Fishless cycle using fish food

[fishychick]

Last weekend I set up a 20 gallon tank (about 5 days ago) and I am doing my first ever fish less cycle. I decided to use flakes and shrimp pellets as my ammonia source. I've just been sort of dropping the food in there, like I would if there were actually fish to feed....but I feel like this may be wrong. Using fish food as the ammonia source, is there another/better way to put the food in the tank? I've tried to research but I mostly just find stuff about cycling using pure ammonia. Am I supposed to be using some sort of bag or nylons or something? The food is just sitting in the bottom of the tank looking all furry.... any guidance is much appreciated. Thanks and Happy New Year!

 

[ScotJudd]

Hi. My advice is to use ammonia. It's easy, cheap and very effective. Monitoring the ammonia using food is a nightmare.


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[Hholly]

Yup, ammonia. You can use a syringe from the vet's to keep track of how much you are adding. Good luck.

 

[fishychick]

Ok, fine! You guys convinced me. Vacuumed up all the fuzzy fish food and added ammonia today. I'm at 3ppm. Not sure why I was so tentative to use ammonia, it's not like I'm gonna kill any fish if I mess up. Maybe because the guy at my lfs seemed sort of not in favor of it so I felt like I should try food first. But it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Wish me luck and thanks!


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[Hholly]

It will go fine. You'll find that a lot of what people tell you at the LFS is often not the best information. The ammonia method still takes patience, but it's pretty reliable. It goes a lot faster if you can find some "seed" material from an established tank.
Good luck!