I haven't had to cycle a tank since my first couple of tanks 3 years ago and it was 6 weeks and done. As I kept getting bigger and bigger tanks I just moved the substrate and the filter (sometimes only the filter if the substrate was too nasty). I remember doing it quite successfully. Then I started reading on other forums the idea that you either wouldn't have to cycle a tank at all or you could shorten your cycling to just a couple of days if you added a bottle (depending on dosage recommendations) of bacteria to the water along with the recommended dose of Prime. I was successful using new substrate and new filters after adding a bottle of live bacteria (Tetra Safe Start Plus Bacteria). I started adding fish the next day. No ammonia spikes, no nitrite spike and just what you would expect in a cycled tank - a few days later I saw higher nitrates. Which went away after the first water change. No loss of fish, the fish did not appear to be under stress. I once moved nearly 20 small/medium sized fish this way (Gourami, and a couple sets of schooling fish). Then I realized that's how Petsmart and Petco could sell a small tank and a Beta fish the same day. They just had the customer buy live bacteria and add it to the tank, stir well and add their Beta. I suspect they knew if the customer was told to come back in 6 weeks for your fish, they wouldn't be back or the beta they wanted would be sold or dead (I HATE those little cups they keep them in). I did the same thing with my first Betta - and no problems - kept measuring water parameters and everything was zero (except PH).
I also read our recent city water report. They don't report on levels of ammonia, but I found some older articles that the describe the contracts they have with two companies that have been told they could add some ammonia to our river source of water. In fact, while they don't list it these two contracts add up to a total of 2 ppm of ammonia to our water. I recently tested just plain old tap water and found out this is true. So I'm always starting with an ammonia reading of 2. Does this mean I only need 1 ppm to be added to bring it up to 3 (what my measurements said) ? I didn't have any problems adding the full amount of ammonia to my fully cycled tanks the first two times I did it - and these contracts have been in place for a long time. So maybe I shouldn't worry about it?
Now speaking of PH. My next question. Our city water has an average PH of 9.4 - which matches my measurements exactly. I knew there was no way I should safely keep tropical fish in a PH above 8 and I aimed for 7.0 Used PH down for a while but it was hit and miss trying to get the PH down to 7'ish before adding fish, plus every bucket of water had to be brought down to about 7 because I wasn't going to pour water with a 9.4 PH on the heads of my fish and "fix it later" (this is why I can't and won't use a Python for water changes). I then found an neutralizer that brought the PH down to EXACTLY 7.0 although after 7 days the PH had usually continued to drift down to 6.5 which was still fine - plus since I did a water change weekly - it would fix the PH at the end of the week back to 7.0. Now saltwater fish tolerate a higher PH - some where in the 8's. I've read that the salt water mixture should adjust the water to the 8ish level - is this true? I'd love to stop using that neutralizer.
Now I have a problem. I have a 50 gallon tank with 4 dojo loaches. 3 of the 4 are now 12-14" long and really fat. The 4th is a little runt at about 6-8"long and skinny. No idea why - I got them all from the same breeder. These are such lovely fish - the big fish never pick on the little guy or each other. They eat me out of house and home and have virtually little or no leftover before it's time to feed them again the next day. (they love these certain kind of pellets but it take hours to get them soft enough for them to eat - so the flakes are all gone in well under 2 minutes but it will be some hours before the pellets are consumed. So other then that they seem to be overweight to me - I'm not contaminating the water too much with food but I wouldn't rule that out given how long those pellets have to sit in there. But when these guys poop it's lie a mushroom cloud coming out their back end, The problem? For the last 6 months I have had constantly cloudy water. It killed 3 Rainbow fish before I could get the rest of them out of there and into another tank where there were no more deaths. Two loaches died. One later "died" but I spent 4 hours of off and on resuscitating him - he'd turn belly up and his heart would stop beating. I pushed down on his back and then squeezed in his sides - which caused the water to run through his system very quickly. (he was in a clean large bucket of water - figured it was just important to get the "poison" out of his system. The other DoJo loaches were also in a clean bucket of water. So I'd go back to my water change and he'd turn belly up again about 15 minutes later. More resuscitation - after a period of 4 hours he was swimming and active on his own and I had completed the water change. The tank was still cloudy but not as cloudy as it was before the water change. She is still happily alive and the biggest DoJo in the tank. I now dose the tank with prime every 48 hours (ammonia levels were very high but, as they should, have now converted to high Nitrites - it's like the tank is cycling all over again) It's still not an environment I would want to keep fish in for any length of time.
So I decided to purchase a nice Fluval cannister filter and a 90 gallon aquarium (couldn't find any 100 gallons that matched the size of any tank stand on the market - what a mess that market is). I don't want to bring any of the substrate over or the filter over because I don't want to carry the white algae bloom to the new tank. The 90 gallon is acrylic (nobody would ship me a glass aquarium - I don't know how you all get your 200 gallon tanks and such). There is a HUGE backlog on acrylic right now with all the big aquariums starting to use it as well as the average customer - so I'm on the 6th week of waiting for it - and they've said it would arrive by carrier this week - not sure why - it only weighs 70 lbs. My hope is that the fish poop is what is primarily contributing to the white algae bloom and once I have a tank that is nearly twice the size that it will no longer be a big problem. So do you think it is safe when the tank arrives to just add a bottle or two of live bacteria instead of waiting 6 weeks to cycle the normal way? I'm just concerned that the longer these fish are in the white algae bloom the more likely they will die. I'm not sure they will make it another 6 weeks with all that pollution. The thought of going through another 4 hours resuscitating 1 to 4 dojos is not very pleasant.
Now once I move the Dojo's into their 90 gallon tank, I'm moving all my other fish that are currently in a 29 gallon tank into the 50 gallon tank. I will plan to remove all the substrate and do a good cleaning on the 50 gallon tank to get rid of the white algae bloom. I can move their own substrate over to the new tank (adding additional substrate) and I can move their What do you think of cleaning the 50 gallon with a very diluted amount of bleach then rinsing it very well in the bathtub/shower? Is that too much of a risk? The thought of fighting cloudy water again is a nightmare. I've read where they have done that with saltwater tanks successfully as long as the tank was VERY well rinsed.
So on to the third question - I purchased a 31 gallon Biocube (you either love them or hate them - for me it was about size and cost. And it will still cost me close to 3K once I purchase fish and corals., test kits,etc - it would have been over 6 K with a separate sump and refugium - this has the sump build right in the back of the tank but I'd have to have a separate plateform built to add a Refugium . Of course I plan to use RO/DI water stored in a foodsafe Rubbermaid BRUTE trash can until I have enough to add salt water to it. I'll also keep a second cannister of clean R0/DI water for topping off any evaporation. The Biocube and stand cost about $1500, then there is live rock, live sand. The rock is too big for this tank so I'll be spending some time on my deck breaking it down to a smaller sizes. But I have more than enough to work with. I am really excited about building this reef but I'll need to break the rock down only once the temperature has dropped from 105 degrees to a more reasonable 85 degrees so I may have to wait until fall. Anyway - I've watched about 30 youtube video on how to cycle these tanks the old fashioned way but using FISH instead of Ammonia to start the cycle. Nearly every one admitted this was a cruel thing to do to the fish (so be sure to buy some cheap ones - very funny). Only ONE video recommended starting your cycle with Ammonia and then once the ammonia levels drop and the nitrite levels start to rise - adding a bottle of bacteria (or whatever recomended dosage) to the tank. Supposedly this cuts the time in half to cycle your tank. What do you all think about this? I just don't like the thought of cycling with live fish - "cheap" or not.
I don't expect anybody to answer all questions but they kind of have a lot to do with each other. So experienced cyclers, those that have had white algae blooms and saltwater/reef keepers please let me know your experiences!
I also read our recent city water report. They don't report on levels of ammonia, but I found some older articles that the describe the contracts they have with two companies that have been told they could add some ammonia to our river source of water. In fact, while they don't list it these two contracts add up to a total of 2 ppm of ammonia to our water. I recently tested just plain old tap water and found out this is true. So I'm always starting with an ammonia reading of 2. Does this mean I only need 1 ppm to be added to bring it up to 3 (what my measurements said) ? I didn't have any problems adding the full amount of ammonia to my fully cycled tanks the first two times I did it - and these contracts have been in place for a long time. So maybe I shouldn't worry about it?
Now speaking of PH. My next question. Our city water has an average PH of 9.4 - which matches my measurements exactly. I knew there was no way I should safely keep tropical fish in a PH above 8 and I aimed for 7.0 Used PH down for a while but it was hit and miss trying to get the PH down to 7'ish before adding fish, plus every bucket of water had to be brought down to about 7 because I wasn't going to pour water with a 9.4 PH on the heads of my fish and "fix it later" (this is why I can't and won't use a Python for water changes). I then found an neutralizer that brought the PH down to EXACTLY 7.0 although after 7 days the PH had usually continued to drift down to 6.5 which was still fine - plus since I did a water change weekly - it would fix the PH at the end of the week back to 7.0. Now saltwater fish tolerate a higher PH - some where in the 8's. I've read that the salt water mixture should adjust the water to the 8ish level - is this true? I'd love to stop using that neutralizer.
Now I have a problem. I have a 50 gallon tank with 4 dojo loaches. 3 of the 4 are now 12-14" long and really fat. The 4th is a little runt at about 6-8"long and skinny. No idea why - I got them all from the same breeder. These are such lovely fish - the big fish never pick on the little guy or each other. They eat me out of house and home and have virtually little or no leftover before it's time to feed them again the next day. (they love these certain kind of pellets but it take hours to get them soft enough for them to eat - so the flakes are all gone in well under 2 minutes but it will be some hours before the pellets are consumed. So other then that they seem to be overweight to me - I'm not contaminating the water too much with food but I wouldn't rule that out given how long those pellets have to sit in there. But when these guys poop it's lie a mushroom cloud coming out their back end, The problem? For the last 6 months I have had constantly cloudy water. It killed 3 Rainbow fish before I could get the rest of them out of there and into another tank where there were no more deaths. Two loaches died. One later "died" but I spent 4 hours of off and on resuscitating him - he'd turn belly up and his heart would stop beating. I pushed down on his back and then squeezed in his sides - which caused the water to run through his system very quickly. (he was in a clean large bucket of water - figured it was just important to get the "poison" out of his system. The other DoJo loaches were also in a clean bucket of water. So I'd go back to my water change and he'd turn belly up again about 15 minutes later. More resuscitation - after a period of 4 hours he was swimming and active on his own and I had completed the water change. The tank was still cloudy but not as cloudy as it was before the water change. She is still happily alive and the biggest DoJo in the tank. I now dose the tank with prime every 48 hours (ammonia levels were very high but, as they should, have now converted to high Nitrites - it's like the tank is cycling all over again) It's still not an environment I would want to keep fish in for any length of time.
So I decided to purchase a nice Fluval cannister filter and a 90 gallon aquarium (couldn't find any 100 gallons that matched the size of any tank stand on the market - what a mess that market is). I don't want to bring any of the substrate over or the filter over because I don't want to carry the white algae bloom to the new tank. The 90 gallon is acrylic (nobody would ship me a glass aquarium - I don't know how you all get your 200 gallon tanks and such). There is a HUGE backlog on acrylic right now with all the big aquariums starting to use it as well as the average customer - so I'm on the 6th week of waiting for it - and they've said it would arrive by carrier this week - not sure why - it only weighs 70 lbs. My hope is that the fish poop is what is primarily contributing to the white algae bloom and once I have a tank that is nearly twice the size that it will no longer be a big problem. So do you think it is safe when the tank arrives to just add a bottle or two of live bacteria instead of waiting 6 weeks to cycle the normal way? I'm just concerned that the longer these fish are in the white algae bloom the more likely they will die. I'm not sure they will make it another 6 weeks with all that pollution. The thought of going through another 4 hours resuscitating 1 to 4 dojos is not very pleasant.
Now once I move the Dojo's into their 90 gallon tank, I'm moving all my other fish that are currently in a 29 gallon tank into the 50 gallon tank. I will plan to remove all the substrate and do a good cleaning on the 50 gallon tank to get rid of the white algae bloom. I can move their own substrate over to the new tank (adding additional substrate) and I can move their What do you think of cleaning the 50 gallon with a very diluted amount of bleach then rinsing it very well in the bathtub/shower? Is that too much of a risk? The thought of fighting cloudy water again is a nightmare. I've read where they have done that with saltwater tanks successfully as long as the tank was VERY well rinsed.
So on to the third question - I purchased a 31 gallon Biocube (you either love them or hate them - for me it was about size and cost. And it will still cost me close to 3K once I purchase fish and corals., test kits,etc - it would have been over 6 K with a separate sump and refugium - this has the sump build right in the back of the tank but I'd have to have a separate plateform built to add a Refugium . Of course I plan to use RO/DI water stored in a foodsafe Rubbermaid BRUTE trash can until I have enough to add salt water to it. I'll also keep a second cannister of clean R0/DI water for topping off any evaporation. The Biocube and stand cost about $1500, then there is live rock, live sand. The rock is too big for this tank so I'll be spending some time on my deck breaking it down to a smaller sizes. But I have more than enough to work with. I am really excited about building this reef but I'll need to break the rock down only once the temperature has dropped from 105 degrees to a more reasonable 85 degrees so I may have to wait until fall. Anyway - I've watched about 30 youtube video on how to cycle these tanks the old fashioned way but using FISH instead of Ammonia to start the cycle. Nearly every one admitted this was a cruel thing to do to the fish (so be sure to buy some cheap ones - very funny). Only ONE video recommended starting your cycle with Ammonia and then once the ammonia levels drop and the nitrite levels start to rise - adding a bottle of bacteria (or whatever recomended dosage) to the tank. Supposedly this cuts the time in half to cycle your tank. What do you all think about this? I just don't like the thought of cycling with live fish - "cheap" or not.
I don't expect anybody to answer all questions but they kind of have a lot to do with each other. So experienced cyclers, those that have had white algae blooms and saltwater/reef keepers please let me know your experiences!
