycle]

Day two looking good. Added more ammonia but couldn't work out why I had pools of water on the floor. Worked it out at 4am. The tights which I suspended the gravel in were drawing off water which was then going onto the floor. I have adjusted the tights and now the water is not being drawn off by the tights. It has taken 44 drops of ammonia (Clear, Non foaming, Household Ammonia at 9.5%) to get to 4-5ppm but I haven't checked the other readings today. I will start that tomorrow. My tap water has a nitrate of 40ppm, Ammonia of 0.25ppm, nitrite of 0.25ppm and PH of 7.8 so I know from where the readings have started from and it should give a good indication of the changing levels. Unfortunately one of my baby mollies died yesterday as it got stuck behind the internal filter in the little tank. Fingers crossed the others will survive until the tank is fully cycled.

 

[pahansen]

If I were you, I'd put in plants as soon as you can (if you haven't already). When I cycled my tank (from scratch), I added plants and the bogwood first, and the first fish a few days later. (I didn't go fishless.)

After about a month with no change in readings, I still wasn't sure if my tank had cycled. As it turned out, the plants must have had beneficial bacteria on them from the store, and it quickly colonized. (Plus the plants chomp on the nitrates.) I never had the typical spike from cycling the tank.

I can't guarantee that you'll have the same results, but it certainly can't hurt to try! Especially since you want plants eventually anyhow.

Good luck,
Pamela

 

[ycycle]

I have now set up the tank with plants,driftwood,rocks,gravel,filter and the ammonia. I have suspended gravel from a previously cycled tank but NO FISH. I wanted everything in the tank before I started with the ammonia. I took the Carbon Filter out after day one and then added the ammonia. I do not plan to add any fish until it had fully cycled.
My husband has a 125 gal tank and although he had existing media and gravel, it had taken 8 weeks to cycle his tank. However he did it with 37 fish. Only after losing 6 (2 Bala Sharks and 4 Silver Dollars) did he take my advice to stop adding fish. Its been an anxious wait with Ammonia, PH and Nitrite Problems. The biggest killer was the bogwood knocking out the PH to Below 4.5. We removed the Bogwood and the PH has been at 7.4 to 7.8 since. The Ammonia then stabalised and then came the deadly Nitrite Spike. Now the tank has cycled and he can add more fish if he wants. But he only wants to add a Silver Dollar and a Bala Shark to keep the surviving SD and Shark company.

 

[CTS]

I am in week 2 with my tank being cycled. (im using goldfish) 2 days ago my ammonia was 1 PPM, and my nitrite was .25PPM. I checked today and my ammonia was at 0 PPM and my nitrite was at 5 PPM. I am now gonna add "Cycle" to the tank to take care of the Nitrite. I cant wait im almost there.

 

[ycycle]

From my experience with the 125 gallon tank adding cycle did nothing to help the tank but 10% water changes to help the fish along on every third day was better. It may have taken slightly longer but the Nitrite Spike lasted 10 Days but dropped from 5 to 2 after 4 days. The next week remained at 2 and then dropped to 0.5 and 0.25 daily. Now it's at 0 but goes up to 0.25 after water change due to levels in tap water. We did a very large water change 50% on one day and almost killed all the fish. It still took 10 days after the 50% Water Change. The hardest part was worrying we'd lose all the fish. Now it's a happy cycled tank and the fish are looking better in colour.

 

[ycycle]

Day Three and the tests read Ammonia 8ppm, PH 8, Nitrate 20ppm, Nitrite 2ppm.

 

[pahansen]

Hi. I just read a post from someone saying that fishless cycling can be very hard on your plants. I know I gave you advice to add plants early, but I cycled with fish so I'm no expert on cycling with plants and pure ammonia.

I guess the theory was that the pure ammonia was very hard on the plants, whereas the fish waste was not as concentrated and was eventually beneficial to the plants. I don't know for sure if fishless cycling will cause harm to your plants, but I did want to pass the warning along. You will probably want to keep a close eye on the plants that you've added already, and if you've bought anything very unique or expensive you may want to remove it during the cycling period.

Sorry for the well-meant, but possibly bad, advice,
Pamela

 

[ycycle]

Thanks. I only used inexpensive plants for cycling. The wadding which is wrapped around the base has beneficial bacteria as does the suspended gravel. The plants may well decay but this will, as I understand help with ammonia supply. I should not need to add so much in the long run. Any of the plants which do survive will help with the NitrAtes as they use this and help to keep the levels from going through the roof. My NitrItes went to 2ppm in 2 days and I will check it again tomorrow. My NitrAtes have dropped from 40ppm to 20ppm but that also happen in the 125gal with fish. As the Ammonia rose the NitrAtes dropped. Fairly quickly though the NitrItes Rose as the Ammonia dropped and as this happened the NitrAtes began to rise again. As the NitrItes Dropped the NitrAtes hit 40ppm again. It did take 8 weeks to cycle the big tank with fish but my husband would not listen and just kept adding fish until the inevitable happened and the PH crashed and 6 fish died. Then he decided to listen. He stopped adding fish and it then took 4 further weeks till the cycle finished. Luckily no more fish died but it was very hair raising. Unfortunately ONLY 2 of my Molly Fry have now survived. They keep getting wedged behind the filter and heaters. Only the big 2 have survived. They have been in the isolation tank since 21/1 and they were a week old then. I might just have to put them in a breeding net in the big tank, they're not quite big enough yet to be safe from the Silver Dollars or Angel Fish.

 

[ycycle]

Day 4 and no Ammonia added. Ammonia at 4ppm, Nitrites 2ppm, Nitrates 20ppm. PH 7.8. Nitrites looked like a borderline between 2ppm and 5ppm so I have opted for it being the lower reading. Baby Molly now in isolation tank with big fish. Another molly had 30 Fry this morning so they are in a breeding net in the main tank.

 

[ycycle]

Day 5 Ammonia dropped to 1ppm, Nitrite 2ppm, Nitrate 5ppm, added 55 drops ammonia. Day 6 Ammonia dropped to 0.5ppm, Nitrite 2ppm. Readings at 11am. Added 44 drops Ammonia. Readings 7pm Ammonia 0.25ppm, Nitrite 2ppm, Nitrate 10ppm. The Nitrite looks a dubious 1ppm rather than a solid 2ppm. My question is do I add further Ammonia tonight to bring up the ammonia level or do I wait until tomorrow. The Nitrite looks to be falling. The Ammonia is disappearing and the Nitrates are rising. Is it time to reduce the Ammonia, Stop the Ammonia or what. Although I feel this is a Fishless Cycle going in the right direction, I have never done this before.

Any advice please