Quote:
Originally Posted by RJRofFL
I have been advised that there are methods to help speed up the process, but I have my doubts. For example, I've been told to add fish flakes and/or frozen shrimp to aid in the creation of ammonia. I dispute this, only because, in using pure logic (I am a dummy, remember), both fish flakes and shrimp do take time to decay and form ammonia, so, what's the sense when you can add actual ammonia straight from the bottle? Doh!
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The only thing I have heard that makes sense to me (regarding the value of adding a little fish food) is that the fish food not only puts ammonia into the water (when it decays), but also adds other trace nutrients to the water column--trace nutrients that the bacteria might need. If you look at the list of ingredients in any commercial fish food, you can see there are a LOT of things in there. It certainly wouldn't hurt, and it might indeed help, if someone doing a fishless cycle added a pinch of flakes (finely ground up into almost a powder) at the very beginning, just to "seed" the water with these various micronutrients. I don't think it is something one would have to do throughout the process, just occasionally (maybe a tiny pinch of flakes every week or every other week).
Just a thought.