The (almost) Complete Guide and FAQ to Fishless Cycling

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eco23 said:
Happy to help, but I think you're as much of an expert as me by now. I also might be bad luck. All the people I'm friendliest with on here are the ones who have the slowest darn cycles, lol.
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I have plenty of seed material. That'll help.

Lol, well, I'll be that exception ! ;)

Wow, that is a huge compliment coming from you, Eco. Thanks.
 
JoeDaniels said:
Haha it's because they happen to spend the most time chatting to you haha I put it down to the longer they cycle and the less you know the more unfriendly they are haha and to keep it on topic at 9:30 GMT my ammo read 4ppm still so I added I tiny bit of grounded up fish food. The question is should I get up and test it now ( 3:30am GMT) hahaha or would the sleeping beauty next to me have something to say about that hahaha p.s Eco check your PM :)
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You don't even need to check it for a couple days, don't make the lady mad, lol. I'll check my email, don't know why they're not going through.
 
JoeDaniels said:
Haha it's because they happen to spend the most time chatting to you haha I put it down to the longer they cycle and the less you know the more unfriendly they are haha and to keep it on topic at 9:30 GMT my ammo read 4ppm still so I added I tiny bit of grounded up fish food. The question is should I get up and test it now ( 3:30am GMT) hahaha or would the sleeping beauty next to me have something to say about that hahaha p.s Eco check your PM :)
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If you wake her up she will have something to say about it.

If you really can't live without knowing your levels, get up and check. I don't have anything else to say except this:

If you wake the sleeping beauty, good luck. Lol.

And good luck on your cycle as well.
 
You just need patience right now. You'll have at least a few days even with seeding material before anything exciting happens.
 
Thankyou betta :) I think I'll just wait to test otherwise she will KILL me :/ haha betta you said seeding material WHERE and WHEN ? ( please say England) hahahahahaha

Eco I have no idea why our email is not working :/ kinda winding me up :/ oh hello just got a big pop up on my phone saying you accepted :) the photos wouldn't have bothered me this much apart from the fact we have spent the last hour or two trying to sort it haha :)
 
I responded to the email you sent. Hopefully it'll finally come through...I hate to deprive you of my handsome face, lol.

But yeah, there's no reason to worry about testing yet. Just have patience and in a couple days you'll see nitrItes popping up. It should be fast because you have a small tank and seeding material.
 
JoeDaniels said:
Thankyou betta :) I think I'll just wait to test otherwise she will KILL me :/ haha betta you said seeding material WHERE and WHEN ? ( please say England) hahahahahaha

Eco I have no idea why our email is not working :/ kinda winding me up :/ oh hello just got a big pop up on my phone saying you accepted :) the photos wouldn't have bothered me this much apart from the fact we have spent the last hour or two trying to sort it haha :)
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Like I said, the pics must have gotten stuck with the electronic customs agents since it's going overseas, haha. Hang on, I'm gonna check my girls Facebook and accept the friend request. Okay, back to fish, lol.
 
JoeDaniels said:
Thankyou betta :) I think I'll just wait to test otherwise she will KILL me :/ haha betta you said seeding material WHERE and WHEN ? ( please say England) hahahahahaha

Eco I have no idea why our email is not working :/ kinda winding me up :/ oh hello just got a big pop up on my phone saying you accepted :) the photos wouldn't have bothered me this much apart from the fact we have spent the last hour or two trying to sort it haha :)
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Lol. I'm a girl. I can help protect you from the wrath of females by telling you how to prevent it.

Seed material is just gravel, filter media, a piece of decor, etc, from an established tank. It introduces bacteria, and helps speed things along. Oh, and water has no bacteria. It won't help much.
 
JoeDaniels said:
Thankyou betta :) I think I'll just wait to test otherwise she will KILL me :/ haha betta you said seeding material WHERE and WHEN ? ( please say England) hahahahahaha

Eco I have no idea why our email is not working :/ kinda winding me up :/ oh hello just got a big pop up on my phone saying you accepted :) the photos wouldn't have bothered me this much apart from the fact we have spent the last hour or two trying to sort it haha :)
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Yeah, the seed material is the gravel and stuff you got from the lady at the fish store (lfs). To really help, try to go back and get a big piece of filter instead of gravel and deco. That can finish you up almost instantly. Just don't let it dry out.
 
Bettababe1011 said:
Lol. I'm a girl. I can help protect you from the wrath of females by telling you how to prevent it.

Seed material is just gravel, filter media, a piece of decor, etc, from an established tank. It introduces bacteria, and helps speed things along. Oh, and water has no bacteria. It won't help much.
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Oh betta please tell these female secrets of how to prevent :) and yes even though I'm relatively a newbie I have learnt a large wealth of knowledge and am aware of seed and have looked a lot more into the scientific side :) to say that water has no bacteria I believe is not fully true (don't get me wrong a handful of gravel has morr than a lot of water will) but to say they only cling is false as they will always get trapped within the water :) don't take this wrong at all please as I like to be a friend rather than one of these silly people who debate constantly :) please prove me wrong as for some reason when I'm scientifically proved wrong it actually makes me learn significantly hahaha dont know why haha :) :) :)
 
JoeDaniels said:
Oh betta please tell these female secrets of how to prevent :) and yes even though I'm relatively a newbie I have learnt a large wealth of knowledge and am aware of seed and have looked a lot more into the scientific side :) to say that water has no bacteria I believe is not fully true (don't get me wrong a handful of gravel has morr than a lot of water will) but to say they only cling is false as they will always get trapped within the water :) don't take this wrong at all please as I like to be a friend rather than one of these silly people who debate constantly :) please prove me wrong as for some reason when I'm scientifically proved wrong it actually makes me learn significantly hahaha dont know why haha :) :) :)
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50/50 argument. The bacteria doesn't live in the water...but it gets knocked loose and falls into the water column. It doesn't reside there though. They are surface adhering bacteria and that's where they colonize. Stirring up the water and vacuuming gravel will churn some of it up into the water...but that's not it's home. That's why the filter media is so great, it's an oxygen rich environment with lots of surface area.
 
JoeDaniels said:
Oh betta please tell these female secrets of how to prevent :) and yes even though I'm relatively a newbie I have learnt a large wealth of knowledge and am aware of seed and have looked a lot more into the scientific side :) to say that water has no bacteria I believe is not fully true (don't get me wrong a handful of gravel has morr than a lot of water will) but to say they only cling is false as they will always get trapped within the water :) don't take this wrong at all please as I like to be a friend rather than one of these silly people who debate constantly :) please prove me wrong as for some reason when I'm scientifically proved wrong it actually makes me learn significantly hahaha dont know why haha :) :) :)
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I meant to type that the water hasn't much bacteria. It may have some, but not enough to make a large difference like the other seeding material will. The bacteria lives on surfaces.

Girls are always right. Even when we are wrong, we are right. ;)
 
Bettababe1011 said:
I meant to type that the water hasn't much bacteria. It may have some, but not enough to make a large difference like the other seeding material will. The bacteria lives on surfaces.

Girls are always right. Even when we are wrong, we are right. ;)
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Yeah that's what my missus says all the time hahaha and yeah that's the point I tried to make and well you basically covered it in your last post hahahahaha wish I could find some hints/tips to speed this up for future generations of aquarium lovers :/ I'm thinking of maybe adding the fish a bit earlier, of course my fishless cycle will be almost complete and there will be no ammonia or nitrites but instead of taking it to a 12 hour leave and ammonia has gone maybe say 24 hours then I will add a single medium size fish and it should process naturally without water change as there should be enough bacteria to eat 1 single fish ammonia :)
 
JoeDaniels said:
Yeah that's what my missus says all the time hahaha and yeah that's the point I tried to make and well you basically covered it in your last post hahahahaha wish I could find some hints/tips to speed this up for future generations of aquarium lovers :/ I'm thinking of maybe adding the fish a bit earlier, of course my fishless cycle will be almost complete and there will be no ammonia or nitrites but instead of taking it to a 12 hour leave and ammonia has gone maybe say 24 hours then I will add a single medium size fish and it should process naturally without water change as there should be enough bacteria to eat 1 single fish ammonia :)
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Dude...nooooooo! That absolutely defeats the purpose and will be a deadly time to put in fish if you do it too early. Come on bro, you've got more sense than that. Plus, once ammo and no2 are gone the cycle is complete except for a big pwc. Just don't start thinking crazy. It's only been less than 24 hours since you started.
 
Plus, if you wait a couple more days till it's actually completed, you don't need to only add one fish, you can basically fully stock the tank at once. Read the guide about that part.
 
eco23 said:
Dude...nooooooo! That absolutely defeats the purpose and will be a deadly time to put in fish if you do it too early. Come on bro, you've got more sense than that. Plus, once ammo and no2 are gone the cycle is complete except for a big pwc. Just don't start thinking crazy. It's only been less than 24 hours since you started.
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Haha yeah I know it's just so painful I have my missus saying why have a tank and have no fish and then my mates like dude you have no fish in your tank why then I explain and there like ok but just get some fish haha and yeah it's 24 hours since I started the cycle but I have had the tank for well over a week :/ it's just about being persistent and sticking to it haha :)
 
At the end of your cycle when the ammonia and no2 hit zero within 24 hours of dosing the ammo, all you've gotta do is the massive pwc to reduce the nitrAtes. The reason you do that pwc is because the no3 will be absolutely sky high due to the tank cycling, and is still deadly to fish.
 
JoeDaniels said:
Haha yeah I know it's just so painful I have my missus saying why have a tank and have no fish and then my mates like dude you have no fish in your tank why then I explain and there like ok but just get some fish haha and yeah it's 24 hours since I started the cycle but I have had the tank for well over a week :/ it's just about being persistent and sticking to it haha :)
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I know you've had the tank for a week, how long ago did you stick the seeding material in? I hope it didn't sit in there the entire time because it'll have experienced die off because there was minimal ammo in the tank. I'd try to go get filter media from the lfs tomorrow and stick it in there. You should get some sleep man, the suns gotta be coming up over there :)
 
eco23 said:
I know you've had the tank for a week, how long ago did you stick the seeding material in? I hope it didn't sit in there the entire time because it'll have experienced die off because there was minimal ammo in the tank. I'd try to go get filter media from the lfs tomorrow and stick it in there. You should get some sleep man, the suns gotta be coming up over there :)
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If you can get a nice, big , dirty piece of filter material from the lfs, I'd tell you to drop the ammo level down to 2ppm since the tank will have a minimal bioload, and we can get your cycle done within the week if you can get the seeded filter...maybe even faster.
 
eco23 said:
I know you've had the tank for a week, how long ago did you stick the seeding material in? I hope it didn't sit in there the entire time because it'll have experienced die off because there was minimal ammo in the tank. I'd try to go get filter media from the lfs tomorrow and stick it in there. You should get some sleep man, the suns gotta be coming up over there :)
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I got it about 24 hours before I added the ammo so should be ok :) and yeah it has just started coming up, sky is getting slightly lighter haha thing is I only have one more glass of wine to finish then down a pint of water haha so need to keep occupied for just another 10 mins or so then sleep :)
 
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