During Fishless Cycling

[Willyleigh]

Were do the nitrifying bacteria come from, during fish cycling the bacteria come from the fishes gut when it poos but how does it get in when it is fishlessly cycled, or do you need to add some bacteria from gravel or a decoration from an established tank?

Thanks a lot.

[Chrona]

It helps, whatever is in your tank always has a little bit of the bacteria (including the fish), which will multiply over time. If you seed it with lots of bacteria from an old tank, the process will be faster, but it's not neccesary. Nature finds a way in :)

[Lady Hobbs]

Fishless cycling is by using pure ammonia. Your add enough to bring the ammonia test reading to 5. every day until you see nitrites start. You then back off on ammonia to 3. daily. Soon you will have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and high nitrates. Do a large water change and add your fish!

PURE ammonia is stressed. The cheapest stuff you can find and not that in grocery stores as most of that has additives like smelly stuff and soaps.

It takes "about" 5 drops per gallon to get a tank to the 5. reading but you need to test after a few drops, wait a half hour, test again, add a bit more, etc, until you get it to where it needs to be. You can cycle a tank in about 12 days this way and even less if you add a bio-spira or used gravel from another tank.

[Sasquatch]

Were do the nitrifying bacteria come from, during fish cycling the bacteria come from the fishes gut when it poos but how does it get in when it is fishlessly cycled, or do you need to add some bacteria from gravel or a decoration from an established tank?

Thanks a lot.

The bacteria don't come from the fish. They're just there, on the gravel, in the air, all around.

To get things going faster you can use products that have the bacteria in them (Biospira or Cycle) or use gravel or filter foam from an already established aquarium.

[jessie]

The bacteria will find its way in there if you do fishless cycling, even if you don't add any gravel or media from an established aquarium. I used this method with my 72 gallon, but it was really slow and took over a month to be fully cycled. At the time, I did not have access to any rocks of media from anybody else's aquarium. And it all worked out. The second tank I cycled using a handful of the media from my canister filter. It took less than 2 weeks for this one to be fully cycled.

[Cichlid_Man]

Hi,
I know it can be hard to find pure ammonia...
even if the bottle says pure, you need to read the entire label. Almost all ammonias have what they call surfactants. This will kill your fish.

I used shrimp skins. Go to the market, buy yourself a dozen shrimp for dinner, save the peels and tails and place them in a media bag inside the tank near the water flow.

Put a bit a fish flakes in your tank each morning as if you were feeding your fish.
I used this method and had an ammonia reading of 4ppm after 3 days, and the tank was fully cycled after 9 days.

When you first see the ammonia, start testing for nitrites. When nitrites are seen, take out the shrimp skins and wait till you see nitrates.

When ammonia, nitrite and nitrate fall to zero, you are done and the bacteria will be in the tank also.

Don't do any vacuuming or filter cleaning for a few weeks until the tank stabilizes and REALLY clears up.