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#Post#: 374--------------------------------------------------
Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: deanmbuna Date: September 22, 2014, 11:22 pm
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John--
You said that fish in cycling was faster than fishless cycling
in Part 3 of your Fishkeeping video series (a solid, tight
episode on cycling). But, is it really? I did a fishless cycle
in 14 days with two sources of bacteria (Dr. Tim's and some
bacteria balls from a Biohomme media supplier), and pure ammonia
chloride. I dosed with pure ammonia chloride at about 3 ppm, and
with the tank water temperature cranked up to 85 degrees to
speed up the process. I never had an ammonia spike, even with
daily dosing of ammonia at 3ppm, and did one small 30 pct water
change in the 2nd week to help lower nitrites below 5 ppm so the
bacteria could catch up. With fish in the tank, that level of
ammonia would be very toxic and you probably would not want to
keep fish at 85 degrees during the cycling process. So, with
more reliable levels of ammonia and very warm water it would
seem likely that the tank would cycle faster with no risk to the
lives of "starter" fish.
I would suggest another advantage of fishless cycling, besides
not endangering any fish during the cycling process, is that
after the tank is fully cycled one can add all of the African
cichlids at once and avoid the problem of adding additional fish
later. This is the main reason I did fishless cycling. I put
20 small mbuna in the tank after cycling and all are thriving
(thank goodness). I was a little worried to be honest but the
cycling worked.
#Post#: 386--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: joescaper1 Date: September 23, 2014, 6:16 am
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I moved some of the media from other tanks (seeding) into a new
wet/dry sump, along with "seed" gravel as a sub straight, and it
was ready in two days.
Joe
#Post#: 405--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: deanmbuna Date: September 23, 2014, 12:56 pm
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I wish I had another tank to use the substrate for my new tank
but I was starting from scratch. My 20 gallon hospital/fry tank
will be cycled with media and substrate from my 55 gallon so
cycling will be super fast. I was referring to starting a tank
from scratch with no other source of bacteria than bottled
bacteria.
#Post#: 439--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: kgtropicals Date: September 23, 2014, 7:46 pm
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Absolutely a "fish in" cycle is faster then a "fish less" cycle
BUT when I say that I'm talking about the o'natural way of doing
it which means filling it up with water, starting the filter and
waiting. If you add those chemicals though it absolutely will
speed things up maybe even make it faster then a fish in cycle
::) ::)
#Post#: 466--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: deanmbuna Date: September 24, 2014, 10:55 am
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Thanks John, that makes sense to me. Your podcast and video on
cycling were excellent.
#Post#: 646--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: Jennifer Date: September 26, 2014, 12:55 pm
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Yea, fish in or fish out, you cannot beat having things from an
established tank transferred into a new tank.
Which is why, I put extra bio media into all my tanks. So I can
raid them for bacteria if need to :)
#Post#: 676--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: Stu4648 Date: September 26, 2014, 7:27 pm
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I have always cycled with fish in and relied on frequent water
changes and lots of plants to keep things comfortable for the
fishy pioneers doing the hard work. Never lost any during a
cycle so guess it could not have been that bad. Long term
effects, who knows but probably still better off in my tank than
in the LFS (KG Tropicals excepted of course).
#Post#: 783--------------------------------------------------
Re: Fish Keeping 101, pt. 3: Question for John
By: Jennifer Date: September 28, 2014, 12:40 pm
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I don't windup having to cycle that many tanks from "nothing."
Occasionally a friend will have a bran new set up, but I usually
hear about those when the ammonia and nitrite are already
killing their fish. As for my own tanks, I always have media or
something around to seed the tank with. And that, is a
completely different ballgame.
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