5 Gallon Tank - Fishless Cycle!

Hey everyone, I have kept fish for years and I have always done fish-in cycles.

I had an empty 5 gallon tank and decided to do a fishless cycle for the first time.

I have been using Special Blend from MicroLift . I know a lot of people don't believe in this product and I have never used it before but I believe its working for me. I just added some stablished media a few days ago from a tank that I bought from some guy I met. (my other tank is not old enough) but the readings have been the same even before I added that media. I did notice that the ammonia started to go down

This is my 4th week and these are the readings so far:

Nitrate



Nitrite:



Ammonia: it was at almost 8.0ppm last week and now it started to go down. Never added ammonia to the tank and I guess the Special Blend produces ammonia when cycling? umm not sure, I'm not an expert but its only my guess




Now all of that for just one question!!! lol do I do water changes during fishless cycles to keep ammonia down or is it irrelevant since I don't have any fish in there?

 

Hey everyone, I have kept fish for years and I have always done fish-in cycles.

I had an empty 5 gallon tank and decided to do a fishless cycle for the first time.

I have been using Special Blend from MicroLift . I know a lot of people don't believe in this product and I have never used it before but I believe its working for me. I just added some stablished media a few days ago from a tank that I bought from some guy I met. (my other tank is not old enough) but the readings have been the same even before I added that media. I did notice that the ammonia started to go down

This is my 4th week and these are the readings so far:

Nitrate
View attachment 454567

Nitrite:
View attachment 454568

Ammonia: it was at almost 8.0ppm last week and now it started to go down. Never added ammonia to the tank and I guess the Special Blend produces ammonia when cycling? umm not sure, I'm not an expert but its only my guess
View attachment 454569


Now all of that for just one question!!! lol do I do water changes during fishless cycles to keep ammonia down or is it irrelevant since I don't have any fish in there?

You need to do some water changes for sure or the overabundance of the bacterial byproducts will stall your cycle. Here's an analogy; ethyl alcohol will destroy bacteria, even the bacteria that made it in the first place. Your tank will cycle just fine with a much less concentration of byproducts.

 

when you say byproducts are you referring to the special blend?

I honestly didnt do any research before I bought it, they recommended at a LFS so I got it. and after I added it the tank I started reading about it (shouldve done it before) and found out a lot of people didnt recommend it.

I just didnt want to use pure ammonia because I'm keeping the tank in my baby's room and I didnt want the smell of the ammonia to make her sick or anything. and I didnt want to use fish food because I just felt like it was going to be too messy.

 

If you have any other cycled tanks, you can take filter media or décor from them and put them in the 5G to speed up the cycle considerably.

 

I have another cycled tank but its just been cycle for less than 2 months. I don't think the bacteria is mature enough yet