Fishless Cycling

[Guesttrash]

Hi!

I’m extremely new to this, having bought my first tank a little over a month ago. I went to a Maidenhead aquatics branch to buy all my supplies, after doing research and them being a reputable nearby fish keeping company.

With their advice I got an 18L tank, an internal filter, a heater, and within the tank lid is a fixed LED light (I may be able to source a link to the details of my tank, which the light and filter came with) and heater (separately bought.)

I have some live plants in the tank, a piece of driftwood, along with marimo moss balls. The person I spoke to advised me to take on a fishless cycle, and supplied me with AquaCare Bio Boost, and AquaCare tap water conditioner. I have followed the instructions on each of these since filling my tank. I also use King British Plant food for the plants.

The person I spoke to however told me it’d take 10days to have my tank cycled and ready for fish. Although through some basic searching I understood it to be better to leave this longer, and as I was going on holiday a week after, starting my tank up, I let this happen. I then went back to my local store and took in a water sample.

Unfortunately I was not able to get a fish, this was two weeks ago, and had been told that my nitrates are showing well but there was an ever so slight high number of nitrites. I was then told that give it a few days it’d be perfect.

Long story short, I am here two weeks after the initial ‘a couple days’ comment, and my Nitrite levels have not changed at all, and I’m still unable to get a fish. Oh, and one of my plants has suddenly started to brown, even blacken in some spots.

I understand that cycling takes patience and time, and that’s more than okay. I am just wondering if anyone has any advice for me to help this process out a tad as I feel as though I’m doing nothing and it’s frustrating me. And also if there’s any reasoning for one of my plants suddenly dying?

Last question; how do I know if my filter media cartridge needs changed?! The box advises once a month but many websites says to never change it, and then others say to rinse it. It looks rather horribly brown and it is over the ‘month’ if I do need to change it.

Thanks in Advance!

 

[Aiken Drum]

You was advised poorly by maidenhead on how to do a fishless cycle. I would say maidenhead are a little better than pets at home at giving advice, but not by very much.

You need to dose ammonia. The bio boost product contains bacteria that you need for your cycle, but with no food source (ammonia) this wont establish in your tank and will die off. In a fish in cycle, your fishes waste will provide the ammonia, in a fishless cycle you have to dose ammonia yourself. More commonly an aquarium specific ammonium chloride product is your ammonia source.

In brief though, dose ammonia to 4ppm. Test daily for ammonia. When ammonia drops below 1ppm redose back to 2ppm. Keep testing daily and add a nitrite test into your daily testing. Every time ammonia drops below 1ppm redose back to 2ppm. Eventually you will see 0ppm ammonia and 0ppm nitrite in your daily testing and nitrate should be steadily rising. You are cycled, big water change to bring down nitrate.

Normally the process takes 6 to 8 weeks.

Products like the bioboost might speed up this process a little. They are hit and miss, mostly miss. A better way to speed up your cycle is to introduce some filter media from an established filter into your filter or squeeze a sponge from an established filter into your water. Perhaps you have a friend who keeps fish who could let you have some?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Only change filter cartridges if you have to. Rinse them out periodically with water from your tank. A better option is to throw away those cartridges, cut some sponge to suit and pack some biological media in your filter where you can.

What filter do you have? I can look to see if there are any videos on how to do this for your particular filter type. A youtube channel called pond guru does a lot of these videos for filters commonly found in the UK.