I don't understand cycling!

[KatieBunky]

Hi everyone, so as the title suggests, I don't get cycling at all. I've watched loads of YouTube videos, read posts & trawled the internet for information but from what I can see, there aren't many step-by-step guides to cycling a fish tank. All of the step-by-step guides I've seen are quite brief & don't explain much. I feel so stupid that I've been keeping fish for 8 years & I'd never even heard of cycling until I joined this forum

From what I've read/watched there are 3 types of cycling: cycling with fish, fishless cycling, cycling with items from a current tank eg old filter sponges, substrate, decor. I get that when you start a new tank the ammonia levels will rise, then the nitrite levels will rise & the ammonia levels will go down, then the nitrate levels will rise & we keep nitrate levels down by doing water changes.

If someone could please give me a day-by-day explaination of cycling then that would be very helpful.

 

[bud29]

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

Fish-in Cycling: Step over into the dark side - Aquarium Advice

 

[BBradbury]

Fish In Tank Cycling

Hello Kat...

I can do that. Put together a tank of at least 30 gallons with bottom material, 150 watt heater, filter at 120 gph (gallons per hour) and lighted cover and the water. Treat the tap water with Seachem's "Safe" according to the instructions. You have to remove the chlorine and chloramine the public water people put into the tap water to make it safe to drink. Your fish can't live with these toxins in the water.

Add some individual stems of a floating plant like Hornwort. It's a good natural water filter. Plug everything in and let it run for a couple of days. While the tank is running go to the pet store and get a water testing kit that tests for ammonia and nitrite. Study the procedure for testing the tank water.

Then, go to the pet store and get 6 or 8 female Guppies and float the bag in the tank water for a 10 or 15 minutes with the bag open. Release the fish and you're ready for the "nitrogen cycle". Start testing the water a day or two after you put in the fish. It's the fish waste that starts the cycle. Just test the water every day for ammonia and nitrite. If you have a positive test, you remove 25 percent of the tank water and replace that with pure, treated tap water. The same type water you put into the tank when you filled it.

Oxygen and ammonia together start to grow the little microscopic bugs that reproduce and feed on the ammonia and eventually the nitrite from the fish wastes. You only want to remove a quarter of the water at a time, so the bacteria bugs have food to eat.

You just test the water every day and remove 25 percent when you have a positive test for ammonia or nitrite. After a month or so, when several daily tests show no traces of the the above toxins, the tank is cycled. From that point forward, you must change half the tank water every week to maintain good water conditions for the fish. Keep the feeding to just a little every couple of days.

With a little luck you may have little ones in the tank. I did a long time ago when I cycled my first 30 gallon with female Guppies.

Hope this helps.

B

 

[KatieBunky]

Thank you so much! That's all very helpful. I shall be cycling a 50 gallon & a 60 gallon by September & want to know as much as I can about cycling by then. How do I cycle a tank without the fish? Should I just replace the fish with plants or something?

Typically British!

 

[bud29]

The first article I linked in my previous post is a great step-by-step method for fishless cycling. You can add plants during a fishless cycle, as they love the ammonia-rich cycling environment - but you still have to manually dose ammonia if you go the fishless route.

 

[KatieBunky]

Oh yeah sorry, I didn't see the links, only BBradbury's comment. I'll check the links out

Typically British!