# Sticky  Fishless Cycle Question.



## fishygurl

Before i say anything please do not tell me to read some article...I have read something like i think 41 of them and i just need confromation. 

Is this right:

1Set up tank (Do i add my live plants now??)

2Let run for 2 days to make sure everything is in working order

3Add pure ammonia to bring ammonia to 5 ppm (how long after this should i test for nitrites?)Add cycle (i know its useless but it wont hurt to try....)

4repeat 3 when ammonia goes back to 0

5(this is the part im not clear on..)when nitrites goes up add more ammonia??/

6 when nitrate spikes the cycle is almost done??

7when everything is at zero the cycle is done???


----------



## fishygurl

oh and one more question.. Is it normal for a pet store to have a couple of dead fish? I mean with that many fish isnt it pretty easy to lose a couple?? Its just that i really want ot buy from my local store and everything else ther is great..


----------



## Lydia

That is correct. I'm not sure about the plants but I don't think you should add them until the cycle is over, because I am pretty sure they would slow it down. Someone else will tell you for sure about that. About the dead fish in pet stores, it is somewhat normal, but that doesn't mean it is good. Ideally there shouldn't be any. But if the rest of the store is fine and there isn't a better store around it would be fine to go to that one. If you do go to that store you should avoid buying fish from tanks with dead fish, but if you absolutely have to buy from tanks with dead fish make sure that none of the fish in the tanks have a disease and make sure the dead ones didn't die from a disease.


----------



## fishygurl

i dont think they died from disease two of them were cardinal tetras so i am thinking it was mabye PH and Hardness.. NO signs of ick or ich so ya...

Idont think the plant slow it down... 

but mabye...


----------



## fishygurl

OK question.. the ammonia I have aroud .... if I shake it it only has like tiny litlle bubble on the top.. will this be OK??


----------



## DavidDoyle

I have fishless cycled a number of tanks and I do it using a different dosing method.

1. Set up tank and plant as you do. Plants eat the same thing the bacteria do, so you actually need less bacteria.

2. Raise Tank temp into the mid 80s.

3. Dose 5-6 drops of pure ammonia per 10 gals of water daily. 

4. After about a week you can begin to test for nitrites. When they appear, reduce the daily ammonia dose to 3-4 drops per 10 gals daily until nitrites go to 0.

5. When nitrites 0 out the tank is cycled. Do a large water change, turn down the temp to desired levels and fully stock the tank. You should have nitrates at this point and the water change will lower them to safe levels.

One of the main benefits of doing a fishless cycle is it enables you to fully stock the tank all at once. If you can not add fish when the tank is cycled, continue to dose 3-4 drops daily until you do to maintain the cycle. In a fully cycled tank that amount of ammonia should be undectectible w/i 2 hours of dosing. Also, if you don't add the full fish load right away, you will then have to add future fish as if you had done a regular cycle with fish- ie slowly over time.

Do not add Cycle to the tank- it is a compete waste of money and may contain phosphates which will give algae a nice jump start in the tank.

The drops/gallon method was the original one used. The add ammonia til readings was later developed to allow for ammonia in different strangths to be used w/o problems. An old bottle of ammonia is not as strong as a brand new one. Having fishless cycled about 10 planted tanks I can say the drops method has always worked fine for me.


----------



## Fishfirst

sounds like quality advice to me


----------



## fishygurl

cycle comes with the kit so its not really a waste of money..


----------



## TheOldSalt

*sigh*

Don't use Cycle. 
There, I said it. It contains the wrong species of bacteria, and these actually impede the growth of the correct ones. It should be pulled from the market and reworked. The only reason it hasn't been so far is that people still buy it. Yes, it will work _eventually_ by accident, but you'll usually actually get faster results without it, so don't use it.

You probably already _did_, didn't you?

If you put the plants in at the start, then you will have already inocculated the tank with the needed bacteria, of the correct type, and without adding the extra junk.


----------



## fishygurl

no i didnt


----------



## Fraser

Some fish will die through stress in transportation or with coping with their new surroundings. A lot of the fish may have been bred in large fully furnished aquariums and when brought into smaller non-furnished aquariums they can also become stressed.

Some stores dont tend to look after their fish that well ive noticed, with a dead fish in every 10 tanks or so. Its quite disturbing when you see 2 young plecs feasting on the wrotten carcass of a guppy. One of the stores I recently found doesnt have a single dead fish in any of the tanks so Im really quite sure Im going to get all my fish from him. The water conditions are somewhat better and the fact he doesnt allow recent fish arrivals to be sold straight away is quite encouraging


----------



## ron v

Fish die in fish shops. That's to be expected. They die in my tanks too, occasionally. My problem with some pet shops is that they don't get the dead fish out. There is no excuse for letting a dead fish stay untill it starts to decay. 
Topic #2... Fishless cycle/ ammonia. Good advice in this thread. I would like to add that if you choose to measure ammonia, stay with about 3 ppm instead of 5. Ammonia is actually toxic to the bacteria you are trying to cultivate and high levely will inhibit the growth.


----------



## RockabillyChick

your nitrates will never reach 0. you have to do water changes to keep them below about 20-30 ppm. you add ammonia to 4-5ppm (around there, doesn't have to be spot on) and wait. test about every couple days for both ammonia and nitrites. when your ammonia starts dropping, your nitrites should be going up. keep an eye on the ammonia and add more to keep it at about 2ppm when it starts to drop below there.

when you can add ammonia up to 2ppm and it goes to 0 within 24 hours, and your nitrites are 0 as well, your tank is cycled. now, your nitrAtes will be through the roof. then you have to do a LARGE water change to get rid of the nitrates (get them below 30ppm, preferably below 20) and add fish right away, about half your stock, then keep an eye on it, and slowly add the rest of your fish, one at a time, over several weeks to make sure you dont re-cycle your tank.


----------



## garfieldnfish

Buy bio spira, instant cycle and you add the entire fish load you plan on having. Except for algae eaters since there will not be any algae for some time. Easiest way but more expensive.
Other then that buy lots of fast growing plants, a few minnows or zebra danios if that is what you would want to get eventually anyway and cycle your tank the "normal" way. These fish are hardy and can handle it. I cycled most of my 11 tanks with 16 minnows and still have 12 of them. Swallowtail shiners, they are supposed to die in their third season and this is it and 12 out of 16 are still here on borrowed time. Best fish I ever had.


----------



## mousey

speaking of dead fish in tanks at the fish or pet stores. i agree that some dead fish are to be expected after all the travelling they do, but to leave them in a tank is careless and a disease spreader. i suppose a lot of it boils down to the fact that the staff are expected to do too much in too short a time.
What irks me is this is the season for otocats in the stores. I only ever see them in December. the tanks are totally devoid of food and I do not know how the poor things will ever survive without algae. They desperately go up and down the sides of clean glass and starve.
I read they have a digestive bacteria in their gut that dies when they go without food and then when they do finally get something to eat there is no bacteria left in the gut to digest the food for them. Either way they starve to death.
It is plain wicked to abuse little aminals this way.

Ps our walmart store has a boy in the fish department that loves his fish and they are well cared for.

Mousey


----------



## TheOldSalt

This may come as a shock to some of you, but before opening time, most fishshops go through all the tanks removing dead fish. Don't let the absence of dead fish fool you into think a shop is good. On the other hand, the shops that don't even bother with this are indeed pretty crappy.

I'm glad that this thread got resurrected. It's a good thread. I'm going to make it sticky.


----------



## TomCool

what pure ammonia do you recommend? and should you let the filter run for a few days before adding? and how long from first day to last do these cycles usually take in a 55gallon? I was thinking around a month.


----------



## honmol

Even with a fishless cycle you should not add all of the fish at once. I have found that nitromax works well for fishless cycling as it actually contains the beneficial bacteria but after opening it you have to refrigerate it. Another way to fishless cycle is to put a shrimp (dead, like the kind at a grocery store) into the tank. As it decomposes it will provide the proper amounts of ammonia to cycle a tank and is less expensive


----------



## ron v

One of the advantages of "fishless cycling" is that you CAN add all your fish at once. As a matter of fact, you should add all your fish at once. At completion, if properly done, your tank support a full biological load of fish. If you don't completely stock your tank, some bacteria will die off from starvation.
I've never tried the dead shrimp thing, but I don't like the sound of it. I just don't like the idea of something rotting in my aquarium. Seems like there are things other than ammonia going on that doesn't sound good. Why not use ammonia? At the very least, you have control over the amount of ammonia to add each day...


----------



## leveldrummer

if you completly stock your tank at once, you can over load the bio-load. creating more ammonia than the bacteria can handle, im not too keen on fishless cycleing because i feel the bacteria dies off as you wait a month getting ready to stock your tank, i know its not good for the fish, but i prefer to get one of two hardy fish and just take my time cycling the tank.


----------



## ron v

If you wait a month, you are right, bacteria will die off. It takes a month or so to cycle your tank. You have plenty of time to plan what you want. Just be ready to put all your new fish in as soon as the cycle completes. If you are not quite ready, just keep feeding ammonia to your tank every day until you put the fish in. The ammonia is food for the bacteria. As long as the bacteria is fed, it doesn't care where the ammonia comes from. This is really a very simple way to cycle an aquarium. I don't understand why some people have a problem. It is WAY better than using fish. It is cheaper. It doesn't stress fish. It is less stressful to the hobbyist. It is probably quicker. You can put all your fish in at one time. What's not to like.


----------



## TomCool

I will definitely be doing a fishless cycle, problem is I can't find pure ammonia :x


----------



## lochness

i was actually considering using a piece of raw unsmoked fish from the market to cycle my tank - and yes, most petstores clean out the tanks of dead fish (the better ones anyway) - having worked in the fish dept of a petstore, it still bothers me greatly to see fish dead in a tank as a customer - it doesn't take very long to walk up and down the tanks and spot them and remove them..i do not mean this in a deceptive manner, but for the health of the remaining fish as many parasites leave a dead fish and look for a live host, nevermind the decomposing sanitary issues and bio-overload. this is a good reason to have a quarantine tank in any case - not very practical, i know, but if you can, it's a great idea -- one tip: before I ever added a new purchase i'd add a lil bit of salt to the tank as a natural preventative (reg water changes removes the salt in time) 

speaking of which, oldsalt, LOL on your stance regarding *cycle* -- i am that way with stresscoat - another product that should have been removed from the market long ago...i was disappointed to see it still being sold.


----------



## ron v

lochness said:


> i was actually considering using a piece of raw unsmoked fish from the market to cycle my tank
> 
> Why would you not use ammonia??? Just curious.


----------



## lochness

ron v said:


> lochness said:
> 
> 
> 
> i was actually considering using a piece of raw unsmoked fish from the market to cycle my tank
> 
> Why would you not use ammonia??? Just curious.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> well, it was not really a popular method or at least I didnt know much about it when I first started fishkeeping over 25 yrs ago and after my first setup was established, I would simply move substrate and a spare live filter to any new tank so I didnt really need to cycle and it seems less of a hassle for me, really, to just put a piece of raw fish (that is dead already and meant for food) to cycle a new tank than to experiment with pure ammonia and try to guesstimate with constant measuring and tests. After 3 weeks I would be able to safely add a fish or 2 (of course with proper testing of lvls at this point) - yes, I know there are faster methods, but I'm a bit old-fashioned and extremely patient.
Click to expand...


----------



## ron v

Well alrighty then.


----------



## Mariah

when you are cycling, should you run the filter the whole time? and should you put the carbon filter cartridge in the filter or leave it until you put the fish and plants in?

Mariah


----------



## darkfalz

If it's carbon only then you can leave it out, but put it in a day or two before fish. If it's carbon in the form of a sponge or something, then put it in from the start. Remember, the bacteria also forms on the surface of the carbon.


----------



## dolifisis

I started cycling with ammonia yesterday and need to know what a 'spike' in nitrites means. I'm confused because I'm already showing nitrites and hadn't expected to see that yet.


----------



## The Gallonator

^^^that is strange i been going for 7 days and no nitrites


----------



## dolifisis

Day two and I just checked again. Ammonia 5 and nitrites are a 1. Do I cut back already or do you think there is something wrong here?


----------



## Damon

The point of a fishless cycle is to add enough ammonia to handle your full bioload. While we aren't perfect (add too much or too little) if done right, there is a minimal spike (less than .5) or minimal dieoff of bacteria.

In a planted tank, its quite possible to have nitrates bottom out (drop to 0). This is normally how we get bga or staghorn in planted tanks. Most high tech planted tanks have to add well over 20-30ppm on NO3 for the plants. I do................


----------



## Worrywort

If you see dead fish in the tanks at an LFS that are being "fed on" by others, be wary! Some stores do not feed their fish, they just let the ones that don't make it do this! While in theory it doesn't sound completely irrational since they will lose fish anyway and "waste not want not". Realistically however, it is a horrible way to sicken the entire tank through malnurishment and disease. Check with the store regarding its feeding cycle and what they feed to see if this is a possibility or if they are just overworked staff.


----------



## Guest

i never do fishless cycle i just set up tank and then wait 3 days. then i put 2 fish in it for a week then i finish stocking it and i ahve really healthy fish


----------



## LauraFrog

Hi guys.
I've read through this and about fifty articles, but I still don't quite understand.
I put a heap of wild fish in my tank and this was a few months ago, before I had read anything about cycling. They went in with some wild plants, store-bought gravel and a few store-bought ornaments, with a complete filter system. There were no deaths.
I put a bristlenose catfish and three guppies in the tank. The wild fish were not agressive with each other but they ate the guppies. I was horrified and evicted them unceremoniously from the aquarium. The catfish hid under a rock and wasn't touched. I left the aquarium basically alone with just the catfish in it for about two months because I was real busy then I decided to do something about it. I stuck the catfish in a jug and basically disembowelled the aquarium, replaced the filter wool but not any other of the filter media, scrubbed it all out with hot water and rinsed the gravel. I put the catfish back. It stayed there for about two weeks and then I put in one platy (Mum set some crazy ultimatum about room tidying and refused to let me get any more fish or I would have bought them all at once.)

About a week after that, the catfish and the platy are fine in there. Does this mean that my tank is cycling already? Most of the filter media is intact and that had been running for three or four months and I had introduced wild plants into the aquarium. Am I safe or do I need to do something before I stock my aquarium? (Planning on buying more platies and some tetras.)

I don't have ammonia available, or ammonia, nitrite or nitrate test kits. Live in small country town in Australia.


----------



## COM

I recently set up a new tank (I moved). I purchased a 20 Extra High with a Marineland Eclipse hood.

I set up the tank on a Saturday, squeezed a packet of Bio-Spira in, and let the filter run overnight. The next morning, I added 21 fish: 10 Serpae Tetras, 3 Marigold Swords, 6 Guppies, and 2 Angelfish. About 2 days later the ammonia flashed to a whopping .25 PPM and then over the next few days dwindled down to an undetectable level.

About 2 weeks later I added two Spotted Corydoras. The ammonia level is still below a detectable level.

So far, only one fish has died (a guppy - someone nipped her tail). The water in the tank is nice and clear. The fish look happy.


----------



## trashion

You may have cycled the tank overnight, but that tank is overstocked. Please don't post on old threads.


----------



## COM

How is the thank overstocked?


----------



## emc7

A twenty extra high is the one with the footprint of 10 gallon tank, isn't it? 10 serpaes is the right number for a school, but without enough swimming room they will be nippy. They would be my suspects for the guppie killers. Two itty, bitty angels are fine, but when they grow up they will either fight each other or pair up and turn on every other fish in the tank. Although your filter seems to be handling all the ammonia from those fish, I think you will find you need a lot of water changes to keep the nitrate down in such a small tank down with so many fish. Your stocking is appropriate for a 55 gallon tank.


----------



## trashion

I agree with emc7. You really only have the surface exchange/area of a 10-gallon, and you should stock it as such.


----------



## readyteddy

hiii..nubie here....i'll start to setup a new aqua...and mayb i'll try to use fishless cycle.....but i sill confuse about what kind of filter do i have to use...i got some advice from my friends which is making me confuse bcoz the info are not the same.....

in the end i know i have to use zeolit, bio ball, etc....but for earlier when i setup a fishless cycle, i dunno what should i put first into my filter....

thx u,
Teddy, Jakarta - indonesia


----------



## aquatico

I haven't read all the posts/replies on here. But having cycled this way with 3 tanks and it being almost 2 years and stable I will put it very simply.

1. Setup tank with filter & media I highly adv some bio media for the bacterial colonies to grow in. Make sure your floss is emptied of any carbon/zeolite it will mess everything up. A lot of floss has this now carbon is used to remove medications mainly, and zeolite should only be used if an ammonia spike occurs and should only be put in for a few hours to absorb dangerous levels of ammonia.

2. Fill with water I wouldn't add anything else besides decor and gravel (as helpful bacteria will grow on those as well). And add 1 drop of pure ammonia for every 2 gallons once a day preferably at the same time of day. For example 10 drops for 20 gallon 5 drops for a 10 gallon etc. I wouldn't test until passed 2 weeks at least you'll just be wasting your kit. 

3. Once you dose your tank and within 24 hours your test reveals 0 for all ammonia nitrite and nitrate you can add a moderate amount of fish! And just keep an eye on the levels for a few days then once a week. You should see that it is stable and then should only test whenever you like.

This way you don't have to go through measuring all the ppm's that part really confused me until someone simplified it for me. Since that helped me sooo much I wanted to pass this easy method along ;-)


----------



## musikgrrl

what other readings and levels should i be concerned about, besides ammonia? when do you know if its all been settling down properly?


----------



## ron v

Ideally you should be able to test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and PH. Initially you need ammonia and PH test kits. In a week or so you will need nitrite and then a week or so later you will need nitrate. Some others like hardness would be nice.... What test kits do you have now?


----------



## Toshogu

my 2 cents. With "Seachem Stability" usually available i don't see the point of a fishless cycle. You can have a tank up and running with fish in it once the tempurature is where it should be, the same day you decide to get it started. Provided you use Seachem Stability as directed.


----------



## musikgrrl

ive got no3/no4, hardness, ph, nitrites and chlorine so far. do i need any more? ive been adding the recommended ammonia as my water has gone cloudy...so im assuming after that clears up im on my way?


----------



## ron v

Please clarify your test results. You can't have 0 PH/ hardness. You should have some nitrates.


----------



## musikgrrl

i didnt say the test results, i just said i have the test kits.
are the are more kits i need?


----------



## smark

The tests you have should be enough to get you on your way.


----------



## ron v

I'm sorry. I'm still having trouble understanding your post. Your first test will be for ammonia. Do you have that kit?


----------



## musikgrrl

you had asked me what test kits i had. so i listed what kits i had and was wondering if i needed to buy any other kits.
thanks smark.


----------



## ron v

You still need an Ammonia test kit.


----------



## musikgrrl

picked that up 
thanks!


----------

