Lots of new fish and an Experiment.

[f1oored]

The 29 gallon tank that my wife is setting up finished cycling yesterday. Today we went to Aquarium Adventure and they had a 1/2 off the price of fish sale. Here is what we got

5 - Cardinal Tetras
6 - Rummy Nose Tetras
2 - Panda Cory Cats
1 - German Blue Ram (we will add a few more when the store has more stock)
4 - Ps. Acei (these are for my mbuna tank)

All of these for the low low price of 45 bucks. Of course I'll have pictures up once these guys are in there new homes.

I'm adding all 14 of the fish to the newly cycled 29 all at once. Will there be an ammonia spike???? Does the fishless cycle technique produce enough bacteria to handle such a bio load all at once??? In the name of science I will proceed.

[Chrona]

It depends on how much ammonia you were putting in each day. I'm sure theres published data somewhere on how much waste different fishes produce, so technically, you could do a little research and tweaking the ammonia rate so that you could introduce an entire tank with no spike.

[muffin]

Definitely and intereting experiment that you are running here. I second Chrona on it will depend on how much amonia you put in there each day. I read somewhere that you should start off with 5ppm and then cut it on half when you get a nitrite spike and then cut it in half.. or something like that. But yeah when and if I get a new tank I want to try finless cycling. Keep us updated on how this works out for ya!

[f1oored]

I added enough ammonia at first to get the tank to 5ppm. Then added that much each day until I got the nitrite spike. After the nitrite spike I added half that amount until the water was 0ppm for ammonia and nitrites. Today I did about a 65% water change and added no ammonia.

The idea with fishless cycling is that you create far more bacteria than needed for any normally stocked tank. We will see.

[muffin]

sweet... you that's the exact steps that I had read about.. so yeah.. defintely interersted in how that works for you... Also.. how long did it take you to cycle the tank??

[kimmers318]

You should be okay with your stock. And aren't those panda cory way too cute???:1luvu:

[f1oored]

sweet... you that's the exact steps that I had read about.. so yeah.. defintely interersted in how that works for you... Also.. how long did it take you to cycle the tank??

On my 72 gallon tank with no seed material it took 6 weeks. Since this is my second tank I was able to use seed material (rocks and filter material) and this tank only took about 3 weeks.

I'll check the ammonia and nitrites every day and keep all of you updated.

[Nautilus29]

your always up so late f1oored. At work again?

[f1oored]

yes sir. I'm only up on the weekends.

[Lady Hobbs]

I think you will have an ammonia spike. Even with fishless cycle, fish should be added gradually.

Heck of a deal with those fish, tho. I drives me nuts to pay $2.50 for a neon tetra.

[sergo]

i'm gonna' bet you see a very slight to no ammonia rise. that's my take on it.

oops, you have a 29 gal tank after rereading. i think you may see a rise in ammonia. i did the fishless cycle in 10 days with my 55 at about 5 ppm of ammonia but i didn't put that many fish in when it was done. good luck to ya' and keep an eye on the water conditions.

[f1oored]

Alright kids here are the results after day one. BTW I'm using the API freshwater master test kit.

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrites 0ppm

So no ammonia spike thus far. I will check daily and give you guys the results. Unless someone thinks I should check more often? I'm doing this in the name of science so if you feel I'm forgetting something let me know.

[f1oored]

Hello folks,
I'm still at 0ppm Ammonia and 0ppm Nitrites. So far there seems to be enough bacteria to support the 14 fish.

[Chrona]

Wow, yet another reason to go with fishless cycling! You can get all your fish at once instead of staring at 4 zebra danios for a week lol. It will probably also reduce territorial aggression in some cases since all the fish are going in at once.

Btw, I demand hourly water tests.....in the name of science:wink2:

[muffin]

Good news.. I'm getting inspired!!

[f1oored]

Lets give it a few more days before we call it a success. If this works it would be really helpful in stocking affrican cichlid tanks and such. Good point chrona.

[*Sarah*]

That's great, I really hope it continues that way! I plan to do fishless cycling next time.

[Severus]

Keep us updated. Im glad everything is going good so far! good luck

[Lady Hobbs]

I'd have done the same thing...spike or no spike. Not often you see a sale on fish.

[f1oored]

For anyone who is following this little experiment, we are on day 3 about 70 hours after the fish were added.

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrites 0ppm

[cocoa_pleco]

I think you will have an ammonia spike. Even with fishless cycle, fish should be added gradually.

Heck of a deal with those fish, tho. I drives me nuts to pay $2.50 for a neon tetra.

one of my lfs's has a sweet deal. Get a FREE membership, and buy 1 fish get 1 free ALWAYS, so if i but a 20$ fish, i can get any other fish 20$ or less free

[Severus]

That is a crazy deal.
F1oored - glad to hear all is progressing well. Im keeping my fingers crossed!

[cocoa_pleco]

thats how i got my cories. I bought five, got five free.
The deals worked best with saltwater fish... buy a 75$ fish, 75$ fish free

[Severus]

That is awesome. You would think they would have a limit to how expensive you can go...

[sergo]

glad everything has gone well for you. i really would have thought you would have seen at least a .25 increase anyway. i guess at 5ppm of ammonia that's a heavy load. will have to remamber this when i do my second BIG tank. thanks for doing this experiment and us informed.

[Sasquatch]

Well, it definatly seems that fishless is the way to go. We'll have to try that next time.

As for Cocoa's fish deal, it's almost worth a trip to Alberta for that deal!

[sergo]

yea, no kidding. that's a smoking deal. if that deal were here i'd probably have a few to many tanks.

[Severus]

yea, no kidding. that's a smoking deal. if that deal were here i'd probably have a few to many tanks.

Me too! I would have all kinds of exotic fish and tanks

[cocoa_pleco]

It's a great deal if you want a school of fish.

They also had the oddest tank.

It was like six feet long, but half a foot not even wide, and half a foot tall. Its a REAAAALLLY long tank, great for danios

[Severus]

Yea, they can swim endlessly (almost) down the tank! lol

[kimmers318]

Great to see that your fishless cylce is still keeping your fish safethumbs2:

My experience with fishless cycling....esp. in your case where you can also seed it is that you end up with more bacteria than you need...GOOD THING and you have a tank that can handle just about anything you want to throw it's way:hmm3grin2orange:

Continue to keep us posted and I will certainly use you as an example in the future as to why fishless cycling is best!

[f1oored]

Alright, the tank is still at 0 for nitrites and ammonia. I'll check it once more tomorrow and then call it a success. I should have a good amount of nitrates so I will check those tomorrow and compair them with my tap water.

[f1oored]

Success!
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 20
Tap water Nitrates 10

Everything is fine and all the fish are healthy. There was no ammonia spike and all is well. Though it is time for a water change.

Now to move on to the next experiment which involves the destruction of a 10 gallon aquarium.

[Chrona]

Success!
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 20
Tap water Nitrates 10

Everything is fine and all the fish are healthy. There was no ammonia spike and all is well. Though it is time for a water change.

Now to move on to the next experiment which involves the destruction of a 10 gallon aquarium.

Destroying tanks? Thats blasphemy

[f1oored]

In the name of science!!! It's only in the name of science!

[Gelo_USA]

why do u wanna destroy the 10g tank? I dnt get it

and I will try a fishless cycle with my 30 gallon tht I should be getting this weekend
my first tank was a mess doing a cycle with an angel and a tetra in but I had no choice cause the fish were rescued as some of u here knw