All the forums we mention have experienced fishkeepers who are well versed in the nitrogen cycle and fishless cycling and who will be happy to give you personal advice based on your individual situation. If not, visit one of our recommended forums and someone will be sure to help you out:. Glossary of terms — from planetcatfish. Pingback: FAO mynki.. Pingback: Fishless Cycle — Fish. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website.
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What is a fishless cycle? The Nitrogen Cycle — the need to know stuff The nitrogen cycle refers to the process that takes place in the tank to convert fish waste from toxic to non-toxic. How does ammonia get dealt with in your aquarium? In summary: fish excrete ammonia organic waste breaks down into ammonia bacteria in the filter convert ammonia to nitrite more bacteria convert nitrite to nitrate you remove nitrate with water changes There, job done, nitrogen cycle understood.
Can I put my new fish straight into my new tank today? But I was told to set my tank up, leave it a few days and then I could add fish? Ammonia can have several unpleasant effects on fish, symptoms of ammonia poisoning including: Respiratory distress Internal and external bleeding, reddening areas of skin caused by hemorrhaging from blood capillaries in the skin and internal organs Erratic swimming, hyperactivity and excitability and twitching as the nerves become damaged Trying to escape from the water by constantly jumping out Mucus hyper-production causing a white clouding of the skin If untreated, death The above was taken from the following article on fishtanksandponds.
Symptoms include: Lethargy brown streaks in the fins and tail tissue damage secondary infections such as bacterial infections If untreated, death There is more information on nitrite poisoning in an article on fishtanksandponds. What about the bacteria in a bottle, I was told this would prepare the tank in a matter of days? How do I do a fishless cycle to get my bacteria going so that when I put my fish in the tank the bacteria are ready for them?
You will need to be able to test for: Ammonia Nitrite Nitrate pH a measure of acidity GH general hardness of the water KH carbonate hardness of the water Whichever method you choose for your fishless cycle, you need to get your tank and equipment set up first.
Method One — the fish food method With this method, fish food is added to the tank to produce ammonia as it starts to rot.
Method Two — the prawn Pop a prawn into a pop sock, or a cut off bit of tights and place it in the tank in the flow from the filter. Method Three — adding household ammonia Household ammonia can be purchased from DIY stores and sometimes pharmacies.
Method Four There are various kits available which are intended to help you do your fishless cycle in readiness for your fish. You can use our calculator to help you, simply add the measurements requested by the calculator Test the water for PH, GH, KH and nitrate before you start. The first three can change during the cycle and affect it so you need to know where you started from. Nitrate is usually present in tap water to some degree so you need to know what you started with in order to see if it is rising as your cycle progresses.
Make sure you write down the results as you may need to refer back to them. Test for nitrite. You may need to wait a little longer than a week, but keep testing every other day and watch for nitrite to show. Nitrate is the end product of the nitrogen cycle so when you see nitrate rising you know that your cycle is well on its way and nearly complete Ammonia and nitrite should be showing as a zero reading within twenty-four hours of adding ammonia to 2ppm Keep checking PH, GH and KH every few days Finally … Ammonia and nitrite are being processed to zero within twenty-four hours of adding ammonia to 2ppm Nitrate has risen sometimes dramatically Woo hoo!
My fishless cycle is done! Can I finally get some fish now, please? Trouble shooting If your fishless cycle seems to have got to a certain point and stopped you need to check the following: PH — a low PH can cause problems with the fishless cycle.
Below PH 6 the bacteria can become much less active and may even stop processing toxins and die off. KH — low carbonate hardness can also cause problems. Nitrate levels — nitrate over ppm has been identified on some internet forums as causing a problem with the fishless cycle for various reasons. Tips for speeding up your fishless cycle If you have another tank with a mature filter you can take some of the media from that and put it in your new filter.
Further help and advice For further help and advice please see our recommended forums section. If not, visit one of our recommended forums and someone will be sure to help you out: Glossary of terms — from planetcatfish. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.
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Administer one final test before adding fish. Add a full dose of ammonia to the water to bring it to 4ppm. Allow it to sit overnight. When tested the next day, only nitrate should appear. Ammonia and Nitrite levels should read 0ppm. If the ammonia or nitrite level is over 0 ppm, cycling is not complete. Continue to cycle and test the water. Perform this test again when the fishless cycle appears done. If this test is sucessfully completely, you are a single water change away from adding fish!
Since no type of bacteria feeds on nitrate, you will need to perform a large water change to get the levels down. Unless adding fish shortly after cycling, add small doses of ammonia. This will continue to feed the nitrite-oxidizer bacteria.
Stop only when adding the fish. The fish will produce the necessary waste to grow the bacteria. Seeding the tank can reduce this approach to a mere 7 days to completion. Without seeding, this method can take about 3 weeks.
Whether seeding or not, this method of fishless cycling is still the fastest and most accurate. In addition, cycling an aquarium with ammonia supports a very well-stocked fish tank. Compared to organic matter, pure ammonia will not cloud the water or emit an odor. It does not clutter the tank with unattractive decaying material either. Pure ammonia is not available in all areas.
The use of online shopping can help with this. Make sure you read the ingredient list before adding any type of ammonia to your tank. Introducing additives may delay the cycling process. The cheapest fishless cycling method is with fish food. After setting up the tank, owners simply add a few pinches of fish food. An exact formula for how much fish food to add does not exist. However, fish flakes work better than the pellet versions. They break down faster and, therefore, produce ammonia quicker.
Spread the fish food evenly over the surface of the water. Base the quantity on personal judgment. Since there are no live fish in the tank, overdoing will not really harm anything. As it sinks and decays, the fish food releases ammonia. When using organic matter to cycle a tank, owners should test the water every day. Be sure to check the ammonia and nitrite levels. If they are not at zero, add more food and continue to cycle.
This way will take a minimum of 45 days for brand new tanks with no seeding material. Please be aware that it can take longer due to the composition of fish food. Another means of organic fishless cycling is to add dead shrimp.
To do this, purchase shrimp from a local grocery store. At home, chop the shrimp into chunks and add them to the fish tank. As with the fish food, when the shrimp decays, it releases ammonia.
Similarly, owners can use dead fish from the grocery store instead of shrimp. This method usually takes longer, as you have to wait for the organic material to decompose and produce ammonia. In addition, this method produces cloudy water and a lot of odor. As stated before, fish food is the cheapest way to cycle.
For those on a budget, this may be the most affordable method. The dead shrimp method also works. It provides more ammonia than the fish food method. This is because of the fully organic composition. The shrimp method works faster than the fish food as well. This means of fishless cycling should support small quantities of fish once done. Using fish food is the slowest means of cycling. Fish food often does not contain enough organic material to work quickly. It often leaves food debris floating around the bottom of the tank as well.
This can trigger other types of bacteria to grow. This method will not support a large bio-load once the cycle is complete. The dead shrimp method is not very exact. Owners do not have a real grasp of how much to add or remove per gallon. It can cause large ammonia spikes that are detrimental to bacteria. Furthermore, rotting shrimp is not attractive and can create odors.
Decaying shrimp can also cause bacteria blooms that may cloud the water. As with the fish food, ammonia and nitrites may spike after adding live fish. It is extremely important for tank owners to cycle their tank properly. Wait about an hour. Put drops of pure ammonia in the tank, or enough ammonia to turn the "Ammonia Alert" dark.
If it doesn't darken, add more. Wait for the ammonia alert to go back to a "safe" level. This may take several days. Repeat this many times, each time waiting for the ammonia level to get back to "safe" before adding more ammonia Continue to put ammonia in the tank until the "Ammonia alert" shows that the ammonia level goes to zero within hours after the ammonia is put in. Try putting some in the morning before work and checking when you get home.
Once the tank shows the ability to lower the ammonia level in this time interval, this means that a large population of bacteria is resident in your filter. This may take 2 weeks or even more even four weeks. While the ammonia level is at "safe", test for nitrites. If it shows zero nitrites, proceed to the next step. If it does not, go back to step 8 and repeat step 8 three to four more times and then test again for nitrites.
Adjust the heater down to a livable temperature for the fish. Remember, only add dechlorinated water of about the same temperature to the tank in order not to stress the bacteria with too drastic a change. There you have it: a method that grows beneficial bacteria that does not call for the stressing of a hardy fish.
Also, this method can be easily modified to keep a vacant tank cycled. I hope it serves you well in the future. July Turn Up the Heat! Lawson, Thomas B. Fundamentals of Aquacultural Engineering. Meyer, Stephen M. November Aquarium Fish Magazine , 6 2 Also, some other experiences with the method have been reported.
So here we go: 1. The label on my bottle of ammonia says it contains: "pure ammonia"; despite this, household ammonia in the U. It is a solution of ammonium hydroxide also called "aqueous ammonia". Meyer's latest publication about this method see below states that since the concentration of household ammonia can vary, it's best to experiment until you bring the initial level of ammonia in the tank to ppM. He suggests starting out with a 0. In the article, I stated that I added enough ammonia to turn the Ammonia Alert dark.
Although this is what I actually do, that statement is not exactly way up there on the scientific precision scale. However, you can calibrate your Ammonia Alert by counting the number of drops of ammonia it takes to turn it to the "toxic" level. Unfortunately, the Ammonia Alert does not respond instantly, so this may be a somewhat tedious process. Multiply the number of drops by two to get the number of drops it would take to achieve a 1.
Keep in mind that due to the different net volumes in different tanks, this number of drops might be different for each tank you own. Russell Taylor and Greg Tong experimented with the method and found that with tank water with low alkalinity 2 , the addition of even these small amounts of household ammonia caused pH spikes that retarded the growth of the bacteria. Since my own water is hard, alkaline, and of a high alkalinity, I did not have the problem.
There are some websites that state that the pH of household ammonia is in the neighborhood of 11 to 12, which is quite alkaline. Hopefully, a good buffering product say, Seachem's Neutral Regulator, which is quite inexpensive 3 would take care of the problem. Some partial water changes after cycling would be gentle enough transition to get the tank back to the desired unbuffered state.
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