recipe for fishless cycle

Canuks is correct, you do not blindly add more and more ammonia, you instead maintain titers at whatever level you have selected.

Do I have to be honest? I cycle the filters separately for planted tanks. You see what happens when you have too many tanks, you get spoiled. I want the plants well established before the fish go in, and I want the filters fully competent, just in case the plants are not yet metabolically fully active (I do basically rooted rosette plants, few to no stems, and they do not settle in immediately). I also tend to schools of fish in the planted tanks, so slow fish addition does not get it. I've got and have done enough planted tanks that I do not see any reason for me to plant once for break-in and replant for long-term. But that thechnique is better for people who do not yet know their plants.
 
C'Man:

RTR essentially answered your question, but I feel I need to respond anyways, since you were talking to me.

Yes, plants are mentioned as a source for adding beneficial bacteria, however he never mentioned what happens in your tank when you have ammonia and lighting. Try it and see what happens, you'll probably end up with an algae bloom of some sort... sure happened to me, and plenty other people who have tried a fishless cycle with plants. Its a good source for bacteria, but not a good way to start up a planted tank.

-Richer
 
Yeah I have enough common sense(well maby :p ) to not keep adding the ammonia. I firgured I didn't want 40ppm ammonia in a week in my tank, that couldn't be a good thing. Just wanted to verify that infact I was doing it right
 
My Proposed Recipe

I have put together a recipe based on the referenced articles and comments from this thread. Please let me know if I'm off base with anything here.

Fishless cycling for a new aquarium:

1. Add water to the aquarium and turn on the filtering system, without carbon.

2. Add “clear” ammonia enough to bring the level to 5ppm. How much depends on the size of the tank and the strength of the ammonia. Start with 5 drops per each ten gallons of water, measure the ammonia level after an hour and add more, if needed. When you reach 5ppm, note the amount of ammonia it took to get there. Be sure the ammonia you add has no additives, such as dyes, perfumes and detergents. If suds appear when it’s shaken, don’t use it.

3. Add “seed” bacteria to the aquarium. The best sources for these, in order of effectiveness are:

a. Filter material (floss, sponge, biowheel) from an established, disease-free aquarium.
b. Potted live plants. Leave the rockwool on till cycling is complete.
c. Gravel from an established tank.
d. Other ornaments from an established tank
e. Squeezings from a filter sponge from an established tank.
f. The cycle WILL occur without adding any specific source of bacteria, but it may take longer.

4. Test the water daily for ammonia and nitrite. If the ammonia is below 5ppm, add more to raise it to 5ppm again. When Nitrites start showing up, it means that the bacteria are growing and converting the ammonia into nitrite. Continue bringing the Ammonia level to 5ppm. When the nitrite goes to zero again, the cycling is complete (the nitrites have been converted to nitrates).

5. When cycling is complete, do a nearly complete water change to get rid of the excessive nitrates that have developed from this process. Be sure to treat the new water for chlorine and chloramines, if necessary.

6. Add the desired number of fish to maintain the biotope. You don’t need to add the fish a few at a time because you have already grown the bacteria to handle a full load of fish.

7. This whole process should take 2-3 weeks. Using fish to do the cycling would have taken 4-6 weeks, you would have caused stress to those fish, and you still would need to add fish a few at a time.

Have I summed it properly, or made some errors? Thanks for any input.
 
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Anaxus, Someone in another thread told me that. The rationale was that carbon is used primarily for removing chemicals from the water, short term. That is not what we're after here, so the carbon is not needed. I don't know that it is detrimental to the process, however. Hopefully, someone else will comment on it.
 
Re: carbon - GAC is short-lived in effectiveness, but it is a better than average biosubstrate. If you have carbon in and your biofilter has established in it, when you replace the carbon you lose the biofiter. So for practical considerations, start with no carbon. After your biofilter is established if you choose to use and replace carbon then you are disturbing the pre-existing biofilter not at all.

Cycle, Stresszyme and similar products have never been shown to contribute to the establishment of a lasting FW biofilter. I would never support any guide which suggested, even with caveats, their use. In fact I would strongly recommend that such a guide not be seriously considered due to its inclusion of products I consider snake-oil. These products will also complicate the testing required during fishless cycling as they contain such ligh levels of nitrogenous material. Item f should IMHO be removed.

Chis suggests dropping the ammonia titer in half after nitrites are detectable. This option seems seldom followed in current practice, but IMHO may well be responsible for the extended nitrite spike many hobbyists experience. It may be a personal peference item, but perhaps both options should be included in the proposed scheme?

Other than these two points, one small and one not trivial, it is quite clearly presented.
 
Ok I will pull the carbon out of my system. But heres my question. I use a elcipse system and there is a pad above the carbon which is used to remove particles from the water(i.e. dirt etc) Should I remove the filter material dump out the carbon then replace the filter material back on the "box"? Or should I just completely remove it?
 
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