Fishless Cycling

[nightstalker2485]

Hey all...

Ive just begun Cycling my tank - on my 3rd day now...

What I wanted to find out was... I've been reading about adding bacterial supplements to speed things up..
Not sure what is meant by this.

From what I understood you add ammonia until you get to 4.0ppm and then leave the tank until you notice the levels drop, once that happens you add ammonia again to reach the 4.0ppm and also get measurements for NitrItes.
Once you get a NitrIte spike you monitor for Nitrates, when you then get a 0ppm on the ammonia and nitrites then the tank is cycled... or something like that...

My question is, am I right in leaving the tank alone until Ammonia levels initially drop, or do I keep on adding ammonia on a daily basis, in regards to adding bacteria... I have got a tub of pure aquarium balls which apparently is supposed to be beneficial bacteria for a tank, should I add those to the tank whilst I'm using ammonia to get the cycling process started?

Really looking forward to getting fish in there and can understand how people suffer from new tank syndrome... I'm suffering now, but need to hold me horses until the tank has cycled...

 

[the_lock_man]

There are a number of ways to fishless cycle.

The way I have previously done it is to dose to 4ppm, and then leave it until all that ammonia has been processed. Then dose daily to 3ppm, until all ammonia and nitrite is processed within 24 hours. Then dose daily (ie every 24 hours) to 4ppm until all ammonia and nitrite is processed within 12 hours.

If you have already spent the money on a bacterial booster, then you may as well use it, it won't do any harm, but I suspect it won't do much good either.

 

[nightstalker2485]

Daaaamn...
Checked my ammonia levels last night and they had dropped from 4.0ppm to about 1.0pmm
Nitrite as at 1 and Nitrate at about 4...

Dosed ammonia back up to 4.0ppm... wonder if this has dropped over night... will see later.

My tank is a 48ltr one, planted with live plants, Ive been using pure aquarium balls in it and started the Ammonia cycle 4 days ago now .... The tank has been up n running now for the last week and a half... I did not expect to the levels to change just yet...
I did notice some worms on the glass... planaria or sommet like that I think they are, also seeing some kind of algae on the glass...
will clean it out should the levels be starting to fluctuate and also turn the light off now...

2 weeks to go before the fish arrive... if the tanks finished cycling...