Help Trying To Cyle Fishless But Confused!!

J

jbbake686

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Feb 15, 2005
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:sad This is my first post on the board. I just purchased a 55 gallon tank. I will be housing 9 africian chiclid (yellow lab) (jueveniles) which I have breed from lab parents. for apx, 4-6 months. They are now in a 10 gallon tank. I took about (4) gallons of water and some gravel from my 10 gallon tank and put it in the new 55 gallon tank. The 55 gallon tank has a new Eheim canister filter, with new media, I've had it running for (2 days) I checked the ammonia which is 1.0. nitrite= 0 high range ph test =7.8 ph indicator = 7.6
I have not put the fish in the new tank, how long should I wait or what should I do about the ammonia level? Has the cyling been started because I put some gravel and water from the other tank, or am I starting from the beginning???
Thanks for all help :confused:
 
How are you feeding the tank? If ammonia is present, the tankis not cycled, and since you haven't seen nitrites, I'd suspect that the bacteria population from the gravel to be very minimal. If you are not introducing any ammonia, the current levels were likely imported with the water (no reason to do this--FW is better). You don't want to introduce fish until you can verify a bacteria colony capable of processing a waste load equal or in excess of that from the fish.
 
Thanks for the reply,
Do you know if I can put fish food in the tank to cycle, because I have been unable to find pure ammonia. When is the cyling over, when there is no nitrates or ammonina?

:confused:
 
Check here for fishless cycling information.
Where do you live? Perhaps there's someone from your area who can help with finding Ammonia. I didn't think I'd be able to find any but then found it at a local supermarket, and I think lots of stores carry it under their own brand name.
 
If you live anywhere near a super walmart then you can look in the cleaning supplies aisle in the grocery section. They've got a pure ammonia in there that goes by the name Sea Mist or something close to that.

If you absolutely can't find anything you could go buy a couple raw shrimp from a deli and toss those in there and test every few days to see how things are going.
 
JB... I too have fishless cycled, and I have been confused, frustrated, and down right angry!!!

My advice... if youre willing to spend the cash, BIOSpira!!! it is worht the money.

get your tank set up with gravel, decorations, plastic plants etc... do not add live plants until you are done cycling. make sure your temp is in the appropriate range! and make sure you have treated for chloramine and chlorine if you do not it will kill your bacteria.

Buy biospira...add it to your tank... then add enough pure amonia so that the level is 3ppm to 5ppm (refer to Trickyd's post about pure amonia)
test every 24 hours to see if the amonia levels are dropping... when they do add enough amonia to get the levels between 3 and 5... when they start dropping you will most likely see nitrite... and then nitrate eventually... once your amonia and nitrite are 0 after 24 hours you are most likely cycled... so keep adding and testing for a minimum of 48 hrs... if your numbers amonia and nitrite are 0 for a total of 72 hours then you are ready to do a water change and add your fish ( do a 60 to 90 percent water change to get your nitrates back to a reasonable range 0-5 if your going non-planted and up 20 if youre going planted)

good luck... I am newbie too so my word is not gospel, I cycled for a month then added biospira within a week and I was ready to roll... I would like to caution you... fishless cycling only prevents "water" problems. this is my first tank so you may already know that there are a lot of other things that can go wrong... hope it all works out for you!

Masty
 
What the heck, just add the Bio-Spira along with your full fish load. It will be fine because that is what it is really ment for. Doing what is said above is just making sure that your fish get no exposer to ammoina and nitrites compared to the very low levels you may see if added directly with Bio-Spira.
 
the trouble with just adding the biospira without doing a fishless cycle is that sometimes BIOspira is bad when you get it (there are a lot of reasons for this possibility)... also adding the full load if fish is just to ensure that you do not lose the bacteria due to lack of food (this is the reason for adding amonia for a few days) If you are willing to fishless cycle then most likely you are willing to take the time and make sure your water is ready, after all that is why fishless cycling is better, you are making things better for your fish... take the time and make sure your bacterai colonies are stable enough to eliminate 3-5 ppm of amonia and any nitrite that is produces as a byproduct.

JMO
 
If you can't find clear ammonia anywhere, the 'classic' method is to throw a cocktail shrimp or two into the tank and let them rot. They'll produce more ammonia/nitrite than fish food (unless you use a lot!) although the shrimp may smell. You also have a harder time knowing how much ammonia (i.e., what size bioload) your tank can process when you use shrimp rather than liquid ammonia. In any case, it's still easier and less stressful than cycling with fish.

HTH,
Jim
 
Fishless a little less confused

Thanks everyone for the :idea2: I am going to buy some BiroSpiro to hopefully help this process.
 
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