Doug

I haven't seen this answer elsewhere and would like to know...

how does lighting (both artificial and indirect natural) effect cycling?

Will the light benefit good bacteria or bad? Make the ammonia spike higher or prolong it before it drops back down?

I'm currently running a basic florescent tube and as mentioned some indirect sunlight is available.

Dino

To my knowledge, lighting does not affect cycling.

Isabella

I agree with Dino. The only thing the lighting will affect are algae (i.e. if you have a non-planted tank). Otherwise, lighting is absolutely necessary in a planted tank.

bhcaaron

Would algae affect the cycle? Since the light would make algae grow faster, would it grow fast enough to affect the cycle? Would it affect it for the better or worse?

griffin

you shouldn't be getting a lot of algae in your tank, even when cycling.

however, if you do have a lot of plant matter (algae included) you might not even have to cycle because the plants will take up all the nitrogen (ammonia, nitrates, nitrites). i know in my tank, i actually have to ADD nitrates to prevent algae from forming.

Isabella

Theoretically, algae need light and nutrients - just like plants - to grow and survive. If you have enough plants in your tank, they will help you cycle faster. I'd guess that it's the same with algae. If you had enough algae in a cycling tank, it would help you cycle faster (I GUESS?). But nobody has that many algae (if any at all) in a newly set up and cycling tank, lol.

If you want to see for yourself if algae would indeed speed up the cycle, grow LOADS of algae in your mature tank and do this experiment: Remove your cycled/mature filter from the tank and put a new one in place of the old one. The tank will go into a new cycle because by removing the old mature filter, you're also removing the nitrifying bacteria. ALTHOUGH, there are a lot of nitrifying bacteria on tank walls, decor, and in the gravel too, so your tank may not go into a total new cycle, but rather into a mini-cycle. If it goes into mini-cycle, you'll really have no way of knowing if the the mini-cycle duration was that short or if it was the loads of algae that helped with the mini-cycle's speed.

And you know that you can't scrape the walls, decor, and gravel to remove nitrifying bacteria (in order to have a new cycle) because then you'll also remove the algae, lol, that you were supposed to test in the first place ...

P.S. If you decide to do this experiment, make sure no fish are in the tank! You can set up a separate tank without fish, and keep feeding it A LOT to grow algae.

bhcaaron

I think what I'll do later on is ge a new tank to start cycling and add previously harvested algae. But, I'll have to do this next year probably or the year after. I figure I'll be spending money on this new tank that it'll take me at least that long to get back up with spending money.

Isabella

No pressure, just a suggestion, lol You can always get some tiny cheap tank and tiny cheap filter for the experiment. Maybe you can even use some glass container as a tank.

bhcaaron

I would want to do it when I have my main one all set up. I'd want to keep track of as many variables as possible. Maybe I could then write about it as a FishLore article! (Which will probably mean I'll pass it on to Isabella to write it for me lol jk)

Isabella

LOL , Isabella will welcome very happily your very own personally-written article !!!

bhcaaron

:b

Doug

thanks for the replies however I just picked up a bottle of Microbe-lift special blend manuf by ecological laboratories. It's basically like cycle only with "bacteria found in natural environments and not genetically engineered".
The bottle says to turn off UV lights for 48-72 hours.
Does this mean UV sterilizers? Sunlight would be included (old windows in apt that are not UV coated). But I wonder if my run of the mill florescent tube gives off UV and if so, if it is negligable or a real issue? My guess is that I'm completely overthinking this as everybody uses cycle products and never worries about lights. It would however be interesting to know how we can tweak our aquariums to get the fastest cycle going, right?

Doug

one more thing... bottle states: "The uv lights should be turned off for 48-72 hours after the introduction of this product. This will allow the bacteria to progress through their most active growth stage."

found their website... www.microbelift.com

guy at the store where I bought it said it smells real bad at first too, I'll drop some in tonight (after lights out of course )

bhcaaron

Good luck, keep us posted. I'm interested to know the results.

Doug

my results will be off because I wound up using substrate from an established tank. However I can tell you that the stuff smells bad. It smells like the bay at low tide, or sulfur, or an old car with a bad catalytic converter or a rotten egg smell or... lol. But by morning I didn't smell anything

bhcaaron

By your description, its probably because your nose hair burnt off!

Doug

wound up throwing in cycle, microbe-lift and will be adding some stress zyme by API tomorrow. i'm thinking that the more cultures of beneficial bacteria I can offer, the better. I still follow each manufacturers recommendation of once every week, and wait a couple of days after dosing with one product before adding the next product to give the first one a chance to "set up shop". I would think that bacteria (even "good") could wind up competing, but at the ammonia levels I'm battling it's all good

It seems to be working too. Dosed with microbe lift the other night and the next day ammonia levels dropped sharply despite a slightly heavy hand while feeding (just got some great food www.almostnaturaltropicalfishfood.com and couldn't wait to try). Great ingredients, no wheat/fillers, no synthetic preservatives, etc.