# Fishless cycle.



## F1 yellow (Aug 25, 2008)

Hello everyone,
yesterday i went to the hardware store
looking for pure ammonia to cycle my new tank
but i couldn't find the product
could anyone post some pictures of the products
you have used to cycle you tank or give me the
exact name please,
thank you in advanced.


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## BurgerKing (Jul 1, 2008)

i've never used chemicals in my tanks, i used already cycled water from other tanks, or put in random crappy fish like mollies, or something like that. Its good to have fish pooping in the water for cycleing


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## F1 yellow (Aug 25, 2008)

I cycle my first fish tank with fish but this time
i want to cycle Fishless.


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

A hardware store might not be the place to look for ammonia. I'd check Walgreens, CVS, or grocery stores. Even Dollar Stores tend to have the stuff, and the cheaper it is, the more likely it doesn't have detergents in there. I should say so on the bottle, however.

That being said, fishless cycling is an interesting science project, but it's necessary only for people who don't have access to a tank that's already running. I have several tanks in the house, and I did start my first one in Ohio with a fishless cycle. After that I simply grabbed filter media from an established tank and put it in the new one - done, ready cycled, and ready to be stocked!

If you have a good stock of bacteria, you can use a considerable smaller tank to get a larger one going. I used the media from my heavily stocked 29G to get my 125G going. But then the 125G was not fully stocked on day one, so the bioload might only have been double in the 125G or thereabouts. The bacteria make up for that quickly, as long as you have a good filtration system that provides them with plenty of oxygen.

Frank


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## F1 yellow (Aug 25, 2008)

Thanks fmueller i'll check all those places

one more question,
my brother has a cycle tank he has had this tank
for almost 2 years and he has 3 koi in there,
is it ok to use filter media from his tank?
and once i put it in my tank what do i have to do to
keep the beneficial bacteria alive?


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## nwagner (Jun 12, 2008)

I went to Ace Hardware and bought the Ace brand Ammonia which is labeled as 10% ammonium hydroxide (pure ammonia) even had them look it up on the MSDS sheet to make sure it was right. I did my fishless cycle with no problems using this.

Also even if you use media from a cycled tank it will still go through a cycle, even if it is a small one so just watch your parameters and test daily if your going to put fish in it.

I cycled my 65 with gravel from an existing 35 in the canister filter and it still took 8 days to fishless cycle using ammonia.

Waste, or ammonia is what keeps the bacteria alive. The bacteria feed off the ammonia.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

> Also even if you use media from a cycled tank it will still go through a cycle, even if it is a small one so just watch your parameters and test daily if your going to put fish in it.
> 
> I cycled my 65 with gravel from an existing 35 in the canister filter and it still took 8 days to fishless cycle using ammonia.


Same here. Using filter media (and I've done it several times) always takes about 8 days for me too.

I got my ammonia at Walmart, but not all across the country carry the same thing. Worth a try though.

It'll say:

_Great Value brand, "Clear Ammonia" all purpose cleaner.

Ingredients: water softener, ammonia, chelating agent._

on the bottle.


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

I use ace brand janitorial strength ammonia. It's pure ammonia, 15% concintrate. It worked out great for me. It ended up working out to be 1 drop per gallon to get me to 4 ppm. I cycled a 60 gallon tank in less than two weeks using established filter media from just a 20 gallon.


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## boredatwork (Sep 14, 2007)

BurgerKing said:


> Its good to have fish pooping in the water for cycleing


Haha, because poop produces...ammonia.



BurgerKing said:


> i've never used chemicals in my tanks


I always find this an amusing statement. Unless you use sterilized distilled water in your fish tank you have some amount of chemicals in your water. Even then you probably still have chemicals in your tank. So if you ever put water in your tank you are most likely adding chemicals. If you add dechlorinator to your tank you have chemicals in your tank. If you have fish in your tank they poop - and that adds chemicals to your tank. And who knows what else happens that introduces chemicals to your tank

I know what the intent of the statement was, but I always wonder why people can make some strange distinction between chemicals and chemicals. I don't think there is such a thing as an organic fish tank (which would still have chemicals in it...)

Just to make another point at the risk of being annoying. A cycle with fish is the same as a cycle without fish. The fish are not what makes the cycle. It is called a cycle because of the nitrogen cycle - thats is what you are trying to accomplish - setting up a complete nitrogen cycle. The nitrogen cycle has nothing to with fish but has everything to do with nitrogen. Nitrogen can be found in fish waste in the form of ammonia and can also be found in ammonia in the form of ammonia. Believe it or not the bacteria do not care where the nitrogen comes from. I am not sure why the idea exists that if you do fishless cycling you are doing one thing and cycling fish is doing something else.

But I will agree with the point made that fishless cycling is very hard to do (i.e. takes a reallllllly long time) without some media from an established tank. Trust me, I know. But its also not hard to get a big sponge from an established tank. Any LFS will be more than willing to make you pay for one of theirs.


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## nwagner (Jun 12, 2008)

Most fish stores will also give you some gravel from an established tank which can help the cycle time.


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

*boredatwork*

I am glad that you mentioned fish poop = ammonia, and obviously ammonia = ammonia. I agree with 99.99% of what you said. The only thing I disagree with is your statement about fishless cycling is very hard to do.

I find that fishless cycling is very easy. Its really not much more work than regular cycling. Its especially easy if you can work out the ratio as well as i was. I just put the ammonia in a dropper bottle. and tested using single gallons of water. For me it worked out to be 1 drop per gallon for me to get 4ppm. This made it very easy to keep the ammonia levels where i wanted them. for example. In my 60 gallon tank, if my readings were 1ppm ammonia and i wanted 4ppm. I would add 45 drops. simple enough. Sure taking readings is a part of it, but who doesn't have an extra couple minutes.

I do agree that it takes a long time when not using any established media, it will take just as long as a regular cycle.

However, using established media speeds the process up immensely. 
In about a week and a half I was able to fully cycle my 60 gallon to neutralize 4ppm of ammonia in 8 hours. I only used media from a 20g to seed the tank.

and again, thank you for pointing out how chemicals will always be in your tank from one source or another.


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## tyrone (Mar 20, 2003)

When using the media from an established tank do you need to squeeze out the gunk before adding it to the new tank along with some fish like mollies etc to start the cycle?


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

tyrone said:


> When using the media from an established tank do you need to squeeze out the gunk before adding it to the new tank along with some fish like mollies etc to start the cycle?


I would use media that was fairly clean. Gunk adds nothing but gunk. You want biomedia, not 
mechanical media full of gunk. Sometimes they're one in the same. Bacteria thrive on media with a 
good flow of oxygenated water. Media full of gunk may or may not provide a good environment for this 
bacteria. It'll still work, but I've never agreed with using media full of gunk. The ammonia or fish that you 
add will add all of the food for the bacteria that you need. The best media to use is biomedia that was
behind a strong prefilter so it contains no gunk at all. It'll have a lot more of the beneficial bacteria than
the gunky stuff and fewer potential 'baddies' that you really don't need or want since some disease 
organisms can thrive in such an environment. Bottom line, get some media from a well maintained 
filter. Not one that's cleaned every 6 months like some do with their canisters. But, that's another topic 
for another time.  If all you can get is 'gunky' then rinse it out in de-chlorinated water before adding it.
You don't need to squeeze anything out in the tank. The bacteria will migrate just fine. No harm if you do,
though.

Just my .02


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## tyrone (Mar 20, 2003)

Prov356 thanks that really cleared it out. I could also put some ceramic rings into my established tank to colonise some good bacteria.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

I've done that when knowing I've got a new tank to set up. Add some extra media to an established tank 
a few weeks before. If you can attach it near the outflow of the filter rather than just have it lying there or 
bobbing about, it may help. If there were room in the filter itself, that'd be ideal, but usually there isn't.


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## boredatwork (Sep 14, 2007)

Zack2112 said:


> I do agree that it takes a long time when not using any established media, it will take just as long as a regular cycle.


Yea I think I didn't make that clear and thats an important point. Theoretically the cycle takes just as long regardless of the method. In other words one method is not slower or faster than the other. Thats so important because I get the impression a lot of people think (as I previously said) that cycling with fish is faster. I think this is a psychological effect. When you have fish in the tank, even if they are just kamikaze fish, its seems like you are more successful then when you are nurturing a large water reservoir for 4 weeks.



Zack2112 said:


> The only thing I disagree with is your statement about fishless cycling is very hard to do. I find that fishless cycling is very easy. Its really not much more work than regular cycling.


I will still disagree with this - at least in my case. This may seem to contradict what I just said, but it doesn't.

When you use fish they do most of the annoying work for you. And when using fish you still have to check your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels to track the cycle but you certainly do not have to be as diligent.

When you do it yourself you introduce opportunity for human error. I took full advantage of those opportunities. I did several stupid things that messed me up. So I really do feel that fishless cycling CAN be a lot easier and go faster in some respect - or at least compared to my experience. Although I am also not very good at doing things right the first time so maybe I do not make a good example.

However, that said, I would still use fishless cycling and I certainly do recommend it.


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## F1 yellow (Aug 25, 2008)

i understand the Fishless cycle but all the suggestion
and discussion here made it very clear,
i will put my emperor 400 and a sponge in my brothers tank
for two week and after that i will start the new tank.


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