Different way to cycle a 55 tall tank?

[melodieforsure]

Currently finishing up cycling my first 10 gallon tank with starter fish. Lost about 5 danios in the process. I was just wondering how would I go about cycling my 55 without starter fish, but rather with live plants?

 

[aquandrew]

pure ammonia. dose it to 4ppm daily until the bacteria can convert the ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate in 24 hours. once this is complete, you do one large water change of 90+% and your ready for as many fish as you want.

 

[Fishfur]

Ah, you have a 10 G already cycled ? Then all you have to do is seed the new filter on the new tank with the rinsings from the 10G filter. When you clean it, in tank water, pour the dirty tank water directly into the new filter. You can do that a couple of times, don't overclean the old filter, but if you do it every couple of weeks, dose the new filter twice.

Meantime, use ammonia to feed the new filter, as without fish the BB do die off fairly soon. You might have a cycled filter in a week, it really depends how much BB washes off when you clean the other filter. Shouldn't take more than two dosings though, and then you can likely begin adding fish, SLOWLY.. test to make sure the cycle is complete, zero ammonia, zero nitrite, moderate nitrates under 50ppm, and then you can add one or two fish, and not more than 3 weekly 'til you have the stock you want.

 

[flitabout]

pure ammonia. dose it to 4ppm daily until the bacteria can convert the ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate in 24 hours. once this is complete, you do one large water change of 90+% and your ready for as many fish as you want.

Ditto! This will be the best way to get it done. It's also much easier than trying to cycle with fish. You can also take some of the filter media out of your 10g which will help speed things along.

 

[Fishfur]

Yes, you can take out some media, but frankly, I find the rinsing method works just as well, if not better, than using a bit of old media in a new filter. Just my experience, I've tried both and rinsings have been faster for me.