aislinn3
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
I am looking at a second 75 gal tank and I read somewhere it will only take 2 weeks to cycle a tank with no fish. Is that true ?!
Yeah if you can seed your filter you can basically have an instantly cycled tank. Do you have any other cycled tanks.
If you run the filter on your cycled tank for 4 weeks and add it to your new tank it will be instantly cycled. You could also add some media from your cycled tank to your new filter and stock really slowly to ensure that your bb have time to reproduce and adjust to their new bio load.
It should but you need to keep a cycled filter on the old 75 moving media would be better IMO. Also gravel doesn't really hold much for bb.
I purchased some Tetra SafeStart and within 3-5 days my 20 gallon is good to go, you'd need about 3 bottles of it for your size tank. SafeStart is live bacteria that you add to the new tank, then after about 6 hours add just a few small fish to produce waste for the bacteria to feed on. Then after a week or so I'd start stocking it!
Also good to know! I started my first 2 tanks with quick start but want to do the new tank a bit more...organically. Though I am a bit impatient and may give in to a more conventional method. I am quickly discovering how much patience is a huge factor in owning aquariums, even though the process can be tweaked and expedited. Great therapy if you ask me, Lol.
Just wondering, what makes you want to cycle it naturally? Are there any advantages to it?
Just wondering, what makes you want to cycle it naturally? Are there any advantages to it?
Any way you cycle a tank is natural really. You are waiting for the small amounts of bacteria already in the water column to multiply. I think that the op meant without any chemical help.
Indeed, my point, or goal rather, exactly
I don't hold any faith in the bottled bacteria anyways. Today alone I've seen posts from 2 different people that started out with bottled bacteria and saw absolutely no effect from it.