i cant take the wait any longer

[tarquin375]

From the StressCoat label -"Removes Chlorine, Chloramines & Ammonia from Tap Water"
- according to the thread, the tank is being dosed a whole tanks' worth...with a low bio-load in such a large body of water(large in respect to the bio-load being produced), wouldn't the bacteria be a little hungry? Would this have anything to do with the seemingly long wait for even low test readings? I'm no expert, I'm just guessing here. I read the whole thread earlier(took over two and a half hours......whew...what a scenerio) and was just cleaning up my aquarium stand and checked out the stress coat label (I use it for slime coat purposes, I use API Tap Water Conditioner to treat tap water) and wonderd if this would have anything to do with the long wait for any results. Since the water left in the tank during a wc is being treated, wouldn't there be too much ammo being removed? Perhaps the addition of four more fish will make positive differences...(more ammo for the stress coat to neutralize? or would that leave more for the bacteria?) ? .............pretty curious about this myself at this point....good luck man, hope it all turns out well. I'll keep checking for updates.

BTW -- I learned more about fishy cycling in this thread than most other places I've looked.......

 

[Corax]

chill there buddy, just because you don't agree with the method here doesn't make it dumb.

There was no "method".. You saw a momentary ray of light and ran as fast as you could to the store to buy more fish. If it was a method, you would have tested again several times over a few days to be sure it maintaining those levels before throwing yet more fish into a potentially toxic environment. In my humble opinion, that was a very dumb thing to do.

Tarquin, I've wondered about the same thing for a long time. Which is why I keep a bottle of boring old Start Right on hand when cycling a tank. All it does is remove the chlorine/chloramines.. Leaves all the wonderful ammonia and nitrites in the tank, where you need them, for fishless cycling..

BTW -- I learned more about fishy cycling in this thread than most other places I've looked.......

Hopefully you learned that fishy cycling is a paint in the butt and should be avoided at all costs.. Fishless is so much simpler, more predictable and much better for the tank in the long run.

 

[katuuuz]

corax could you stop posting on my thread
and the method i followed is ammonia and nitrites are 0, so let me go grab some more fish... we can call it the katuuuz method.

 

[NoExit]

From the StressCoat label -"Removes Chlorine, Chloramines & Ammonia from Tap Water"
- according to the thread, the tank is being dosed a whole tanks' worth...with a low bio-load in such a large body of water(large in respect to the bio-load being produced), wouldn't the bacteria be a little hungry? Would this have anything to do with the seemingly long wait for even low test readings? I'm no expert, I'm just guessing here. I read the whole thread earlier(took over two and a half hours......whew...what a scenerio) and was just cleaning up my aquarium stand and checked out the stress coat label (I use it for slime coat purposes, I use API Tap Water Conditioner to treat tap water) and wonderd if this would have anything to do with the long wait for any results. Since the water left in the tank during a wc is being treated, wouldn't there be too much ammo being removed? Perhaps the addition of four more fish will make positive differences...(more ammo for the stress coat to neutralize? or would that leave more for the bacteria?) ? .............pretty curious about this myself at this point....good luck man, hope it all turns out well. I'll keep checking for updates.

BTW -- I learned more about fishy cycling in this thread than most other places I've looked.......

I believe (and perhaps incorrectly) that Prime will convert ammonia into ammonium which is less toxic to fish, yet still there for bacteria to consume.

Again, I might be wrong, but thats my understanding of it.

 

[katuuuz]

From the StressCoat label -"Removes Chlorine, Chloramines & Ammonia from Tap Water"
- according to the thread, the tank is being dosed a whole tanks' worth...with a low bio-load in such a large body of water(large in respect to the bio-load being produced), wouldn't the bacteria be a little hungry? Would this have anything to do with the seemingly long wait for even low test readings? I'm no expert, I'm just guessing here. I read the whole thread earlier(took over two and a half hours......whew...what a scenerio) and was just cleaning up my aquarium stand and checked out the stress coat label (I use it for slime coat purposes, I use API Tap Water Conditioner to treat tap water) and wonderd if this would have anything to do with the long wait for any results. Since the water left in the tank during a wc is being treated, wouldn't there be too much ammo being removed? Perhaps the addition of four more fish will make positive differences...(more ammo for the stress coat to neutralize? or would that leave more for the bacteria?) ? .............pretty curious about this myself at this point....good luck man, hope it all turns out well. I'll keep checking for updates.

BTW -- I learned more about fishy cycling in this thread than most other places I've looked.......

glad you learned about fishy-cycling from this thread tarquin. It does, in fact, rely on you to closely keep an eye on your parameters, so if you don't see yourself up to the task, i would also tell you to go fish-less. cycling WITH fish, in my humble opinion, is an efficient way to obtain a cycled tank though, and i don't know why it gets bashed like it does. everyone's so worried about the fish's stress. in that light, isn't binging a fish home in a bag, or shipping one cross country pretty stressful? why do we do it? because it all boils down to us wanting fish, whatever the reason, we want to take fish from their natural habitat and have them on display in our homes. the chinese see it fit to cut all the fins from a shark and dump it's body back in the ocean to die because they like the taste of shark fin. they don't see anything wrong with it, so it's a matter of what your principals are.

 

[msjinkzd]

Lets refrain from personal attacks of any sort please. Offer constructive advice or don't offer any advice at all. Lets keep this on topic to help the OP please

 

[katuuuz]

Lets refrain from personal attacks of any sort please. Offer constructive advice or don't offer any advice at all. Lets keep this on topic to help the OP please

thanks jinkzed, i just woke up and wasn't thinking clearly.

anyhow back to the matter at hand.
today's tests show:

ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5.0
and pH 6.4

looking good if i do say so myself.

 

[Hooked Newbie]

I believe (and perhaps incorrectly) that Prime will convert ammonia into ammonium which is less toxic to fish, yet still there for bacteria to consume.

Again, I might be wrong, but thats my understanding of it.

That is my understanding as well. NH4 is less harmful because it is ionized. I believe this is the part of the equation that pH factors in, but would rely on someone like Karl to go more in depth. I am by no means a chemist. lol

glad you learned about fishy-cycling from this thread tarquin. It does, in fact, rely on you to closely keep an eye on your parameters, so if you don't see yourself up to the task, i would also tell you to go fish-less. cycling WITH fish, in my humble opinion, is an efficient way to obtain a cycled tank though, and i don't know why it gets bashed like it does. everyone's so worried about the fish's stress. in that light, isn't binging a fish home in a bag, or shipping one cross country pretty stressful? why do we do it? because it all boils down to us wanting fish, whatever the reason, we want to take fish from their natural habitat and have them on display in our homes. the chinese see it fit to cut all the fins from a shark and dump it's body back in the ocean to die because they like the taste of shark fin. they don't see anything wrong with it, so it's a matter of what your principals are.

Cycling with fish can be done safely and effectively (I know, I know people... PMs please don't kill the thread). The main difference with your efforts are your diligence IMO. 99% of the people that do a fish cycle are not as rigorous with their testing and water changes so the default advice becomes to just not do it.

 

[Reefscape]

Lets refrain from personal attacks of any sort please. Offer constructive advice or don't offer any advice at all. Lets keep this on topic to help the OP please

Cleaned up.....

Lets keep this post in mind please folks...

 

[Kashta]

A lot of our methods and viewpoints are debatable. That's part of the hobby and there's no getting around it. Still, personal attacks and name-calling (both sides here) are pointless and that interferes with any constructive exchange of ideas.

katuuuz - You started a thread asking us for opinions and advice and it's open to everyone. You don't get to pick and choose who can post and who can't. You've drawn some criticism that may be fair or unfair. So be it - you also have tremendous support here. Try not to take this personally or get personal towards your critics about these differences. Really, our disagreements usually bring out a better end result for everyone participating in this. You'll just have to decide for yourself who to listen to and who to ignore.