help with fishless cycling

[son2fu]

To all of you who have contributed to my latest post, you have convinced me to do a fishless cycle. I have read all of the articles on fishless cycling on this site and on others and it seems really confusing, i need a step by step tutorial on how to do this, can anyone help?

I also read about using shrimp, how much should I put in?
Pls help me about how many chemicals and such to put in, how often to do WC's, and how often to test for what, ect.

please help, your contributions are accepted with gratitude

 

[jamesrm]

I am glad you decided to go fishless

I know one large shrimp is plenty, but pure ammonia is better. I will wait for a pro to chime in so I do not confuse you at all.

Good luck!

 

[Zagz]

You can use one large shrimp or the pure ammonia. Do not add any chemicals as they are not needed. Once your tank is cycled the only chemical you will need is a good dechlorinator. I recommend Prime. Water changes during the cycle are not necessary. Once the cycle is complete once per week 25-50% is good. Congrats on the fishless cycle!

It's really simple either way you go, first you will either add the shrimp or pure ammonia, a test kit to measure your parameters is a good idea. http://www.bigalsonline.com sells the Aquarium Pharmacueticals master kit cheaply. Has everything you need. If dosing with ammonia, test and maintain a level of 4-5ppm ammonia until you see the nitrites spike, at that time keep the ammonia at 2ppm. With shrimp you just let the shrimp rot and it will convert to ammonia, then nitrite. Once your ammonia and nitrites go to 0ppm and you show nitrates of at least 5ppm you are cycled. Do a water change and add fish.

 

[son2fu]

how often do i put in the large shrimp and is it the kind that you eat?

 

[rich311k]

Just put the shrimp in once. It will start rotting away. Gets a little ugly keep the lights off. Yes a raw shrimp.

 

[son2fu]

whoa, just one shrimp? because the shrimp i eat are not that big, and at the end, how big is the final water change? and how do i remove the rotted shrimp?

btw thanks for all your advice

 

[Fishyfanatic]

If going with a raw shrimp I would do at least a 75% water change. I prefer the ammonia method since the shrimp takes longer. You have to wait for the shrimp to decay whereas with ammonia you don't.

 

[swanandmokashi]

here are results of my fishless cycling from 2 years back -- cycled my tank in about 5 weeks

http://www.swanandmokashi.com/HomePage/Aquarium/WaterParameters.htm

 

[son2fu]

is ammonia expensive?

 

[NeonJulie]

Hey hon, I wrote you out an answer on your thread on aquariacentral.com. It's not expensive at all, around a dollar for a whole bottle you'll probably never use. But it might be worth following up on the other pieces of advice given on that thread.

Anyway, what I asked was whether you had any ACE Hardware stores around. If you do, it's Janitorial Strength 10% Ammonium Hydroxide solution, and you're good. Shake it up, just to be sure, but it shouldn't have any bubbles whatsoever. If you're still uncertain if it has surfactants or detergents (though I have complete confidence in this brand which came recommended to me on that forum), dilute some and wipe your finger along the glass container and see if you get that water-friction-squeak. If it still feels like water, then you're all set. If it feels coated, or slippery, use caution. But I have no reason to think they would have modified this product at all in the 2 weeks I've been using it.

 

[son2fu]

I dont have ACE hardware, would OSH have it? Isnt ammonia an irritant?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

You need pure ammonia. As neon mentioned they sell it at Ace but if you don't have one near you go to the closest hardware store and ask for pure ammonia. No detergents or scents. It's pretty cheap. Maybe $2.

 

[Zagz]

FF is right it is very cheap, make sure there are no detergents in it at all. If it foams when you shake it up don't use it. I have only ever used ammonia for fishless cycling. I don't want to look at a rotting shrimp in my tank and I've heard the shrimp can emit a fairly bad smell, don't know that personally.

Also if you know someone else with a cycled tank, see if you can get some of their filter media and put it in your filter to seed the tank. The ammonia and seeded filter will cycle your tank much faster.

 

[garth7]

I used some old fish food for my cycle. This seemed to work fine.... I just fed the tank like I normally would feed a tank. I then fed it a bit more later in the day. I tested everyday. I may have been over testing but I was wanting to monitor this as close as I could.