Cycling Poll

- I've done a lot of research and found many different suggestions for cycling, which all seem to get the job done with their own pro's and con's. I have 4 tanks and I've cycled them in different ways and one of them twice. Out of curiosity, I want to poll everyone for their methods. What ways have you tried; both with and without success. For example, Ammonia spikes, cloudy water, fish you've used, food you've used, etc...

- I personally have cycled two tanks with the same family of zebra danio's, I felt bad at first to stress them so bad, but they thrived so well the first time, I thought why not. (their still happy as clams today ) The latest technique that i've grown to love requires multiple tanks. I used the old filter from a cycled tank. Is there any known disadvantages to this? I haven't seen any yet with only 2 successful cycles.

- Be Honest, failed attempts will be the most useful to hear.

-AB-

 

Pretty much, we cycle with fish in the tanks because we have a tendancy to buy Bettas we don't have tanks for.

 

I've only cycled with fish to be honest... It's the only way I have ever done it.. I would love to do the "used filter media from established tank" route once to see what happens... Seems like it would be the best way to get it done quickly.

 

My first tank I cycled with 5 platies. Took about a month and a half with a ton of water changes, but I didn't lose any fish. Still have all five of them

Second tank I bought stocked with fish, so it was already cycled.

Third tank I used the filter from the second tank and it cycled in about 24 hours... by far the best way IMO.

 

Agreed, the old filter seems to cycle almost instantly, I was afraid the new water would kill too much of the bacteria, even dechlorinated. So I used excess water from a water change. I don't know what difference that made but with fish in it the next day.. I had very little ammonia spikes and nitrate with in a week. Saves the hassle of worrying, testing, and daily water changes so you don't lose fish. - The 'betta' way sounds efficient as I would expect them to handle the water, but with did you use multiple? Would not only one take some time in larger tanks?

- Another thought I just had.. what if you cycled a 1 gallon tank with a 20 gallon filter (or something along those lines...) Then just move the cycled filter. Would it make any difference with the amount of water? With maybe 2 guppys, the concentration of ammonia would rise quicker, requiring a need for bacteria sooner? I'm just typing off the top of my head now.. I'll stop..

Thanks,

-AB-

 

My first tank I cycled with 5 platies. Took about a month and a half with a ton of water changes, but I didn't lose any fish. Still have all five of them

Second tank I bought stocked with fish, so it was already cycled.

Third tank I used the filter from the second tank and it cycled in about 24 hours... by far the best way IMO.

Wow, Gargoyle! 24 hours!? That sounds great? Maybe you can help with this one:

 

Agreed, the old filter seems to cycle almost instantly, I was afraid the new water would kill too much of the bacteria, even dechlorinated. So I used excess water from a water change. I don't know what difference that made but with fish in it the next day.. I had very little ammonia spikes and nitrate with in a week. Saves the hassle of worrying, testing, and daily water changes so you don't lose fish. - The 'betta' way sounds efficient as I would expect them to handle the water, but with did you use multiple? Would not only one take some time in larger tanks?

- Another thought I just had.. what if you cycled a 1 gallon tank with a 20 gallon filter (or something along those lines...) Then just move the cycled filter. Would it make any difference with the amount of water? With maybe 2 guppys, the concentration of ammonia would rise quicker, requiring a need for bacteria sooner? I'm just typing off the top of my head now.. I'll stop..

Thanks,

-AB-

Oooops. Completely forgot to condition my water when I filled up the new tank. Ah well, there's no fish in it so I'll just pop in some conditionner.

 

Oooops. Completely forgot to condition my water when I filled up the new tank. Ah well, there's no fish in it so I'll just pop in some conditionner.

oops! : I do that sometimes myself - stacy always has to check if i've added the conditioner.

 

Doesn't help that I treat different tanks with different stuff. Some have salt, some don't. Some have different amounts of salt. Some have Prime, some have AquaSafe (I want to at least finish my bottle).

 

Doesn't help that I treat different tanks with different stuff. Some have salt, some don't. Some have different amounts of salt. Some have Prime, some have AquaSafe (I want to at least finish my bottle).

lol.. maybe your tanks need post-it notes on them.

 

My buckets and test vials more like. I test 4 tanks at the same time now, for about a range of different things, depending on the tank (nitrates/ites/ammonia/pH/temp/salinity). It can get soooo confusing to know which flask was what. I've had to devise a system and now I can test all of that in about 1/2 hour.

There's also differnet temperatures to put the water back in dependign on the tank. God help me!

 

Have you guys ever used the "live alert" tags. The ones that constantly measure pH and such... are they accurate? I try to test only once a week, but I always test more often, I thought the alert tags might save me some grief.

- AB -

 

I have used a couple of them and had mixed results.. Other then them being hard to read I would guess that they work alright.

 

Thanks, maybe I will try one as a 'heads up' type of thing.

- AB -

 

My first tank I cycled with 5 platies. Took about a month and a half with a ton of water changes, but I didn't lose any fish. Still have all five of them

Second tank I bought stocked with fish, so it was already cycled.

Third tank I used the filter from the second tank and it cycled in about 24 hours... by far the best way IMO.

Wow, Gargoyle! 24 hours!? That sounds great? Maybe you can help with this one:

Yeah, 24 hours. Kind of an interesting story behind that...


I had purchased an 80 tall tank that came with eight live Discus fish locally from eBay. The problem was, that even though the tank came with fish (I was expecting the tank to be fully cycled), it did NOT come with any type of filter, gravel, or anything in the tank at all. I learned about this before I went to pick up the tank, so I made arrangements with the seller to pick up the tank only so I could get it cycled before adding discus. He was to deliver the fish a few days later.

I already had a 55 gallon tank with a Magnum canister filter in it, and since I was going to have to purchase a new filter for the Discus tank anyway, I decided to go ahead and get the exact same filter so I could interchange parts and whatnot.

So then I put the new Magnum in the 55 gallon and put the old filter in the new to cycle it quickly... which, as I said, happened in about 24 hours.

About 2 or 3 weeks after that, while I was doing a routine filter cleaning on the discus tank, the filter stopped working completely. Couldn't get it to work despite spending around 6 hours and around 600 extremely dirty words fiddling with it. Then I had a brainstorm... I simply cleaned the broken filter as best I could to make it look as new as possible, put it in the box that came with the NEW magnum filter, and took it back to Petsmart claiming it wasn't working properly. They replaced it with a brand new one, so I ended up with two brand new filters, two fully cycled tanks, and a bunch of happy fish. Maybe a tad bit dishonest, but I'm sure no one lost their job over it, and I can still sleep at night..

 

My buckets and test vials more like. I test 4 tanks at the same time now, for about a range of different things, depending on the tank (nitrates/ites/ammonia/pH/temp/salinity). It can get soooo confusing to know which flask was what. I've had to devise a system and now I can test all of that in about 1/2 hour.

There's also differnet temperatures to put the water back in dependign on the tank. God help me!

I LOVE testing day.. lol.. with 9 tanks now.

 

I don't love testing so much. When I got the kit for the first time, I thought it was fun. Now it's like. Aaaargh, another million tests to do before I even get to work!

 

I don't love testing so much. When I got the kit for the first time, I thought it was fun. Now it's like. Aaaargh, another million tests to do before I even get to work!

Exactly, it takes a while testing the tanks, even though I just test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate now.. there's all the time shaking bottles, waiting, cleaning out tubes to use again (we only have 5), etc.

 

What did you use to test before that? Did you test for metals and chlorine too? I only ever did that once, but then I condition my water so I didn't see the point.

 

What did you use to test before that? Did you test for metals and chlorine too? I only ever did that once, but then I condition my water so I didn't see the point.

I used to test for pH, but our pH stays very steady and i'm glad to cut out one test anyway. Usually I can tell by the smell (if any) of each tank what it might be high in, if anything.

 

You can smell the pH of your tank? There's got to be a name for that little talent! (am watching Heroes at the mo, so well into super powers!)

 

You can smell the pH of your tank? There's got to be a name for that little talent! (am watching Heroes at the mo, so well into super powers!)

lol.. no, but ammonia and nitrites do have certain smells to them.

 

Mmmmm. Muuuch less impressive.

 

Mmmmm. Muuuch less impressive.

lol.. hey, I don't want to turn into a sylar! still testing does give more accurate results than smell, but certain smells can tell you problems in your water.

 

Well my fishless cycling one really does stink!

 

Well my fishless cycling one really does stink!

lol.. you'll get 2 major types of stink from that tank during the cycle.. sounds like you're on the ammonia stink now.

 

Am getting funny readings, actually. Every time I start a tank, I get 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and some nitrates in the first day. With fish and fishless. So I always think: wow! We're there. These readings were also with using a cycling aid (a pill in that came with the new tank in one instance, and Tetra StartSafe on the other instance). I wonder if that's what's doing it. It's very cruel, as I think I've miraculously cycled in 1 day!

 

Am getting funny readings, actually. Every time I start a tank, I get 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and some nitrates in the first day. With fish and fishless. So I always think: wow! We're there. These readings were also with using a cycling aid (a pill in that came with the new tank in one instance, and Tetra StartSafe on the other instance). I wonder if that's what's doing it. It's very cruel, as I think I've miraculously cycled in 1 day!

I get that too.. it's just the quiet before the storm you could say.

 

Well, it's chemical cruelty if you ask me.

 

Cycled with fish using feeder goldfish.....

 

I love my testing!! I love it so much I built charts to track the tanks levels... ;D I test Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, PH, GH, and KH.. LOVE my testing!! Hehehehehehehehehehehehehhehe Love testing!! LOL!!! ;D

Bought a baby medicine dropper to fill my tubes with because the lines wore off I test so much.... Heheheheh Love the testing... Yess... Testing... Must go test now... Hehehehehehe.. ;D

 

I used to love it, for about... a week. I love the idea of charting it, though! Nothing like a good graph. The only thing is I don't always measure/log all NH4/3; N02; NO3; pH; temperature. Just when it's necessary (it's been a while, it's the time of the cycle, etc.). Can't have a graph with blank values, hey.

 

I used to love it, for about... a week. I love the idea of charting it, though! Nothing like a good graph. The only thing is I don't always measure/log all NH4/3; N02; NO3; pH; temperature. Just when it's necessary (it's been a while, it's the time of the cycle, etc.). Can't have a graph with blank values, hey.

lol.. yea, same here.. I find myself putting off testing sometimes when all is well in a tank.. even just sticking to the ammonia,nitrites,nitrates testing, I get lazy on it sometimes.. I need to get more test tubes and a rack so I can run each test on all the tanks at once.