Missing a step in cycling ???

Cribbinator

Cribbinator

Fish are Friends, Not Food
May 26, 2004
89
0
0
Alpharetta, GA
www.thecribbs.com
Hello,

Well I made the long trip cross country and am finally settled in my new home. Unfortunatley I wasn't able to keep my fish for the long journey but a friend was able to take care of them for me. I also wasn't able to save any of the "good" gravel out of my tanks to use to help my tanks cycle when I arrived at my new location. Now my question.

I have both tanks (26 gallon and 55 gallon) all setup with new gear, gravel and decor. In the 26 gallon I did the "tom griffin" alternate technique where you add ammonia until you can acurrately read 5ppm and continue with the dose until the nitrites peak. But my one questions is, the bacteria are supposed to consume the ammonia but how is this supposed to happen if I don't have any bacteria since everyting in the tank is new ? Unfortunately my LFS is pretty far away to get some bio substrate from so do I use Cycle to introduce some bacteria ? Or is there already bacteria present even though all gravel and items are new ???

Any help or info would be appreciated.

Thanks,

James
 
Yes these bacteria are present at low levels in the enviroment - so they will grow. Its justs takes a much longer time for the cycle to finish than if you had some kind of seeding material. My tank took 6-7 weeks without any help.
 
Thanks. I figured there had to be something present, don't remember adding anything the last time I cycled my tank. I went against what others had said and added some Cycle solution to the mix to see if that will help things get going. Won't add anymore, I will just let mother nature take its course along with my added ammonia.

Thanks again.

James
 
I never tried cycle - its just a lot of people say dont bother. I am sure it doesnt hurt anything - if it helps - who knows.

What might help though is high oxygen content in the water - so have the bubbler going and the filter splashing (lol). And of course having the heat up helps the bacteria to multiply faster. If there are no fish or anything else "live" in there 85-90 should help speed things up. (I didnt actually get my heater untill a few days before the cycle was done - probably one of the reasons why mine took so long)
 
Yeah I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it out. Never heard of it doing any harm.

I don't have a bubbler in there right now but I'll drop an air stone in there to help. I have the heat at 84 but I didn't know how high I could go. I'll take it up to 89 to help it along. Thanks again!

James
 
So what are you going to do with the tanks?? Its unfortunate that you had to leave everyone behind, but also kind of cool to be able to start over guilt free :rolleyes:
 
i've heard from several sources that the optimal temp for reproduction for this kind of bacteria is around 78-80. too high and the life cycle is sped up too fast, so even if they reproduce faster, they also die quicker. a higher temp also leads to less oxygen being dissolved into the water, which isn't good for them.
 
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