Help Me Fishless Cycle
- Thread starter PBirdsong
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
by stalled I thought you ment stoped.. my misstake
PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
You guys are going to kill me . . . but I just threw three feeder fish in today. 
Sorry.
If I could do it all over again I would give the pure ammonia a shot WHILE having a shimp sitting on the bottom.
I woke up this morning and noticed white algae growing around that stupid shrimp. It has even started to grow a little on my driftwood.
Sorry.
If I could do it all over again I would give the pure ammonia a shot WHILE having a shimp sitting on the bottom.
I woke up this morning and noticed white algae growing around that stupid shrimp. It has even started to grow a little on my driftwood.
PBirdsong said:You guys are going to kill me . . . but I just threw three feeder fish in today.
Sorry.
If I could do it all over again I would give the pure ammonia a shot WHILE having a shimp sitting on the bottom.
I woke up this morning and noticed white algae growing around that stupid shrimp. It has even started to grow a little on my driftwood.
Guess impatience got the better of you, huh?
Just be prepared to do lots of water changes.greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
uhh. thats what I suggested with my first post in this thread.. pure ammonia with the shrimp. What happened? Now your stuck with live fish in your cycle 
feeder fish at that
feeder fish at that PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Yeah, and there is a reason why they are JUST feeder fish. If they do survive the LFS has said I could just bring them back. They were only 10 cents. The good thing is that they are cleaning up the mess that piece of shrimp made.
I didn't go to the ammonia thing because I was really getting frustrated and wanted to just go back to what I know would work. Plus I didn't have any, and haven't made it to the store to look. My girlfriend and I aren't to far from setting up yet another tank. Then I believe we will give the pure ammonia a shot.
The real issue is with the length of the cycle. I keep hearing people claim they have cycled in "15 days with this product", "11 days with that product." I just have not actually seen that myself. My girlfriends tank took 6 weeks, and my tank wasn't showing any signs of going ANY faster. Despite the fact that I had that big stupid shrimp in there. (it wasn't a small one)
Anyways, it was frustration more than impatience. I was starting to get mad everytime I checked for ammonia and there was nothing there. And according to everyone's estimate I should be well into making nitrites right now.
Sorry guys. But thanks for your input. It really did help. I just wish I knew where it went wrong.
I didn't go to the ammonia thing because I was really getting frustrated and wanted to just go back to what I know would work. Plus I didn't have any, and haven't made it to the store to look. My girlfriend and I aren't to far from setting up yet another tank. Then I believe we will give the pure ammonia a shot.
The real issue is with the length of the cycle. I keep hearing people claim they have cycled in "15 days with this product", "11 days with that product." I just have not actually seen that myself. My girlfriends tank took 6 weeks, and my tank wasn't showing any signs of going ANY faster. Despite the fact that I had that big stupid shrimp in there. (it wasn't a small one)
Anyways, it was frustration more than impatience. I was starting to get mad everytime I checked for ammonia and there was nothing there. And according to everyone's estimate I should be well into making nitrites right now.
Sorry guys. But thanks for your input. It really did help. I just wish I knew where it went wrong.
Well, the thing with dosing ammonia rather than using the shrimp is that you know how much ammonia you're using, and thus can accurately assess how well the biofilter is doing. It still can take just as long as a fishy cycle, but you don't have to worry about deadly NH3 and NO2 levels and water changes. Next tank try fishless with the ammonia, you can find it at Walmart or Safeway. Plus add media from a cycled filter or at least some gravel from a cycled tank and it should speed up the process. My first fishless took a long time (stalled for a bit), but so did my very first attempt at cycling a tank with fish. I got really good at testing water during the long wait.
PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
mishi8 said:I got really good at testing water during the long wait.
Yeah. No kidding!
greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
your g/f's tank is cycled.. why are you doing a fresh cycle on this tank? is there no filter media you can borrow from the cycled tank? enough cycled media can cycle a tank in 10 days..
PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I just didn't want to take anything out of her tank. It's so pretty right now.
greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
Im talking about filter media.. how would that effect the "pretty" factor?
PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Remember? Undergravel . . .
greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
they have the caps with carbon in them right? just put those in your filter..(I know carbon isnt the best for bacteria propogation but there would be some in there) the ugf doesnt need them..
PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
. . . though . . . she DOES have a ton of gravel. She might let me have just a bit of it to put in my 10gl sump . . . hmmmmmm 
PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
She needs new carbon carts in her filter. The ones in there are DONE. So I could take those and just drop them in my sump.
greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
that to.. 
are you running a wet/dry... you could put some on the drip-plate.
are you running a wet/dry... you could put some on the drip-plate.PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
It's a DIY sump, don't have a drip plate. Thought about building a makeshift drip plate, but need the cash first.
greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
what are you using for a filter?
PBirdsong
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Right now I have the bio-balls floating on top. The LFS we go to does that for his freshwater and it works just fine. My only problem with it is there is nothing straining the water. So I may build something into my sump to "chamber" the water forcing it to run through some sort of media.
Hope that makes since.
Hope that makes since.
Similar threads
