starting from scratch! well kind of...

[wesmuns]

thanks again..

So just to clairify...

a fishless cycle: add ammonia - let this peak, bacteria will develope to convert this into Nitrite - over more time a different strain of bacteria will develope to convert Nitrite into Nitrate. Once the ammonia and nitrite have dropped to zero, (this should take about 4 or 5 weeks?) i can then add some danios to continue the maturation of the filter medium.

Is that correct?


Wes

 

[FroggyFox]

Mostly right. You add the ammonia up to about 5ppm, then wait for it to start disappearing, then you need to add that initial amount it took to get the tank up to about 5ppm every day once it starts disappearing (this is to simulate the amount of waste your full load of fish will be producing).

Then when your ammonia is disappearing after 24 hours and your nitrite falls to 0, you do a big water change and add ALL of your fish. The 5ppm is a LOT of waste and you're creating a huge bioload for those little bacteria to handle. This way you dont have to stock slowly like you do in a fish-in cycle. The bacteria will die off when it doesn't have enough food...so basically you're creating a bigger colony than you'll need to be able to support a full bio-load and it'll re-size itself to the appropriate amount as long as you add all the fish at the same time. If you wait more than a few days or a week to add the full load you'll have to stock slowly, similar to what you'd do in a fish-in cycle because the bacteria will have died back and you need to wait in between adding fish to allow that bacteria to multiply to be able to deal with the higher bio-load.

IF you were fish-in cycling you'd need to add a few fish to cycle with, then once the bad part was over you could slowly start adding fish a few every week or two until you were finished. You have to increase the bioload slowly and watch for spikes in ammonia/nitrite and do some more water changes when adding new fish to the tank. So it could potentially take a few months to get everything where you want it to be.

 

[wesmuns]

sounds good.. one last thing

During this cycle period, do i make any water changes? I know there is a big water change (what percentage of water by the way? 25%?) once the bacteria is extablished, before putting in any of the fish, but what about the weeks leading upto this point?

I think this way sounds good, but a bit scary... Introducing the total number of fish in one go! - what about if something goes wrong? i wouldn't lose a couple of fish... i'd probably lose them all!


Wes

 

[FroggyFox]

nope...no water changes. Thats what makes the difference in time frame...with a fish-in cycle you have to do water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels down. With a fishless cycle you dont have any fish to worry about so you can let those levels get as high as fast as they want to.

There really isn't anything to go wrong as long as you watch that nitrIte level go up, then fall.

The big water change at the end is to get rid of the nitrates because they'll build up a LOT towards the end. Sometimes you need to do a partial water change to get the nitrite to fall the rest of the way. When I say BIG water change at the end I mean as close to 100% as possible. When you cycle you're cycling the filter, your bacteria lives on all the porus surfaces on your tank...so changing ALL the water doesn't make any difference.

I know it sounds a little scary...but I've done it...others have done it...you just need to trust how the chemistry works There's really nothing to go wrong...unless you put fish in when you have a ton of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate in there. Here's two threads I did step by step while I cycled a new tank... http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19556 http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26438 Might help a bit?

Seems like the biggest struggle (aside from the whole patience thing) is finding the right ammonia to use. I got mine at Albertsons, its their store brand...if you dont have those (not sure where you are?), thats a grocery store over here

 

[Etheostoma]

I keep one corey cat in each of my ten gallon tanks as a sweeper. Been that way about three years now. Both fish are fully grown, appearing healthy and happy. I'm not torturing them am I? They really don't seem to mind anything excepting when the algae eaters gets all bullish.

You can get straight ammonia easily at a hardware store as they don't tend to stock "girly" chemicals that make your knickers or kitchen smell like a florist's.

 

[FroggyFox]

I keep one corey cat in each of my ten gallon tanks as a sweeper. Been that way about three years now. Both fish are fully grown, appearing healthy and happy. I'm not torturing them am I?

Nope not torturing...but if they were in groups you'd see that they're much more active. I keep apple snails as 'sweepers', since they really are scavengers and cory's should really be fed like the rest of the bottom feeders.