Cycle

X, The bacteria you want are attached to solid objects like rocks and filters. Only a very small percentage are free-floating in the water. Therefore, if you're doing a fishy cycle, Daily water changes serve to reduce stress on your fish without inhibiting the nitrogen cycle any significant amount.
 
Cycle has always worked magic for me.
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Do you test for nitrites and nitrates ? The cycle product will eat ammonia, but most folks report that it does not live long, and does not eat nitrite. This means it will not properly cycle a tank, but will reduce ammonia levels very quickly when first added. As always, the proof is in the pudding so if you have results that show success it would be good to share your test numbers with everyone for their use and reveiw. also your methods if they worked.

You need to give your tank a chance to build up bacteria. I feel when you change water everyday your defeating the point by putting more amonia in the tank a losing bacteria.
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Water changes are a must when cycling with fish. there is no other way to keep the fish safe while estabilishing the cycle. Furthermore as has been said a couple of times during this thread water changes do not slow the cycle. Water changes definately shouldn't add ammonia to a tank, they should do the opposite.
Dave
 
nice tank woohoo

congrats on getting
that 250 gal monster of a tank.
what kind of stand do you have it on
is it indoors or in a basement or on a deck??
what kind of ventalation do you
have going on in the room ? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
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even more info

Just two things, first products like cycle and use of estabilished sponge water, do not speed up the cycling process they just seed the tank with benefical bacteria, the length of the cycling process is set at about five weeks. Second bacteria will not grow faster as much as growing in greater numbers by generating more ammonia. This can in fact cause an unexpectedly high spike in nitrites as there is such a build up of ammonia converting bacteria in the limited filter bio-surface that they hinder the growth of the nitrite converting bacteria. RJust remember, go slow, everything in moderation (except maybe biological filtering capacity) and when in doubt water changes.
 
qtaquaman said:
Just two things, first products like cycle and use of estabilished sponge water, do not speed up the cycling process they just seed the tank with benefical bacteria, the length of the cycling process is set at about five weeks.
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By seeding the tank with beneficial bacteria, you ARE speeding up the cycle... that's the whole point of seeding. Rather than waiting for a very small number of bacteria to multiply according to their own little pokey schedule, you bring in about a zillion of their cousins. If you import enough bacteria (i.e., if you seed heavily enough) you will have no measureable cycle. I agree that the product Cycle is worthless, but getting enough seeding material can greatly reduce the time to cycle, or eliminate it completely if you have enough innoculant.

Jim
 
In addition to the above response, it should be noted that there is no set time for the cycle 5 weeks or otherwise. Typically without a seed, you have a 4-6 week process, but there are still variables and fluctuating time frames. I have had them take as much as 7 weeks, and as said by JSchmidt, I have seeded heavily, and had it estabilished in a day. There are a lot of variables, and a lot of way to influence those variables. "Cycle" has been known to hinder the process for some people, and extend its completion. It seldom if ever recieves a good reveiw.
dave
 
My tank was much smaller. only 10g. I got suckered into the cycle crap. Fish store told me to take this "kit", cycle, and the $20 of fish they sold me (6 neons and 4 swordtails) with tap water treated with dechlorinator (well one thing was right).

I ended up doing daily 50% water changes for 2 months to keep poisons below the max readings of my tests. During this time i lost all my swordtails and most of the neons. One swordtail was pregnant and i cut her open and actually got 9 babies. they are still alive at the moment no thanks to my recent F-up (read general thread for more info)

So take the suggestion .. do big water changes every day. Doing this WILL increase the time to cycle but "kickstarting" the filter with food will just kill your fish faster.

now when i upgraded my 10 to 20g i took all the substrate plants fish filter etc to the new tank and i had no poison spiks at all. Filter gunk will help.

Bottom line im in the fishless cycle and cycle=crap (actually crap would probably be more usefull than cycle) schools now and I have not seen any evidence to switch my decision.
 
ive just started seeing nitrates now, after over 2 months, i was getting worried for a while,
anyway, i was doing a water change and desided to look to see if i could find where the bacteria are hanging out, my filter is a juwel built in one, with baskets for loads of sponges, well i took out my sponges and they all seem clean, the only thing in the tank that has any "gunk" on it is my power head is that were my bacteria have colonised?

i put my hand inside the filter to feel the walls but they dont feel slimy.

the reason i ask is i dont know if i should clean my power head, i dont want to risk getting rid of my only bacteria. the gunk is a cream colour about 3mm deep (its a slightly green colour now since i treated for ick last week)
im afraid it will eventualy block up the pump head
i know that theres bacteria in the gravel too, but is there enough to keep the proces going if i clean the pump?
 
Clean the powerhead--that's not the bacteria colony. The bacteria will preferentially colonize where their needs are best met--ie, lots of surface area, lots of water flow. The powerhead has one condition, but there's just not enough room for a large colony. Yes, the bacteria are colonizing everywhere, but most of them will end up in the fitler media. They aren't visible--so don't go based on where you can see a build up of something. Visible build ups tend to be wastes that can and should be removed, IME.
 
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