cycle question

No. Seriously. 5 and 3. when you're doing a fishless cycle, you want to produce an overabundance of bacteria. what is not needed will die off and everything else will live according to the amount of nutrients they get from the fish. doing just .5 and .3 isn't a lot, when you're cycling a tank you can get daily spikes of 1 or higher. enough bacteria to take care of .3ppm of ammonia is going to be far too low to take care of the fishes' needs once they are added.
 
thank yall alot you've helped out tons you see before i learned about cycling i had already setup my two ten gallon tanks with just tap water and conditioner and luckily i never had any of my fish die :)
 
No. Seriously. 5 and 3. when you're doing a fishless cycle, you want to produce an overabundance of bacteria. what is not needed will die off and everything else will live according to the amount of nutrients they get from the fish. doing just .5 and .3 isn't a lot, when you're cycling a tank you can get daily spikes of 1 or higher. enough bacteria to take care of .3ppm of ammonia is going to be far too low to take care of the fishes' needs once they are added.
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I disagree. It's not the level of ammonia that allows us to grow an over abundance of bacteria, It's the constant supply of ammonia. As long as there is ammonia present in the water the bacteria will continue to divide. In a fishless cycle you are constantly testing and adding ammonia to keep ammonia available at a level of .5 (hence bacteria colonies continue to divide and grow). I hve no idea what the rational is behind the .5ppm number, only that that is the level suggested. I imagine that the level of ammonia that you suggest might actually retard the growth of bacteria since at very high levels ammonia is poisoness, even to the bacteria that feed off of it.
 
It's not the level of ammonia that allows us to grow an over abundance of bacteria, It's the constant supply of ammonia

Exellent point.

I've done the fishless cycle route in both fresh and salt, and found it a waste of time. As ammonia tapers off the bacteria that consume it either starve, or go dormant.

You wanna know the easiest way to cycle a fresh water tank? Throw some gravel in it from an established tank along with some tinfoil barbs or zebra danios, feed them a lot, wait three or four weeks, and your tank is cycled.
 
Watch yer self blasterman, most of the people on this forum are fishless fanatics. You might get lynched. I'm not really for or against it. Both methods have advantages and dissadvantages. I tend to go with a middleground approach. Instead of going through the hassle of daily testing/ammonia addition or putting the fish through the hassle of living in ammonia laden water for 4 weeks, why not just overfeed imaginary fish for four weeks. Bacteria don't care whether their dinner comes out of a fishes poop or just breaks down on it's own.
 
a constant supply of low level ammonia is only going to produce enough bacteria to take care of that low level, which may or may not be enough to take care of the fish waste once they are added. a constant supply of high level ammonia is going to produce a larger amount of bacteria. they will not reproduce past what is available. the misconception is that a high level will make the bacteria grow faster, and that's not what i'm saying.

if you do a fishless cycle and only add .5 ammonia, then when you add fish and they produce 1ppm ammonia, you're going to cycle again.
 
blasterman said:
I've done the fishless cycle route in both fresh and salt, and found it a waste of time. As ammonia tapers off the bacteria that consume it either starve, or go dormant.
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That's why you keep adding ammonia (or fish food, or cooked shrimp) to maintain a certain level of ammonia so your bacteria don't starve. If done properly it is not a waste of time and it prevents needless suffering on the part of the fish.
 
so am i looking for 5 or .5 ... really confused :pc: :confused:
 
if you read the thread on cycling in the newbie forum or one of the fishless cycling articles, it will suggest 5ppm. what you do is up to you, but i tend to follow the advice of experienced posters who have used these methods sucessfully and know what they are talking about. my vote is for 5.
 
Okay, while we're on the topic of ammonia levels and cycling, here's my question:

For those of you who have had experience doing a fishless cycle, how long does it take before you start seeing ammonia gown down? I have an eheim 2215 for my 55g tank. I put a handfull of gravel from my in-law's tank into the canister at the very bottom(where those ceramic things go). I turned the filter on and then went on a two day quest for clear ammonia. I'm pretty sure I killed those bacteria because I don't think I let all of the chlorine evaporate out of the water. Realizing that, I held back on adding the ammonia for fear of chloramines and went and bought a dechlorinator and added it to the water. Then, I added ammonia to 5ppm or so (maybe a little more, I'm not sure). Next, I got filter squeezings from the pads of my in-laws established tanks (he has a couple of 10 gallons that he keeps guppies in and some other fish that aren't really social). I siphoned that lovely mess right into the canister using its own suction mechanism. That was about 24 hours ago. I haven't seen any change in my ammonia levels. Maybe I'm being too impatient but I was wondering if anyone had a ballpark figure on when I should expect to see results?

Thanks all.
 
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