cycling a tank with a hardy fish?

[Ali1]

thinking about a pleco to cycle my tank with because i was told start with a hardy fish like a zebra, black skirt tetra, or a pleco... i took some media from my old fish tank setup to help with the colonizing.... any tips/ ideas? If i was to use pure ammonia for "fishless cycle", how much am i supposed to pour inside the tank?

 

[theotheragentm]

Do a quick search on the fishless cycle. You'll pull up plenty of posts on that. As far as moving your media from an established tank, that should eliminate a cycle as long as you are not cramming the new tank with tons of fish to start with right off the bat.

 

[Jchillin]

Fishless is not a bad way to go. If you have no other choice but to use fish, do not use pleco's. Although they are considered "hardy", enduring the toxic levels present during a cycle will harm them greatly. Black skirts are a far better choice.

 

[SparKy697]

Using a 10% solution of ammonium hydroxide, I seem to remember that 1ml added to 10 gallons will raise the residual by about 1ppm.

This is only a coarse estimate since it is unlikely that your ammonia is truly 10%. I found this to work well for a starting point when I was doing the fishless cycle.

Adding used media/substrate from an established tank will help your new tank cycle more quickly, but it will not totally eliminate the cycle all together.

Just for the record, do not add ammonia to a tank that has fish in it.

 

[7Enigma]

I'd recommend fishless, but if going with a fish cycle do not use a pleco. They are very "messy" fish and produce far more waste than another equal-sized fish. Same reason why goldfish are poor fish to use. Again I recommend fishless, but at least use another type of fish such as Jchillin's recommendation.