Starting a Fishless Cycle without a tank?

[samth3mancgp]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I am going to consider myself a newbie to keeping an aquarium even though I have had several tanks in the past. (30 gallon freshwater that housed a variety of things, and a 55 gallon that had 5 Red Belly Piranhas.)

When I had those tanks I did a fair amount of research, but I was not willing to put in the money necessary to do it right. At the time my money was focused more on buying microphones and recording studio gear and I wasn't even willing to pay the $25 for the proper API test kit. All of my tanks, filters, and other "gear" were found mostly for free on craigslist. My attempts at a proper nitrogen cycle were half-assed to say the least.

I recently graduated from college, will be starting a new job and moved to a new place that I will be for a while. I am looking to put together a new tank!

Here is a list of all that is left of my past aquariums:
- 1 AquaClear 50 filter (with only the coarse foam)
- 1 AquaClear 20 filter (new in box with all 3 pieces of filter media)
- 1 heater (well-used to the point that I don't even know the brand name or wattage..)
- 1 bubbler air pump with short hose
- A few small tank decorations and plastic plants

I plan to get a tank that is somewhere between 30-40 gallons, since it will allow for a wide variety of fish while still being manageable.

Now for the thread's original question: Can I start a fishless nitrogen cycle without having the actual fish tank I plan to use? Can I use a Rubbermaid bin or an empty 5 gallon paint bucket? Or any other large container that can hold water?

I ask this because I haven't decided what tank I am going to get but I already have the two filters and some decorations that I could use to seed a tank with. All I would really need is some dechlorinator, pure ammonia, and the proper test kit to get started while I decide on a tank and everything else to get back into this hobby and do it right!

 

[NigelK8485]

Yeah you can.

If you use a rubber maid bin just be aware that the plastic sides will bow when filled with water so you will want to build some kind of support frame for it to prevent it from creating stress points on the plastic and potentially busting open.


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[samth3mancgp]

Awesome! I've got a massive Rubbermaid that I can clean out and start cycling the water in.

I'm assuming I can also syphon the water from it to use in the tank? The tank will have a new substrate and possibly some new decorations/plants but moving both the water and the filters should yield a fully cycled tank, or at least pretty darn close?




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[threnjen]

Don't worry about reusing the water. It is the filters that are important. If you cycle the filters to support 4ppm ammonia, you will have very robust filters when you start your tank!

 

[threnjen]

Also you can cycle filters on the smallest container they will fit on. It doesn't need to be a huge container. I've cycled big *** filters on cat litter buckets.

 

[samth3mancgp]

So I went out today and the only ammonia I could find was

"LA's Totally Awesome Pure Ammonia" at the Dollar Tree

Some quick google searches of threads here and elsewhere had mixed information about the stuff. Some said it had other additives, others said it works fine.. I decided not to get it.

After that I headed to Petco where nobody there had even heard of using ammonia for cycling and proceeded to try and sell me Tetra SafeStart. (a bacteria supplement?)

Then I went to a local fish store where they had heard of fish less cycling but think it doesn't work and recommended just getting some cheap fish to start fish-in cycling.

Hasn't been easy haha


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[NigelK8485]

Just look at the ingredients of the pure ammonia.

If you have an Ace's hardware anywhere that's where most people recommend. They also sell little bottles of it on Dr. Foster and Smith's website. It took me 1.5 bottles from Dr. F&S to cycle my 150 at 4 ppm.


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[PassengerTN]

Whatever you use to cycle the media in your filters needs to be as close to, or bigger than, the tank you plan to use. Your media will only grow as much beneficial bacteria as the water column allows. This means if you cycle your filters on a 5g bucket, it will not be capable of processing the ammonia produced inside of a 55g aquarium and will produce a mini cycle.


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[NigelK8485]

Whatever you use to cycle the media in your filters needs to be as close to, or bigger than, the tank you plan to use. Your media will only grow as much beneficial bacteria as the water column allows. This means if you cycle your filters on a 5g bucket, it will not be capable of processing the ammonia produced inside of a 55g aquarium and will produce a mini cycle.


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Not true. Beneficial bacteria will grow to accommodate however much ammonia is used, size of the water column isn't relevant.

It may actually be easier and more cost effective to cycle media on a smaller container than a large tank because you won't have to use as much ammonia to be able to produce a 4 ppm reading.

An example would be on my 150 I had to use 1.5 tbsp of ammonia to produce 4 ppm of ammonia...had I hooked my filters to a 50 gallon container instead of the 150 it would have only required .5 tbsp of ammonia to reach the 4 ppm due to the decreased water volume...but my bacteria would still be able to handle 4 ppm of ammonia.


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[PassengerTN]

But you wouldn't seed a filter on a 10g to put onto your 150 would you?


Edit: not trying to argue, trying to learn myself

 

[NigelK8485]

But you wouldn't seed a filter on a 10g to put onto your 150 would you?


Edit: not trying to argue, trying to learn myself

I mean I can't think of a filter that would be made for a 150 gallon that would fit a ten gallon. But yeah, if you have have a ten gallon tank and a filter that can fit it you can get it to establish enough bacteria to process 4 ppm of ammonia or whatever you want and then use that media for the larger tank's filter. I'd run it a few days and dose ammonia to make sure it is still processing it, but 4 ppm of ammonia is 4 ppm of ammonia no matter what size tank. It will take more ammonia to reach that level obviously when it's a larger tank with more water volume but it is still 4 parts per million.


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[samth3mancgp]

Interesting conversation here. I have a bucket that will be perfect for doing this fishless cycling: a 10 gallon sterilite container.

I may try and run to an Ace hardware that is about 20 minutes away tomorrow and see if they have the ammonia I seek.

I want to bring up the local fish store again.. They had very strong beliefs in using fish to complete the cycle and that the more scientific process of using pure ammonia was going to take far longer to cycle and was a "myth". I understand that using cheap feeder fish to sacrifice to cycle the tank is was the common way of doing it for a long time, but is there any benefits in doing it that way vs. using the pure ammonia? I am interested in seeing some debate on this, even if it is just a link to another good article or thread.

The amount of resistance, arguing and potential lack of knowledge that I experienced today at several pet/fish stores just confused me even more I think..

 

[NigelK8485]

Interesting conversation here. I have a bucket that will be perfect for doing this fishless cycling: a 10 gallon sterilite container.



I may try and run to an Ace hardware that is about 20 minutes away tomorrow and see if they have the ammonia I seek.



I want to bring up the local fish store again.. They had very strong beliefs in using fish to complete the cycle and that the more scientific process of using pure ammonia was going to take far longer to cycle and was a "myth". I understand that using cheap feeder fish to sacrifice to cycle the tank is was the common way of doing it for a long time, but is there any benefits in doing it that way vs. using the pure ammonia? I am interested in seeing some debate on this, even if it is just a link to another good article or thread.



The amount of resistance, arguing and potential lack of knowledge that I experienced today at several pet/fish stores just confused me even more I think..

There is no benefit to cycling with fish. It took my 3.5 weeks to cycle my aquarium using just ammonia.

With fishless cycling using pure ammonia you can control how much your bacteria can handle. It's really useful because if you're adding fish like African cichlids you can build up your bacteria to be able to handle the whole bioload so you can dump all the fish in at once. If you were doing a fish in cycle you will only build up enough bacteria to handle the bioload present, so if you cycle with three danios...you only have enough bacteria to handle three danios. You have to slowly add fish to let the bacteria build up and accommodate the added waste.

With fishless cycling you don't have to worry about water changes which is great. Add ammonia, turn off the lights, let the tank do its thing. With fish in you have to constantly measure your parameters and do water changes to prevent injuring the fish. I'm also personally against sacrificing fish, so unless someone is going to keep up on testing and water changes and providing a safe environment for the fish being cycled with I think it's a horrible way to go about it.

The only reason I can think of for a pet store to try to push fish in cycling is because then you'll be spending money with them buying fish, the odds of those fish dying during the process escalates and then you'll be back buying more fish.

I love the control and ease of fishless cycling and unless you're using seeding material from an established tank I don't think there is any difference in the time it takes to cycle.


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[PassengerTN]

Good information here Nigel. Thanks for sharing the knowledge


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[samth3mancgp]

I agree with all of that completely. This isn't the only forum that I have read stickies about fishless cycling so it isn't like this is a brand new thing that nobody knows about. I think its clear that the people I talked to at Petco simply had no clue, and the people at the local fish store knew exactly what I was talking about but tried to sway me towards a less effective method just to make the sale..

I love the idea of using pure ammonia and the test kit to get things going. It is a very logical, scientific, and measurable way to PROVE something. I am an audio engineer/music producer. The chemistry behind cycling the tank is just like using a measurement microphone to analyze frequency response in a room while setting up acoustic treatment!

 

[samth3mancgp]

Drove up to ACE Hardware today and got a gallon of the ammonia that everybody swears by. Filled up the 10 gal rubbermaid with de-chlorinated water, got the filters, heater and bubbler going, and then put about 1.5mL of the ammonia in. My god that stuff smells like cat-pee concentrate (if such a thing existed). Definitely made my eyes water..

Now its time to wait for a while.