cycling start up?

[aqnix11]

Hi all!!

I've been doing research for a couple of days now and I have been finding a TON of conflicting information regarding new tank setups & cycling. I'm kind of feeling overwhelmed and a little annoyed tbh with the whole thing. So, this is the plan I've come up with as of now:

Good idea or bad idea????

BG: I have a 10 gal FW setup with a tetra whisper 10i filter & 50 watt heater. I setup the tank yesterday. I plan on adding the fish Friday.

I will add 3 platys (1M:2F). I am planning on buying & treating my tank with Stability for a week. If you haven't heard of this product, it just has the bacteria which breakdown ammonia, nitrite and nitrate (more info here). I will closely monitor the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite levels from there.

Advice? Suggestions? Thanks!!

 

[Mebbid]

The bottled bacteria is sketchy at best. There's no guarantee that it will work and while some people have had success there are plenty of people that haven't had any luck with it, myself included.

As for some solid information there are plenty of articles here that give you the correct information. Most people here swear by doing fishless cycles because it is much much less work to do without having to worry about the parameters killing your fish. The type of cycling you choose to do is going to determine your next steps.

From what I am reading you want to do a fish in cycle which can be perfectly safe if done correctly.

Take a look at this article:
Fish-in Cycling: Step over into the dark side - Aquarium Advice

 

[Masha]

My advice would be that while you might be lucky and this might work, deciding on a date when you want to add your fish up front like this, is likely to end in frustration, as it's possible your tank is just not ready yet by then.

Instead of trying to force the thing to happen in a set time period, it might be better to accept that things sometimes take time. Plan to add the fish when the tank is ready, base that decision on the readings of your test kit, rather than on the calender You might get lucky and it's done in a week, in which case, yay! But if it does not work out like that, it's still fine.

The reason I say this is because I've learnt from hard experience that being patient is probably the most important attribute of a successful aquarium-keeper. I'm not patient, and that has lead to many mistakes.

 

[Caliban07]

If you know anyone that has an established aquarium you could ask them to squeeze there filter media over yours. This will seed your filter and speed up your fish in cycle.

If not, it's better to wait a few days like you are with the tank completely set up and running. You should still see the water go cloudy which is normal, it will settle in a few days. There is no harm in adding bottled bacteria although like mebbid says, whether is really works or not is remained to be seen. I added some anyway. Bacteria will form naturally in the presence of a food source, in your case your 3 new fish.

I'm not sure whether the chosen fish are the best choice to start a cycle especially in a 10 gallon. It all comes down to bioload and you would probably be better with a few smaller fish. Someone else may disagree.

It is important that you do not add anymore fish for at least 2 weeks after your first and when you come to do so must only add a few again to let your bacteria adjust with no spike in ammonia.

Feeding should be once a day and very light. You should skip a day every few days also. Overfeeding will result in more ammonia.

You must monitor your water parameters closely and keep ammonia below 0.25ppm by means of water change, although, if you stick to what has been said you shouldn't see ammonia above 0.25ppm.

Good luck

 

[aqnix11]

Thanks for all your advice! I've decided to do a fishless cycle instead. Seems...safer tbh. Went to Ace Hardware and picked up some ammonia. I'm going put plants in there over the weekend instead of getting fish. Hopefully I'll have fish next weekend or the weekend after that! Sorry for posting such a newb question I know it's probably been asked a million times. Again, thanks for all your help!!

 

[Fishfur]

That's why it says 'getting started' ! There is a lot to learn but this is a great place to find out almost anything. The plants, btw, will not only look nice but speed up the cycle too.

Edit.. and let's face it, better you ask here first than sacrifice some fish and then really feel frustrated, which happens far too often, sadly.

 

[dsun]

I tied a bunch of ceramic rings from a established tank to a string and suspended it in front of my output flow, would this help a new tank speed up the cycle?

 

[Mebbid]

I tied a bunch of ceramic rings from a established tank to a string and suspended it in front of my output flow, would this help a new tank speed up the cycle?

It certainly will. Although I would just stick them in your filter so they can have contact with your filter cartridge

 

[dsun]

It certainly will. Although I would just stick them in your filter so they can have contact with your filter cartridge

I recieved them late last night and didnt have time to open my canister. Figured this would best alternative than have them sit in a cup of tank water that they came from overnight.

The brown stuff on them is the bacteria right? I saw a big chunk fall off and then get sucked into my filter...hopefully it attached itself in my media somewhere and is helping growth...

 

[Mebbid]

I recieved them late last night and didnt have time to open my canister. Figured this would best alternative than have them sit in a cup of tank water that they came from overnight.

The brown stuff on them is the bacteria right? I saw a big chunk fall off and then get sucked into my filter...hopefully it attached itself in my media somewhere and is helping growth...

It's likely detritus or just debris / waste from the tank but it will be full of bacteria. It won't hurt anything

 

[aqnix11]

Update

3.5 gal update
I've got my 3.5 gallon betta tank setup. There are slight issues with the ammonia, but I think I've got a handle on it. So, I went on ahead and added my betta so I could stop stressing him out with the frequent water changes. Here are the parameters:

pH: 7.5
KH: somewhere between 80 - 120 ppm
GH: 150 ppm
Nitrite: .5 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm
Ammonia: 1.5 or 2 ppm >>

This is as low as I could get it. My tap water is treated with chloramine and gives an ammonia reading of about 1 ppm w/ my API kit. I've added a double dose of Prime and Stability. It seems to be working. A couple of days ago the tank water was at about 4 ppm and I hadn't even added any ammonia, fish, or anything! It was just plain tap water. So yeah, I think this is as good as it's going to get until I can get a good bacteria colony established.

10 gal update
The real issues I've been having are with cycling my 10 gallon tank. I basically had to start cycling all over again because I added wayy too much ammonia the first night. The next day I had an ammonia reading of about 8 ppm. I let it sit a few days, added bacteria (stability) hoping the number would go down but it didn't. I figured the high ammonia must be killing of any beneficial bacteria so, today I ended up doing a 90% water change. Here are the parameters now:

pH: 7.5 - 8
KH: 80 ppm
GH: 150 ppm
Nitrite: 1 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm
Ammonia: between 4 -6 ppm

So I'm basically back to square one. Gosh this sucks. I'll probably be buying plants sometime next week to add. Maybe that will help speed up the cycling. I swear I'll never have fish! lol

 

[Fishfur]

Fwiw, ammonia won't kill bacteria that eat ammonia.. but if there were very few of them, they won't have been able to grow fast enough to make a big dent in that much ammonia.
They have a reproductive cycle that's roughly 24 hours long, so they need some time. Patience is the key.. frustrating as that is.

Adding plants will almost certainly help speed things up.. they come with some bacteria of their own and almost always help things along. Fast growing stem plants that do well in low light or floaters like duckweed, frogbit or water sprite are great.

Even if you end up hating the duckweed, as many of us do, it's super for now, and sucks up excess nitrates when they're present. You can always get rid of it later if you hate it.

 

[aqnix11]

I've seen conflicting things about the plants. Some people say its a good thing others say the plants will soak up all the ammonia and the bacteria won't have enough to eat.
At this point though, I figure it couldn't hurt to try. I could use the extra bacteria anyway. I'm pretty sure my bottled stuff isn't working. Annnd there are no fish in the tank anyway so if this doesn't work out....no harm no foul! Hopefully I'll be able to make it to the lps tomorrow and grab some nice dirty plants & try to speed things up a bit (because being patient sucks).

 

[Fishperson]

1. The amount of ammonia that bacteria need is so small that unless you have a tiny stock, the plants won't be able to suck up all of it. And to be honest, if they do, they are just doing the bacteria's work. So that part is certainly fine.

2. Doing a fish in cycle with a tap water with readable ammonia is a big no no though. Unless you have prime, which will help. But really, even ammonia down to ~2 is really bad for fish, but if it's the best you can do then oh well. Plus, prime will help.

 

[Fishfur]

You would have to densely plant the tank for it to use up ALL the ammonia. In fact there's something known as a silent cycle, which happens in densely planted tanks sometimes.

The BB, once established, don't care where the ammonia comes from and it will be utilized by them just like fish waste is. So long as you condition the water with a product like Prime that neutralizes chloramines, it should be ok.

I need to check on some questions about the water chemistry.. I'm no expert on it for sure, but I keep learning more as I go. Let me go check, something is niggling at the back of my brain.

Edit.

Here are some links to articles on water chemistry, particularly regarding ammonia and ammonium. NH3 and NH4. Ammonium, NH4, is not harmful to fish, it is chemically bound up. It can be used by the BB, but won't hurt fish.

NH3 is free ammonia, and is the one that harms fish. Temperatures, hardness and pH all affect how much NH3 and NH4 there is in realtionship to those factors. Cooler water has less ammonia and more ammonium, but it's dependent also on how hard the water is and how alkaline it is. Your water is fairly hard and the pH is high, so that's good thing for you.
.
Prime, and other products like it, don't actually 'neutralize' ammonia. They break the bond between the chlorine and ammonia. This can leave the ammonia free, as NH3, which can cause a problem for the fish. Prime does bind ammonia for about 24 hours as ammonium, which should be long enough for a cycled tank to convert it.

But most tests, API included, do not distinguish between NH3 and NH4.. the reagent raises the pH of the water sample to over 12 and the reading you get in ppm is a combination of both types, aka, Total ammonia. So you can get a reading of ammonia that is in fact false and not harmful to fish.

Seachem makes a test that tells you how much is free ammonia and how much is ammonium and I think in your case you really need the Seachem test, it's the only way you can find out how much of that ammonia reading you are seeing is actually NH3 and how much might be NH4.

First link is to Seachem's site, their explanation of how Prime works. The last link's article is a bit technical, but it's very good and it might help you a lot.

One suggestion for tap water with high ammonia is to age it in a large container. This is what fish keepers used to do thirty and more years ago when most municipal water only had chlorine in it. It gases out fairly fast, so aging it was all we had to do.

Wide surface are helps, so maybe a trash container would work. You need a cycled filter on this container. Treat the water with a simple dechlorinator first.. not Prime! Something with just plain sodium thiosulfate will dechlorinate it, or you could allow it to gas off by itself and then put the filter on it. The chlorine
can harm the BB, so you can't have the filter on water that still has chlorine in it.

Then you allow the filter to convert the ammonia before using the water for fish. This may solve your issue if in fact your ammonia readings are not false.

http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime.html

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~narten/faq/water-treatment.html

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/CropNews/2008/0421JohnSawyer.htm