Cycle

**happychem** · 07-25-2005, 8:55 AM

Wasn't that the point of his post?

**Kasakato** · 07-25-2005, 9:02 AM

Edit: Now, Im confused

**Kasakato** · 07-25-2005, 9:04 AM

Ok, forget it. Im leaving this one alone.

**wilson** · 08-21-2005, 9:41 PM

I'm looking for help on the fishless cycle, where is the info ? I thought this was a sticky because it was a guide.

this link (suggested in other threads) is not working:
http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquamag/cycle2.html

**Dragonmommy** · 10-22-2005, 1:22 AM

Oh boy. Ok first of all I am not new to fishkeeping, but cycling a tank is very new to me. See when i got my first tank the idiot at the ptestore told me nothing, thank god we were on a well or my fish would have died from the water i used alone!
That said... I have NEVER cycled a tank and have alwasy been successfull.
Right now I have a 10 gallon going, it was an emergency set up from my mother... she pulled a "I don't want this crap anymore" on me so I took the 10 gallon set up only to find 3 very sick goldies in her little pond, so I took them home to save them. No time for a cycle, so here I am cycling a tank with fish and lots of them. It was not planned. I did want 3 or four more feeders in the tank though so i sent hubby and 4 year old to the store for "a few feeders" what I got was almost 30 feeders (he asked for 1 dozen), an african cichlid, and 3 danios. Yay. Now I am doing daily 50% water changes just to save these poor fishies because the fish store would not take them back. Idiots.
Thats the last time i send hubby to the petstore.
So to solve the huge overstocking problem I scored a 55 gallong tank. Now I have to cycle it and quick. I tested it today, its watertight. My problem? I have no equipment for it so I cannot begin the cycle till I get a filter at the very least.
So here is my delima. Fishless cycle is more humane, but its a 6 week process. If I do it this way then I will continue with thie WAY overstocked 10 gallon tank till them. If i do a fishie cycle I can get many of these fish into the 55 gallon and get it going, but I may loose some. I really don't know what to do. My family really put me in a pickle here.
As for testing, nitrates ect... honestly i know nothing about it.
So since there are so many opinions here on how to cycle a tank I am even more confused. If YOU were in MY situation (need to have the 55 gallon going ASAP) how would you choose to do it? Fish cycle or fishless? I already have the fish needed.

As for the product cycle, I use it. I use it to reduce fish stress when doing water changes and stuff, dont know if it works but I feel that its not hurting. I didn;t used to use Cycle and had no problem

**pbrack** · 10-30-2005, 1:46 PM

When people say you can buy liquid ammonia at grocery stores, is there a certain product name that I should be looking for, and what does it do (does it clean surfaces...?). I don't which aisle to start looking for it.

**pitthull** · 10-30-2005, 8:16 PM

Originally Posted by pbrack

When people say you can buy liquid ammonia at grocery stores, is there a certain product name that I should be looking for, and what does it do (does it clean surfaces...?). I don't which aisle to start looking for it.

Just finished doing a fishless cycle on a 36g. I read all the articles, asked as many questions as I could, etc -- but the one big thing that no one answered well was WHAT do I use for the ammonia in the fishless cycle. The articles said PURE -- they also said that it should have ONLY ammonia and water as the ingredients, etc. The other real pickle was that no clear guidance on the amount to use was anywhere to be found.

My experience was a very good one -- happened to be in Walmart and walking past the cleaning section -- decided to see if they had PURE ammonia -- nope -- but they had something called CLEAR ammonia. House brand -- purple label, blue square on front with white letters -- has "Great Value" printed on it but I'm not sure if that is the brand or not. Above the UPC on back it says "Marketed by WAL MART". When I looked at the ingredients, it said "softened water, ammonia, and chelating agent." I didn't know what a chelating agent was -- but the articles said NO SURFACANTS -- this sounded different -- and I shook the bottle and got no foaming/bubbles (which the articles said was a must).

One article said to start with very small amounts and continue adding until I reached 5 ppm -- it seemed I would use up my entire testing kit just trying to find 5 ppm -- so I took another article's advice which said to start with 1/2 cup for a 50 gal -- I had a 36 gal so I used 3/8 of a cup -- my ammonia readings were 8+ ppm (off the scale on my test kit) but when the bacteria started to grow, it just had more to eat -- everything worked out fine with that. After the initial overdose, I experimented a little while continuing to feed ammonia and found that 25 mL gave me about 3 ppm of ammonia (measured 2 hours after introduction).

The other thing that I didn't see in ANY articles and freaked me out when it happened -- this "clear" ammonia clouded my water BIG TIME! Pea-soup-fog type of cloudy. I was sure I had messed up -- but in about 2 weeks, I had a serious bio-load of bacteria working.

Hope this helps those fishless cyclers -- I am THRILLED that I went that route -- and my fish seem very happy in their new home.

**happychem** · 10-31-2005, 7:43 AM

Originally Posted by pitthull

When I looked at the ingredients, it said "softened water, ammonia, and chelating agent." I didn't know what a chelating agent was --

A chelating agent is a large organic molecule made to bind other molecules or atoms.

They are added to ammonia because in the NH3 form ammonia can be gaseous and leave solution. So to prolong the shelf life they add chelates which bind the ammonia and keep it in solution.

**RobertA** · 10-31-2005, 4:06 PM

Huuhh! Could someone be kind enough to explain to me EXACTLY what a fish cycle is? I just got a new 20gal tank, the gravel and the water are already in there but I still need to get some fish...

Oh, and is it bad to put sea shels in the aquarium?

**daveedka** · 10-31-2005, 4:25 PM

I'm looking for help on the fishless cycle, where is the info ? I thought this was a sticky because it was a guide.

The info unfortunately is scattered about throughout 8 pages of responses and additional questions. It would be a shame to see this thread removed, but it is no longer an easy users guide to cyling fishless or otherwise.
Here are links to some articles that should get you through the process with some additional information provided as well.

http://www.aquasource.org/CMS/module...artid=2&page=1

http://www.aquasource.org/CMS/module...artid=3&page=1

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums...ad.php?t=57791

http://www.aquasource.org/CMS/module...artid=6&page=1

HTH
Dave