The (almost) Complete Guide and FAQ to Fishless Cycling

[eco23]

Hi,

Hope everyone is having a great Friday night!

Dear Mr. Cycle Guru,

I'm confused and unsure as to what I should do now. It's now been a week since I began cycling my tank. I took my readings last night and had 0 ammonia, 5.0+ Nitrites and 5.0 ppm Nitrates.

I dosed the ammonia up to 4/5.0 last night. Now... 24 hours later, 0 ammonia! But... my nitrites are still off the chart and nitrates are 5.0 for the 3rd night in a row.

I'm going to dose the ammonia again to keep the bacteria fed But not sure what else to do... Nitrites haven't dropped and the nitrates haven't gone up... do I just keep dosing ammonia until the nitrites drop? Do I do a pwc?

Okay, back to tending to my daughter... pulling a tick the size of a pea out of a 2 year olds scalp is not fun But she handled it like a trooper

Mog

I think you're just at the point of your cycle where your ammo to nitrIte bacteria colony is much larger than your nitrIte to nitrAte bacteria...so it just needs some time to catch up. Just keep doing what your doing. Remember that the no2 > no3 bacteria doesn't even start growing until the first type of bacteria is creating the nitrItes, so everything sounds normal and looks like it's going well! I'd just keep dosing up the ammo and maybe do your mid-cycle pwc in maybe a little under a week when the levels are absolutely through the roof. Good luck with tick season!

 

[Mr. Limpet]

Honestly, I have 0 experience whatsoever with tannins. What I do know I've learned on this site about how they leach out of the wood and lower pH. From what I understand, having good buffering to your water will prevent major pH changes from the leeching tannins. Problem is that the bacteria eats up a lot of buffers during the cycling progress, and could potentially make the water more susceptible to drops in pH. I honestly don't have a true answer, but if it was my tank I'd maybe throw in an extra pwc during the cycle to keep the buffering capacity of the water up. Especially keep a close watch on the pH at the end of your cycle, as that is when I had a pretty major pH crash right on the last day. Good luck.

Helpful info, thanks Eco. The buffers around here are tough as nails, but I'll keep close eye on the pH thru out the cycle.

 

[Shadowraven]

Question for you Eco that I didn't see referenced in your guide.

I have 2 pieces of African root wood that are clean, plus I washed them and will soak them overnight before putting them in (with java fern attached) when I fill my tank and start my fishless cycle.

My question is, will the tannins leaching from them affect my cycle in anyway?

The tannins leaching from your wood WILL effect your cycle time. When your water's pH drops below 7.0 nitrifying bacteria will grow more slowly and you will start getting higher ammonia readings during a cycle. If the wood does not have all of the tannins leached out of it, leave it out of the tank until your cycle is completed. If you don't your cycle could take much longer.

Ideal conditions for a cycle are 80% or above in dissolved oxygen in the water, a pH between 7.3-8.0 and temperatures of 77-86° F. The addition of phosphorous in the form of phosphoric acid, mono-sodium phosphate or di-sodium phosphate to the tank can also help speed the process. Nitrobacter can't metabolize properly without some present, but this is usually already in tap water, but not always. Small additions of phosphates to the tank will remedy this if it is a problem. Adding plenty of aeration to the tank while cycling will help a great deal.

Nitrifying bacteria are also photosensitive, especially to light at the blue end of the spectrum. Keeping it out of sunlight or a darker area will help until your colonies become established.

Under ideal conditions, Nitrosomonas can double every 7 hours and Nitrobacter every 13 hours. However, it is more likely that they will only double every 15-20 hours. Pretty slow for a bacteria when there are some that double every 20 minutes.

 

[cichlidpaul]

Once again i keep learning from this site , Hay MOG lmao Mr. Cycle Guru i like it thats about the darn truth for Eric , nice work yet again dude (god bless ya)

 

[Kawaipoon]

Hi,

I am starting on fishless cycling on my new 20g tank,

I read the article about putting ammonia in tank daily when the cycle has finished (about 1-2ppm), until new fishes are put into tank to feed the bacteria. If i wanted to put just around 20% of fishes into my tank (instead of the 40-50%), will that be enough ammonia to keep the bacteria going? If not is there a sollution?

Many Thanks,

 

[fddlss]

It should be fine, but what fish are we talking about and how many?

 

[Kawaipoon]

It should be fine, but what fish are we talking about and how many?

I was thinking about starting with 4-5 guppys?

 

[eco23]

Hi,

I am starting on fishless cycling on my new 20g tank,

I read the article about putting ammonia in tank daily when the cycle has finished (about 1-2ppm), until new fishes are put into tank to feed the bacteria. If i wanted to put just around 20% of fishes into my tank (instead of the 40-50%), will that be enough ammonia to keep the bacteria going? If not is there a sollution?

Many Thanks,

Hi Kawaipoon, one of the things about a fishless cycle is that it is designed to be overkill. No matter how full you stock the tank, you're going to have some bacteria die off because you have grown so much during the cycle. Stocking initially around 20% is perfectly acceptable, but when adding fish in the future make sure you add them slowly. The tank will be ready to handle whatever you throw in at first, but over time the biofilter will adjust to the load you have in there. When you add the next batch, just keep a close eye on the ammo level and do pwc's if it climbs.

The great thing about doing a fishless cycle is that it prepares your tank without having to sacrifice fish to do it. However, once your initial fish have been added and it's up and running, the same rules apply as with any other tank where stocking too fast can cause mini cycles.

Thanks for doing a fishless cycle, and feel free to ask any questions you run into along the way that aren't in the guide. Good luck!

 

[Kawaipoon]

Hi Kawaipoon, one of the things about a fishless cycle is that it is designed to be overkill. No matter how full you stock the tank, you're going to have some bacteria die off because you have grown so much during the cycle. Stocking initially around 20% is perfectly acceptable, but when adding fish in the future make sure you add them slowly. The tank will be ready to handle whatever you throw in at first, but over time the biofilter will adjust to the load you have in there. When you add the next batch, just keep a close eye on the ammo level and do pwc's if it climbs.

The great thing about doing a fishless cycle is that it prepares your tank without having to sacrifice fish to do it. However, once your initial fish have been added and it's up and running, the same rules apply as with any other tank where stocking too fast can cause mini cycles.

Thanks for doing a fishless cycle, and feel free to ask any questions you run into along the way that aren't in the guide. Good luck!

Thats made me feel alot better now, deff will come back if need any help

Many thanks to both,

 

[Kawaipoon]

Hi All,

I once again have come up with another question,

I have tested my nitrAtes to see what level they are, and im getting results of 40 ppm. Im about 6-7 days into my fishless cycle. I gathered its near impossible for me to have cycled my tank within this short period, therefore tested my water straight out the tap and nitrAtes are showing at 30-40 ppm.

With the nitrAtes being fairly high at this point, will it affect the fishless cycle? Or am i ok to continue?

Thanks,

 

[Deckape]

What are your nitrite and ammonia readings?

 

[eco23]

What are your nitrite and ammonia readings?

That's the important question. I can't believe they're that high out of the tap! Have you tested ammo and nitrIte out of the tap too?

 

[eco23]

And, what's up Deckape! Ever get that mini-cycle knocked out?

 

[Deckape]

Yea bro...all is back to normal. Got 6 panda corys in the pool... how's your brood?

 

[eco23]

Awesome. Little neon is back in and rejoined the school. I'm probably gonna go pick up some cherry shrimp to do some janitorial work. I might be running 2 filters for a while to avoid my own little problem like you had. My B-day is tomorrow and I saw a box that looks suspiciously like the size of the Fluval canister filter I wanted.

 

[eco23]

I was gonna add some panda corys too, but since you need 5-6 of them and they'd take up a good bit of bioload, I'm hoping the shrimp can fill in and I can up my school levels instead. Probably get either a blue or Bolivian ram in a couple weeks to finish off the stocking.

 

[Deckape]

Nice. I don't know much about those but they look like they could "do work". Happy Birthday

 

[eco23]

Thanks man. Getting pumped for May. The wife isn't flying out to San Fran after all, so we booked the room for Sat night too. We'll be down there for the whole weekend. Maybe you can point me to that lfs down your way to see if they've got some rams in stock to bring back up to the 'burg.

 

[Deckape]

I was gonna add some panda corys too, but since you need 5-6 of them and they'd take up a good bit of bioload, I'm hoping the shrimp can fill in and I can up my school levels instead. Probably get either a blue or Bolivian ram in a couple weeks to finish off the stocking.

The pandas are so tiny bro. And at my LFS all FW fish were 25% off. Let me know where you find the shrimp. What kind are you investigating?

 

[Deckape]

Thanks man. Getting pumped for May. The wife isn't flying out to San Fran after all, so we booked the room for Sat night too. We'll be down there for the whole weekend. Maybe you can point me to that lfs down your way to see if they've got some rams in stock to bring back up to the 'burg.

They have facebook " Fish Safari". You get better deals if you friend them.