How long will the tank cycle per gallon?

[mr86mister]

wow, awesome....so take all this....and make everything in the tank perfect to cycle with the perfect amount of ammonia and equipment is there an estimation of time per gallon being that all the criteria is perfect

 

[greenmaji]

* nitrifying bacteria are photosensitive (bad), esp. to blue & UV light while suspended
in the water column

6500K has blue in it.. ie almost all lights have some blue..
Are they going to setup faster without light?:?
Of course your normal light will effect it the way it will effect it afterword.. :?

 

[BrianNY]

What an excellent post by chasgood. .

If you read and understood the post mr86mister, you'd see that maximum growth for the nitrobacter population is doubling every 13 hours. The cycle is therefore complete when the nitrifying bacteria reach a state of equilibrium with the ammonia producing organisms. That of course is mostly dependant on your final fish population.

Your question about cycle time per gallon cannot be answered because the size of the tank is meaningless (without knowing the fish population to sustain the cycle). In optimum conditions the time to cycle a 10g and a 100g would be the same.

 

[TankGirl]

GM, aquarium lighting is not nearly intense enough to kill bacteria in the water column. That is why you need the intensity of a UV sterilizer to kill pathogens in the water - if our lights were that strong we would not need the sterilizer. You can leave your lights on to cycle.

Also, just FYI, fluorescent lighting is missing most of the blue spectrum, and that is why marine setups need actinic lighting - to provide the blue spectrum to the algaes and corals that need it and can't get it from regular fluoro.

I agree that if all conditions are equal, filtration, temp and amount of ammonia supplied, a 10gal will cycle at the same rate as a 100 gallon tank.