New 37 gallon tank cycling questions

[mikevill]

Good day to all,

I am currently fishless cycling a brand new tank and I am not entirely sure if I am doing this right.

I added all the gravel substrate, decorations, filter, airstones, heater, thermometer (set to 82 degrees), water, and dechlorinator (as per instructions on bottle). I added some of Dr. Tim's Ammonia drops to the water to reach 4ppm, waited a day or two and then added the FritzZyme 7 Nitrifying Bacteria (also dosing as per instructions on the bottle). All of this was a bit over three weeks ago. Also, I have not turned on the light to avoid algae growh.

I've been testing the water using the API kit and my readings stay the same to this day:

PH: 7.2
Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates 0

Starting about a week and half ago, the water has started to become cloudy, which I understand is most likely a bacterial bloom and should go away on it's own. But I am not understanding why I am not even seeing any Nitrites after three weeks and after dosing ammonia and live nitrifying bacteria.

I had a 10 gallon tank about 10 years ago and it cycled (fishless as well) with no problem in about a month by just adding a little fish food and nothing else.

Any help and info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Aiken Drum]

Cycling a tank just takes time. You are doing nothing wrong, you just need patience. Typically it takes a couple of months, and you would normally expect to see some progress in 3 weeks, but what you are seeing isnt unusual.

Could i ask why you are doing a fishless cycle? We get a lot of traffic on here with people struggling to cycle a tank. By far, more people have issues with fishless cycles than fish in, they dont understand how to do it, or expect it to run to unrealistic timescales. Almost without fail their issues are resolved by going to a fish in cycle.

If you are intent on a fishless cycle, 50% water change and see if that gets things going. Out of interest, do you know your carbonate hardness?

 

[mikevill]

Hi Aiken Drum. Thank you for your prompt reply.

I am doing fishless because I don't want to harm any fish or use them as guinea pigs. I don't have anyone around me with established tanks so I cannot use any of their filter media to "insta-cycle" my tank and add fish to it, so I have to go the long way around.

I do understand it is a patience game and perhaps I am showing some impatience

I suppose I expected at least a minimal nitrite reading after three weeks. Specially with that FritzZyme 7 stuff that is supposed to the bee's knees.

I don't know much about carbonate hardness but when using those strips (which I use more often than the master test kit to just kind of check in on things more often) it shows my water to be high in hardness.

Wouldn't a 50% water change reduce my ammonia to 2ppm? I thought it had to be at 4ppm in order to set off the process.

 

[Aiken Drum]

If a fish in cycle is done properly its completely harmless. What used to happen is people threw fish in an aquarium. When they died you replaced them, when they stopped dying you are cycled. This is where fish in cycles bad reputation comes from. Much more is now known about the nitrogen cycle and water toxicity. Testing is better than it used to be and people are more conscientious about their fishes safety. Its a much safer process than it used to be, and gets you where you want to go more consistently.

Remember that fish in cycles have historically been the norm, and i would expect the majority of tanks are still cycled that way because most people dont know any different.

Fritz products have a good reputation, but the same as all these products, if they arent transported and stored in temperature controlled conditions it will be dead before you make your purchase.

Carbonate hardness is used up by the nitrogen cycle, so if your water has low KH it can stall your cycle. A water change is usually enough to replenish KH and get it going again. If your water has good KH then it probably isnt necessary but better than sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Yes, a 50% water change will bring the ammonia down. You don't need 4ppm to start the process. 4ppm is just a level so you can leave it for a while before redosing. 2ppm is fine and the water change often gets things going. If you want to, do the water change and redose back to 4ppm.

 

[mikevill]

Thanks again! I will try that.

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks again! I will try that.

It's very important that you get Fritzyme that has not passed it's expiration date or has not been kept in the heat as that will kill off the bacteria in the bottle. I started using #7 when it first came out 30+ years ago in pet stores and wholesale houses and can vouch for it's effectiveness. If it's not working, the issue is probably one of the two things I mentioned. You can test the effectiveness of the product by just adding some to a bucket of new clean water with an air stone then bring the ammonia level up just a little and then test in 24-48 hours. If there is no change in your results ( it may not be 0 but it should be less than what you started with), your product is dead and I would return the remainder of the bottle to wherever you got it from and complain as it probably wasn't alive when you got it( unless you kept it in the heat. )
As for fish in cycles, as Aiken said, that used to be the norm when I started keeping fish. Back then it was called " conditioning" vs today's "cycling". In the end, it's all the same thing with different names. Fish in cycles are not harmful when you keep track of what's happening and do routine water changes and such. Some fish are more susceptible to ammonia than others so what fish you started the tank with mattered. " It's not cruel if you follow the rules."

 

[mikevill]

Thanks for the info Andy. I ordered the FritzZyme 7 on Amazon and I live in Texas so temperatures here were above 102 degrees from June to last week. Soooooo.... I am imagining that they were dead on arrival.

I could do the fish-in cycle but I am not sure if I have the time to be doing water changes constantly until it cycles. I usually work long hours and I am on site, so that makes matters difficult for me.

I guess patience is my only solution. I'll take it as a meditation and reflection process to make me a better person. LOL!!!

 

[Aiken Drum]

If you do a fish in cycle properly, starting with a low number of fish, 1 small fish per 10 gallons of water, you shouldnt be constantly doing water changes. Maybe a big water change every 3 or 4 days. This is what i mean by doing it properly and safely.

Just throwing a load of fish in a tank will result in poor water quality very quickly. Starting with a few fish and gradually building things up, changing water when necessary, is a safe way of doing things.

 

[mikevill]

Ok... so after reading what y'all have said here, I think I need to do the following:

1. Do a 50% water change
2. Add water to top off (dechlorinated, of course)
3. Get three hardy fish to live eat and poop in the tank
4. Do a 75% water change every 3 to 4 days
5. Pray they don't die on me

Correct?

Will I need any of that stuff that detoxifies ammonia and nitrite for a limited amount of time or would the water changes be enough?

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks for the info Andy. I ordered the FritzZyme 7 on Amazon and I live in Texas so temperatures here were above 102 degrees from June to last week. Soooooo.... I am imagining that they were dead on arrival.

I could do the fish-in cycle but I am not sure if I have the time to be doing water changes constantly until it cycles. I usually work long hours and I am on site, so that makes matters difficult for me.

I guess patience is my only solution. I'll take it as a meditation and reflection process to make me a better person. LOL!!!

Well that's a shame because the product is a good one if you get good stock.
If you want to try again, you can get it from my buddy Keith at https://kjeaquatics.com/ . Just tell him to pack it with an ice pack in the box so that it can help keep the package cooler in the heat.

 

[Aiken Drum]

No. Start with 100% water change to remove all the ammonia in your water.

Get 3 small, hardy fish. Feed sparingly, every 2 days as much as is eaten in 2 to 3 minutes.

Test every day. Do water changes sufficient to keep ammonia + nitrite combined below 0.5ppm. With a small bioload and light feedings I would expect this to be every 3 or 4 days.

If you use seachem prime as your water conditioner, this should detoxify some ammonia for a day or 2. Its a safety net, not a replacement for water changes. And dont rely on it to do anything for nitrite. The evidence for detoxifying nitrite is very sketchy.

Reduce the water temperature to whatever your fish need.

If you are consistently seeing zero ammonia and nitrite over a week or so, increase to daily feeding. If after that you comtinue to see zero ammonia and nitrite, add a few more fish. Rinse and repeat until you are fully stocked.

 

[Andy Sager]

Ok... so after reading what y'all have said here, I think I need to do the following:

1. Do a 50% water change
2. Add water to top off (dechlorinated, of course)
3. Get three hardy fish to live eat and poop in the tank
4. Do a 75% water change every 3 to 4 days
5. Pray they don't die on me

Correct?

Will I need any of that stuff that detoxifies ammonia and nitrite for a limited amount of time or would the water changes be enough?

Here's what you need to understand about the nitrogen cycle and the biological filter: It's a living breathing thing that grows and shrinks to the amount of available food present. So if you use 3 little fish to cycle the tank, the biological filter that establishes will only have enough bacteria and microbes to consume the small amount of ammonia the 3 little fish are producing. That's fine but it also means that once the tank cycles, you can't throw in 10 smaller fish and not expect there to be an ammonia problem. You always want to proceed "slow and steady" as you enlarge your biological filter.
On the other hand, if you just add ammonia to the tank and let it sit with the filter running, eventually, naturally, you will develop the microbes that will convert the ammonia to nitrites and the nitrites to nitrates. Doing this tho takes months for it to happen so you really need patience. This is why if you are impatient, using a product like Fritzyme #7 is a good option because it will show, when the nitrates start to rise and the ammonia and nitrites fall back to 0, that you have enough microbes present to handle that much ammonia production. If you can't put in fish immediately after that happens, you just need to add some ammonia into the tank until you can get your fish. So you have options.
With all that said, when it comes to fish in cycling, you do not need the detoxifiers for the water unless your source water has chloramine or nitrates in it. If you do water changes before the levels get toxic for the fish, that will keep your fish safe.