tank cycling buissness

[snotirl]

All this stuff iv heard about tank cycling and iv never done it once with my 3 tanks and they are fine ive had most of them for 5 years and no problems! So whats the story??

 

[Aqua_Princess64]

I guess you were just lucky!

 

[snotirl]

possibly i didnt know enough about fish etc to cycle when i started with my first tank read about it and didnt cycle my other tanks, took a risk!

 

[Lithril]

I'm trying my first fishless cycle at the moment in my 30 gal tank, seems to be going ok, just put a squirt of ammonia in each day, ammonia levels are 0 and the nitrites have shot up

 

[Alien Anna]

All this stuff iv heard about tank cycling and iv never done it once with my 3 tanks and they are fine ive had most of them for 5 years and no problems! So whats the story??

You presumably cycled using the traditional technique of gradually adding a few hardy fish. That method works quite often but its difficult (except by luck) to get just the right amount of fish and just the right sort of fish that can cope with it. So in short, it was a combination of luck and going slowly I'd imagine.

Of course, having been established 5 years its probably been a long time since you had to cycle a new tank from scratch. Still, understanding how cycling works is very useful to avoid future problems.

 

[snotirl]

Oh ye i probaly would cycle if i got a new tank, bcause i changed from pebbles to coral sand and it set of a bang, cloudy water etc. but its ok now!

 

[Alien Anna]

Oh ye i probaly would cycle if i got a new tank, bcause i changed from pebbles to coral sand and it set of a bang, cloudy water etc. but its ok now!

"Cycling" means the process of developing the beneficial bacteria. So whether you intend to or not, every healthy tank has been cycled, be it with fish or an artificial source of ammonia

 

[snotirl]

ye well my oldest fish is 11 and its still polding along in a none clycled tank!!!

 

[Alien Anna]

ye well my oldest fish is 11 and its still polding along in a none clycled tank!!!

Isn't it an awful lot of work doing a complete tank strip-down every week?

 

[snotirl]

Isn't it an awful lot of work doing a complete tank strip-down every week?

Nope and its every 2 weeks why wouldnt i have to do that if i was to cycle??

 

[Alien Anna]

Isn't it an awful lot of work doing a complete tank strip-down every week?

Nope and its every 2 weeks why wouldnt i have to do that if i was to cycle??

Because unless you practically sterilise the tank every week or whatever you cannot prevent it from cycling - cycling just happens. It's the process whereby the beneficial bacteria build up. Unless you're somehow killing them off, of course?

I notice from your sig that you have three pretty heavily stocked tanks. It would be impossible to keep them healthy if those tanks weren't cycled, in other words, if the beneficial bacteria hadn't grown in them. You said your oldest fish is 11 years old. I presume that isn't a betta (or you have the world record) and any other tropical fish would need a cycled tank to survive that long.

"Cycling" isn't some technological process that you have to "do" to a tank, its the name given to what happens in nature. A natural pond, for instance, is "cycled" - it has the beneficial bacteria growing in the mud, but no human being has deliberately cycled it!

If you are doing a total strip down every fortnight you are wasting your time and risking your fish since a fortnight is plenty of time for an uncycled tank to have a massive ammonia spike, followed by a massive nitrite spike. You'd be far better off to change a small amount of water daily for a couple of weeks and let the tank cycle. But my suspicion is that you don't do that.

If you're doing 100% water changes every fortnight that is also risky and pointless since it may kill off beneficial bacteria (although most are in the gravel and filter) and would stress your fish having to catch them and keep them in a bucket once a fortnight. You'd be much better off doing a 50% water change every fortnight and leaving the fish where they are, plus it would be a lot less work.

 

[guppymonkey]

Whether or not you try to cycle the tank it ends up cycling anyways. Unless the water is constantly changed the water will start a nitrogen cycle. The ammonia that is excreted in fish wastes and from their gills is used by bacteria and converted into nitrites which in turn are used by other bacteria and turned to nitrates which can be utilized by plants. You don't need to actively try to start a cycle, it is a part of nature and has been happening for millions of years. Only recently have people figured out the cycle in aquariums and how it works.