Fishless Cycle Diary

[rajseth]

Day 23: DONE!!!!

Day 23:

:bday: :bday: :bday: :bday: :bday:
:dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2:

NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 40
pH - 6.8

All done!
Since I had done a full water change on day 21, to get some alkalinity and hardness back into the water, maybe the bacteria were a little shocked, and needed a few hours to get going again. yesterday the ammonia was gone, so I had dosed it to 2-3 ppm again. today - the little buggers have burned all the NH3 and all the NO2 as well!!

Now I just have to keep dosing ammonia till I can get the fish from the store.

 

[rajseth]

Very interesting stuff! ... who needs fish when you've got bacteria? The next phase has got to be giving it a proper name. ...

How right you are - that is a great idea. The scientists cant decide whether it is nitrosomonas/nitrobacter or nitrosospira/nitrospira so aquarium keepers should give them names. Seems that I have been nurturing these critters so long, I should get to name at least my crop
So I am going to name them Manny & Nitwit.

Manny, eats a-manny-a for lunch. While Nitwit deals wit the nits...:joke:

Thats done then.

Maybe I should skip the fishies and just have the bacteria tank!

 

[kimmisc]

How right you are - that is a great idea. The scientists cant decide whether it is nitrosomonas/nitrobacter or nitrosospira/nitrospira so aquarium keepers should give them names. Seems that I have been nurturing these critters so long, I should get to name at least my crop
So I am going to name them Manny & Nitwit.

Manny, eats a-manny-a for lunch. While Nitwit deals wit the nits...:joke:

Thats done then.

Maybe I should skip the fishies and just have the bacteria tank!

Maybe you can crossbreed them to create bigger and more colorful ones too!

 

[rajseth]

Maybe you can crossbreed them to create bigger and more colorful ones too!

Now we're talking - maybe we can crossbreed them with coral to get glow in the dark bacteria "glowbac", that will make the entire tank phosphoresce! Now float some black tetras in there - I'M GONNA BE RICH!!!!

 

[rajseth]

Day 25: Stocking today!!

Day25:
Now for the fruits of the labor - I am going to stock the darn thing to the gills today
1 doz cardinals
6 ghost shrimp (4 days later)

This is the huge payoff :bday: of the fishless cycle. No ramp up period - just go to the store, buy the full stock, and let it rip!! Its my 8 yr olds turn to 'pick' the fish - I am hoping I can easily influence him to get cardinals, and not something else..... He has his own mind - so I may just end up with a tank full of barbs!


In my fishy cycle tank - I can only buy 2-3 fish a week. :sad:

 

[rajseth]

Big Payoff!!

Fishless cycle payoff #18

Going to the LFS, and buying 15 cardinal tetras, all at once, for a 10G tank!!

 

[rajseth]

Just Cycled another small tank in 2 days

A friend had a small (2-3G) tank which lost its occupant. small pennplax sponge filter. I filled it with fresh dechlorinated water and squeezed the filter from my 10G (which has been cycled for only about 10 days) into it. I dosed it with 1cc of Ammonia (that was enough for 4-6 ppm), and gave it two days - 0ppm NH3, 0ppm NO2. It will be a cold water tank with a couple danios or cloud mountain minnows.
My 10G, with 15 cardinals and 7 ghost shrimp did not have any kind of spike.

It is good to have a couple cycled tanks.

I have since connected both my tanks with a water-bridge, and run two penguin 200s on the 29G and a whisper 10 on the 10G, with no carbon, just pre-filter sponges ahead of the "official" bio-media. I slit the factory sponges and dumped all the carbon. I will spend my money elsewhere.