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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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