Hi Sabrina;
It looks lovely ,very happy for you ,as Steve said you can but some water in that and start your cycling nice and slow ,i guess it will take 4- 6 weeks without a heater ,also you will get to know your equipment in the mean time .
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Hi Sabrina;
It looks lovely ,very happy for you ,as Steve said you can but some water in that and start your cycling nice and slow ,i guess it will take 4- 6 weeks without a heater ,also you will get to know your equipment in the mean time .
Hi guys, thank you :D
I did end up filling it the other night, so its been running 3 days now. I changed my mind about the ammonia fishless cycle, I went with bottled bio booster instead. I have some Corydora catfish in there and despite the test results they seem very happy with all the space to swim in. Got my first reading of Nitrate yesterday, the ammonia and nitrite are stable in the tests, I have had the same reading 2 days in a row. Should I do a water change and how much water should I change at this stage? I have not done a water change yet because I'm using the bottled bio booster and didn't want to take out the good bacteria.
Attachment 21424
PH 7.6
HRPH 7.4
Ammonia 0.50
Nitrite 0.25
Nitrate 10
This morning I dosed with prime and the bio booster after the above test, I took the test before feeding..
I have removed the original bio grid in the HOB filter and replaced it with Bio Noodles as pictured. There is still the sponge and carbon grid in there, and yesterday I added extra sponge media in preparation for the Seachem Purigen to arrive, when it arrives I will be removing the carbon/sponge grid, leaving the spare sponge media + purigen + noodles in the HOB. I also have a giant Sponge filter on the left of the tank..
Attachment 21425
Attachment 21426
Any advice, suggestions at this stage would be great guys :)
In a rush to see fish in the tank you have made a mistake in my opinion Sabrina. The fish might look happy now, but the whole point of fishless cycling is not to let fish suffer in the time while the cycle is starting. Plus with adding of ammonia, you can increase the amount of ammonia to a level where your filters can handle bigger fish and more fish. In my opinion all of the off the shelf products to give you an instant cycle, don't... and give the user a false idea that they have a fully cycled filter.
Fishless is still the way
Remove the carbon.
Hi Hollowman,
Thank you for your response, I thought adding the Cories would also help in the cycle with the bottled bio booster, I didn't think they would be suffering due to the bio booster, should I remove them into my smaller tank?
By saying remove the carbon, do you mean right now? I don't have any of the Ammonia yet and cant get any until Tuesday. :(
Sabrina, it's just a case of doing it right first time and not rushing, as you said, you have lots of time.....to do it right. If you only have to wait until Tuesday for the ammonia then wait. Put the cories in your smaller tank where it will be easier to maintain them. The carbon will probably remove some of the bio stuff you are putting in so, yes out now.
Maintaining a fishless cycle is easy as you don't have to water change, unless things get way out, only towards the end of the cycle did I change the water as I remember.
Just have patience, ok
Hollowman, hello and thank you again..
Cories have been removed and so has the carbon grid.
Heating issues have happened, what should I do? I have it set on 26c and its holding at 28c.. Like right now its heating and the temp is showing 28.4c. Why is it going so high? It is a brand new heater. Calibrate it?
Attachment 21427
Attachment 21428
It is a 200 Watt heater, 182L tank..
It happens with heaters, it is good you have a separate themometer to test it. At least you know that it reads two degrees difference in the future.
Nice looking tank Sabrina