My Easy Cycle Experience

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FlyAnglerFishKeeper

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
67
Location
Georgia, USA
After reading about so many folks' horrible experiences with cycling their tanks, I thought I'd share the way I did it. Now, this isn't going to be for everyone, but I promise you it's the easiest cycle you'll ever experience - unless mine was just a fluke, in which case, forget you ever read this. LOL

Step 1: Get aquarium kit, gravel, fake plants.
Step 2: Catch one small (2-3 inch) bream (sunfish, bluegill, etc) from local lake. (where legal)
Step 3. Put fish in tank and turn on filter/pump.
Step 4. Wait two days, until your fish is hungry and feed tropical fish pellets.
Step 5. Wait one month.
Step 6. Test tank, acknowledge cycle....there ya go.

Apparently, bream (as we call them here in the Deep South) are tolerant enough of PH, ammonia, temp and everything else that they'll keep right on ticking just fine until the tank is completely cycled. At least mine did.

A word of warning: bream are very aggressive toward other bream and other fish. I started with 4 and had bullying problems right away. Removed the bully, and the next biggest one then became the new bully. In the end, it was best to just have one single bluegill in the tank.

Now that it's cycled, we're going to remove the bluegill and test the water again before adding some tiger barbs, corys, tetras, etc.

If you have access to bream and don't mind having a native freshwater fish for a month, I highly recommend this method. What you do with him after the tank is cycled is your business. In my state it is legal to catch and hold (legally sized) fish, but illegal to return them to the wild. "Fred" will actually complete his "circle of life" experience as fertilizer for our juvenile maple tree.

* If you're wondering how you catch a 2 inch bluegill, try a #16 Adams. (fly fishing)

Hope this helps someone...
 
Mmm I could eat them afterwards.

So did you hear that they are tolerant of those or are you just going by your experiment?

Also, this is posted in the saltwater section
 
Also without proper qt afterward which would slow the cycling you will have no idea what you brought from the wild into the tank. I would avoid mixing local fish and tropical fish.
 
Actually, I did not mean to post this in the saltwater section! Derp. Sorry about that mods. please move - thanks.

As for mixing them - I'm not too worried about it because to me they are just fish. If I stick tropicals in there and have issues, I'll start all over again and this time use tropicals, but my understanding of the real world LFS situation is that you really don't know what you're bringing into your aquarium from any source. From some of the horror stories I've heard about LFS fish, I doubt my local lake could have anything much worse...

Thanks though.
 
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