Cycling with Danios

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sm100378

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Sep 20, 2007
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Minneapolis, MN
Hello,

I am cycling my 37 Eclipse (more tall than long) with 5 zebra danio's right now. Should I get maybe 5 more due to the volume of water I am working with? The zebra's are an inch long and I am thinking a few more wouldn't hurt.

Right now I have zero ammonia and high nitrite.


Thank you very much!
 
Why fishy cycle it? You'll be doing water changes daily and burning the fish you're using, and you'll either have to keep them or give half dead fish to the LFS. Normal cycling is much easier and not cruel at all.
 
okay no you don't need more fish, you do however need to do a water change about 50% and soon like today. ank keep doing them till your parameters become safe.

Lets not turn this into a flame thread just because a persons ideas are different then yours.
 
Hi,

I know that Zebra's can live through most water conditions, very hardy actually. Would you say 25% every other day? Isn't it better to not change the water until the nitrite's lower and there is visibility of nitrate's? Only asking because if I keep doing changes, how will bacteria build up in my bio-wheel?

I tried fish less with ammonia but it was messing up my chem tests. I don't have any mature bacteria from another tank, and have realized that ammonia doesn't create nitrite.

By high nitrates, it is about 4-5.

Thank you,
SM
 
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sm100378 said:
have realized that ammonia doesn't create nitrite.

By high nitrates, it is about 4-5.
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ammonia is consumed by ammonia eating bacteria

that bacteria creates nitirites

nitrates at 4 or 5ppm is not high at all, above 40-50ppm is high

what are your tap water readings after it has sat for 24 hours?

how did it mess up your kit?
 
sm100378 said:
I know that Zebra's can live through most water conditions, very hardy actually. Would you say 25% every other day? Isn't it better to not change the water until the nitrite's lower and there is visibility of nitrate's? Only asking because if I keep doing changes, how will bacteria build up in my bio-wheel?
Click to expand...

Maybe you need to refresh yourself with how a cycle is suppose to work http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84598

Doing water changes will not stop bacteria from building up in your filter....but having fish in the tank during the cycle means you will have to keep levels safe for the fish while the bacteria builds up .... This is why a fishless cycle is better. You dont have to worry about doing water changes everyday to keep fish safe you just keep a steady amount of ammonia (4-5ppm) in it and let nature do its thing until ammonia will drop from the 4-5ppm to 0ppm over a 24hr period and nitrites are 0 . Then you do water changes to get nitrates down to around 20ppm before adding the fish.


sm100378 said:
I tried fish less with ammonia but it was messing up my chem tests. I don't have any mature bacteria from another tank, and have realized that ammonia doesn't create nitrite.
Click to expand...

Ammonia is ammonia no matter what the source....So you would have been best to keep up the fishless cycle you were doing instead of of adding fish and just figured out your API test to be sure you were getting accurate readings.... I remember going over some of this in one of your other threads ( http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132816 ).


sm100378 said:
By high nitrates, it is about 4-5
Click to expand...

Nitrates at 4-5 are not high..... Once your cycle is done then you want to keep them around 20 or so. If you are showing only 4-5 then that is not a problem. If it were coming up with nitrates over say 60+ then that would be considered high....but this all falls back on the testing part and being sure your test is good and you are doing the test right.
 
i find it very annoying how everyone is all about fishless cycles and get on everyone for not doing. my parameters in mine have never been too high. out of 11 fish, one has died and that was within the first two days i got them. if someone asks a question about a fishy cycle, either answer it or just dont comment. it doesnt help at all when people tell you to do a fishless cycle. and dont say that it ALWAYS hurts the fish because my parameters never went above .25ppm. i just had so many problems getting answers without getting hassled for doing a fishy so i just want to let you know that it is okay to do a fishy cycle
 
best to do wc's to constantly keep your ammonia at .25 ppm or less. also no more. danios are hardy, in fact all of mine have gone through some tough times, but like all other fish, ammonia still burns.

the problem I have with fishy cycles is that most (not all) decide to do them thinking it will be less work because they figure that they can just throw in some fish and leave. they dont realize that it actually requires more wc's than necessary and probably more testing than a fishless cycle. JMO, not going to debate.
 
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