Fishless cycle

[dannymihm]

Hey hey!!!

Starting my first freshwater fish less cycle. Slowly adding ammonia and up to about 2ppm. It's a 29g tank and I have read mixed things on aiming for 4ppm or 5ppm. So that was my first questions, does it matter which I shoot for?

I am also wondering where to buy a nitrate and nitrite testing kits? I only stopped by petsmart quick and didn't see any there.

Does anyone have a link to a good step by step fish less cycle? The few things I have read seem that I either just add ammonia each day to make sure it stays at about that 4-5ppm. Another forum I read says that however much ammonia I add today to make it hit that 4-5ppm mark is how much that I should be adding each day until my other levels peak and then fall off. Any thoughts?

Thanks for the help!

 

[dannymihm]

Added about 2ml of ammonia in the first half hour and I'm sitting right about 4ppm and plan to leave it there.

 

[BlaseMrNiceguy]

Basically if you dose to 2ppm you will need to slowly add fish once cycled to make sure your beneficial bacteria can keep up with the bioload if you dose to 4ppm then you will be able to add all your fish at once when your done cycling. The API master test kit seems to be be the most widely used test kit on here. You will need to monitor your parameters daily to know when to dose your tank. Don't add ammonia everyday especially at the start you need to wait till your ammonia drops a little before adding more, so test everyday when it drops below 2ppm dose it back up to 4ppm. When your ammonia goes from 4ppm to 0 in a 24 hour period you will be about done cycling

 

[LyndaB]

+1

Excellent advice given above.

 

[jlk]

When your ammonia goes from 4ppm to 0 in a 24 hour period you will be about done cycling

I agree with most of this post but its important to note that when your ammonia goes from 4 to zero in 24hrs, this is just finishing the first stage of the cycling process (amm>nitrite). You then will need to continue to dose ammonia daily as your second set of bacteria (nitrite>nitrate) develop. This stage of bacterial development typically takes twice as long the first. Heres the fishless cycling guide- please ask any questions you may have!

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html

 

[dannymihm]

Awesome thank you guys for the help! Will defiantly pop questions when they come up.