newbie- please help with fishless cycling!

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son2fu

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Nov 22, 2006
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I have read all of the articles on fishless cycling on this site and on others and it seems really confusing, i need a step by step tutorial on how to do this, can anyone help?

I also read about using shrimp, how much should I put in?
Pls help me about how many chemicals and such to put in, how often to do WC's, and how often to test for what, ect.

please help, your contributions are accepted with gratitude
 
son2fu said:
I have read all of the articles on fishless cycling on this site and on others and it seems really confusing, i need a step by step tutorial on how to do this, can anyone help?

I also read about using shrimp, how much should I put in?
Pls help me about how many chemicals and such to put in, how often to do WC's, and how often to test for what, ect.

please help, your contributions are accepted with gratitude
Click to expand...

a 10 t0 20% W/C IS SUFFICIENT ONCE A WEEK AS FOR THE REST DUNNO I DONT USE CHEMICHALS IN MY WATER A W/C USUALLY FIXES AILMENTS FOR ME
 
I used ammonia called Clear Ammonia from Wal-mart, make sure when you shake it vigorously, it doesn't foam, there's a picture of it in the thread called "Hard to Find Ammonia...Poss Solutions" or something like that. I have a 46gal bowfront and I put in about 5 teaspoons worth, it took the ammonia to about 5ppm...maybe a little bit more. I just left the tank like that and tested every 2 days. After two weeks, the ammonia level dropped to 0.25ppm and my nitrites went up, then I dosed the tank about 4 teaspoons of ammonia to feed the nitrite...this is the stage that I'm currently in, someone can continue for me, hope it helps
 
FISHLESS CYCLING:

I don't recommend using shrimp to cycle--salmonella bacteria is a risk.

Get yourself some pure ammonia (no other additives-check the ingredients, make sure it doesn't bubble when you shake it). If you can't find pure ammonia, just use a pinch of fish food every day or 2. And get yourself a water testing kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. A good kit is Aquarium Pharmaceuticals 'Master Test Kit'.

You want your ammonia level to stay at about 5ppm every day. Dose ammonia (or fish food) to achieve that level. Remember, fish food may take a day or so to decompose, so keep checking ammonia levels every day at the beginning and if levels go over 5ppm reduce the amount.

After a few weeks you'll start testing for nitrites. Once you see them, reduce your daily dose of ammonia/fish food to 2-3 ppm per day. Keep dosing the tank every day until ammonia and nitrite both go down to zero.

DON'T do water changes while you're cycling. When ammonia and nitrite are 0, and you're getting some nitrates, then you're cycled and you can do a big water change. This could take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks.

Don't add chemicals, except for dechlorinator when you first fill your tank (and of course when you do your water changes after the cycling process is finished).
 
It might be helpful to take a clean uncontaminated small container, take out a little bit of tank water, and put some fish food in that. The next morning, the food will be well on it's way to decomposing each time you add it.

Personally, I did this for a week. I did get ammonia results (pretty low though.) It is very messy. Just really messy. As I stated before, I would do the shrimp in a brand new nylon that you can remove upon completion, before I did fish food.

But even better, would be the liquid ammonia. This is really really simple, so my question is do you think you have an ACE Hardware store anywhere in your vacinity? Because for $1.50 you can get all the ammonia you need, Janitorial Strength 10% Ammonium Hydroxide solution without any suds or additives. And this is easy-breezy easy. Pretty much 1/4-1/2 tsp worked for my tank for about 6 days, and after that, about once a day. The rest pretty much does it by itself, especially if you have an Ammonia Alert sensor in the tank. I test often, but that's because I like to chart daily progress.

If you can, get some already bacteria seeded media from someone else... it'll hopefully keep you from stalling out and speed up the process. I recommend a filter (less likely to carry things like unwanted snails from someone else's tank).

Good decision :). You'll be happy you did, when you can bring your entire school of fish back to their perfect home at once.
 
I Used Bio-Spira

I am a newbie too but I recently did a fishless cycle. Heres what I did:

1. Set up tank and filled with treated water (NovaAqua+ and Amquel+). Hung a Seacrest ammonia alert in the tank.
2. Added Bio Spira (purchased online) to filter and bio wheel.
3. Added enough ammonia (Albertson's brand clear ammonia) to make the Seacrest Ammonia alert register high ammonia (amount depends on tank size).
4. Kept adding ammonia each morning and night to register high ammonia on Ammonia Alert.
5. Four days later the ammonia was going down within 12 hours so I checked water with AP Master test kit. Ammonia was 0 Nitrites 0 Nitrates showing up (sorry I can't remember the exact reading).
6.Just to be sure I added more ammonia and tested again in 8 hours and the numbers were the same.
7. I did a 50% water change and added fish.
FYI: If you aren't ready to add fish right away (for example if you want to wait for the weekend) make sure you keep adding ammonia to feed the good bacteria until you get the fish in there to take over and create ammonia.


So within a week tank was cycled and my numbers have been perfect ever since. I actually tried this without Bio Spira and got nowhere in 3 weeks so my advice would be to purchase the Bio Spira or get some gravel from an established tank that you know to be disease free.

Good Luck!

MaryAlice
 
maryalice81403 said:
I am a newbie too but I recently did a fishless cycle. Heres what I did:

1. Set up tank and filled with treated water (NovaAqua+ and Amquel+). Hung a Seacrest ammonia alert in the tank..
Click to expand...

I knew Ryan Secrest was short, but I guess I had no idea how short! /giggle
 
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