How long is the cycle with established filter media?

[Andy Sager]

Why will water changes help the bacteria?

Water changes don't help the bacteria, they help the fish by reducing the ammonia levels to a manageable level. The use of PRIME however will detoxify the ammonia making higher levels of ammonia ( actually then converted to ammonium) safer for the fish to be in.

The big debate on fish-in vs fish-less cycling is that ammonia, which is bad, kills fish so you want as little of it as possible when fish are present. However, the BB needs ammonia in order to survive. The problem is, the understanding of term "Cycled." That just means that there is enough BB present to handle the bioload present at that moment. So in reality, the more ammonia/ammonium present in the beginning, the stronger your BB bed will be. Since the bacteria bed is a living thing and grows and shrinks according to the bioload present, doing water changes during the cycling period makes for a weaker bacteria bed but a safer environment for the existing fish. Confused? It can be confusing for sure. This is where PRIME comes into play. Because it makes the water safer for the fish and leaves the food source for the bacteria, it works better than ammonia blockers. Smaller water changes can be done without harm to the fish from excessive ammonia levels. The thing is, it only lasts about 24-48 hours so you will need to re-dose frequently. Follow the directions on the bottle.

Hope this helps.

 

[lunch]

Im kinda dealing with this at the moment also..

The young guy at work started a tank about 6 weeks ago, he bought a 140ltr tank kit from a lfs I told him had lots of tanks and where I sometimes get my brine shrimp from, the lfs ripped him off, charged him $950 and gave him a few feeder goldfish to do a fish in cycle, 15 of them to be precise, I told him that was too many but he wanted to go by the advice of the lfs so I let him, I decided to get involved after 3 weeks when he told me the fish were starting to die, his ammonia test results were off my chart, ( the lfs told him not to change the water, he said it would come good ) he lost 6 fish, I made him take 5 back and do a 100% wc and I gave him 250g of bio noodles out of my established 250ltr goldfish tank, it's been 3 weeks now and as of last test ( last weekend ) his ammonia had stabilized at 2ppm.

Needless to say he is now listening to me and dealing with a different lfs and I will no longer be getting my brine shrimp from that idiot..

 

[Andy Sager]

Im kinda dealing with this at the moment also..

The young guy at work started a tank about 6 weeks ago, he bought a 140ltr tank kit from a lfs I told him had lots of tanks and where I sometimes get my brine shrimp from, the lfs ripped him off, charged him $950 and gave him a few feeder goldfish to do a fish in cycle, 15 of them to be precise, I told him that was too many but he wanted to go by the advice of the lfs so I let him, I decided to get involved after 3 weeks when he told me the fish were starting to die, his ammonia test results were off my chart, ( the lfs told him not to change the water, he said it would come good ) he lost 6 fish, I made him take 5 back and do a 100% wc and I gave him 250g of bio noodles out of my established 250ltr goldfish tank, it's been 3 weeks now and as of last test ( last weekend ) his ammonia had stabilized at 2ppm.

Needless to say he is now listening to me and dealing with a different lfs and I will no longer be getting my brine shrimp from that idiot..

The store was not 100% wrong. If the goal was to sacrifice the fish, once the ammonia did come down ( and it eventually would have come down....they all do ) , the tank would be cycled for the remaining fish still in the tank. Using PRIME may have saved the fish that died and the use of established filter material would have helped speed up the process and prevented the ammonia from getting to such a toxic level but in order for the tank to be DONE cycling, the ammonia should be stable at 0 ppm not 2 ppm.

The example is a classic of the old days. We would overstock to have a larger bacteria bed, capable of handling a larger amount of fish once it finished cycling. Some fish were better for doing this than others. But to say 15 feeder fish was too many is not 100% correct either. 1 fish is overstocking an uncycled aquarium. It's overstocking because the bacteria bed, not yet established, can not keep up with the pollution caused by the one fish. As for whether the LFS was ripping the guy off, that is out of my area of expertice these days. As for whether the store gave him BAD advice, based on only what you stated, I have to disagree. THAT is a tried and true method of cycling aquariums.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[lunch]

When I say stabilized at 2 ppm I mean that for two tests in 2 days it was at 2ppm and not increasing ( since then he has been dealing with the new lfs )
I have no idea about the good ol days of fish keeping but it seems that having 15 fish in an uncycled tank without water changes is just stupid.

I can't afford 2 cents, that's just my opinion

Edit: the guy at the 1st lfs is on the older side of 50.

 

[Andy Sager]

When I say stabilized at 2 ppm I mean that for two tests in 2 days it was at 2ppm and not increasing ( since then he has been dealing with the new lfs )
I have no idea about the good ol days of fish keeping but it seems that having 15 fish in an uncycled tank without water changes is just stupid.

I can't afford 2 cents, that's just my opinion

Edit: the guy at the 1st lfs is on the older side of 50.

Okay, getting past the method, if there is a decline in ammonia then there should be an increase in nitrites. Do you see that?

 

[coralbandit]

I have no idea about the good ol days of fish keeping but it seems that having 15 fish in an uncycled tank without water changes is just stupid.

I can't afford 2 cents, that's just my opinion

Edit: the guy at the 1st lfs is on the older side of 50.

I see little difference between a dead fish or shrimp.
Many stand hard and fast that a dead shrimp is "way better" to cycle a SW tank then an ammonia source from bottle.
Why would not dead fish be more natural then an ammonia source?
They say , bury the dead fish and you will be good to go and IMO this is not incorrect.
Possibly not what todays tech heads choose to hear , but far from unproven.

There is a difference between feeder goldies and fancy goldies,and I do understand.
My only real issue with this method is the possibility of a disease jumping into the whole cycling show and the unknowing keeper removing his cycling stock(say bye bye) doing large water change and adding their dream stock to a still infected tank.
Other then that people kill more fish without a clue then any of all of us could if we tried IMO.
I'm still on the lighter side of 50 so who knows??

 

[sinibotia]

The store was not 100% wrong. If the goal was to sacrifice the fish, once the ammonia did come down ( and it eventually would have come down....they all do ) , the tank would be cycled for the remaining fish still in the tank. Using PRIME may have saved the fish that died and the use of established filter material would have helped speed up the process and prevented the ammonia from getting to such a toxic level but in order for the tank to be DONE cycling, the ammonia should be stable at 0 ppm not 2 ppm.

The example is a classic of the old days. We would overstock to have a larger bacteria bed, capable of handling a larger amount of fish once it finished cycling. Some fish were better for doing this than others. But to say 15 feeder fish was too many is not 100% correct either. 1 fish is overstocking an uncycled aquarium. It's overstocking because the bacteria bed, not yet established, can not keep up with the pollution caused by the one fish. As for whether the LFS was ripping the guy off, that is out of my area of expertice these days. As for whether the store gave him BAD advice, based on only what you stated, I have to disagree. THAT is a tried and true method of cycling aquariums.

Just my 2 cents.

I think the problem is that many people would rather not unnecessarily kill 15 fish to cycle a tank. That's why fishless cycling was invented- so that you could achieve a big biofilter without harming any fish. (well, maybe it was invented so that you didn't have to fish damselfish out of 200lb of rock after cycling a big marine tank...)

So it was good advice to cycle a tank... but bad advice to cycle a tank without unnecessary loss. And actually, feeder fish are $.15 each at my lfs. 15 of them would cost $2.25, whereas I got my bottle of ammonia for cycling at a dollar store for $1. And I still have 3/4 of that bottle, so yeah, that was a ripoff!

 

[Andy Sager]

I think the problem is that many people would rather not unnecessarily kill 15 fish to cycle a tank. That's why fishless cycling was invented- so that you could achieve a big biofilter without harming any fish. (well, maybe it was invented so that you didn't have to fish damselfish out of 200lb of rock after cycling a big marine tank...)

So it was good advice to cycle a tank... but bad advice to cycle a tank without unnecessary loss. And actually, feeder fish are $.15 each at my lfs. 15 of them would cost $2.25, whereas I got my bottle of ammonia for cycling at a dollar store for $1. And I still have 3/4 of that bottle, so yeah, that was a ripoff!

I understand but have 2 counterpoints:
Not all fish die in a fish in cycling tank. It depends on the specie and maintenance routine.

Not everyone wants to look at an empty tank while it cycles with ammonia bought in the bottle. So for the $1.25 difference, that's not much of a ripoff in my book.

 

[lunch]

Okay, getting past the method, if there is a decline in ammonia then there should be an increase in nitrites. Do you see that?

Not sure, like I said, he's now got the new lfs helping him out,
for the record, I'm not against fish in cycling, that's how I did both my tanks, though I didn't lose any fish..

Sorry to the op, think we kinda hijacked his thread

 

[sinibotia]

I understand but have 2 counterpoints:
Not all fish die in a fish in cycling tank. It depends on the specie and maintenance routine.

Not everyone wants to look at an empty tank while it cycles with ammonia bought in the bottle. So for the $1.25 difference, that's not much of a ripoff in my book.

Fair enough! I guess it just comes down to the fact that it's good to know exactly what you're getting into when it comes to cycling.

 

[GallonsOfFun]

Incase anyone was wondering, the ammonia just reached 0 today. This was after adding even more established filter media and adding another bottle of TLC SmartStart, so I don't know if the SmartStart actually had an effect or not but the fact that I have 0 nitrites makes me think it did.