Fishless Cycling.

Hard too say if the nitirte->nitrate bacteria has formed but there must be some present.

What i would do is,do a water change try too get the nitrates down too 0ppm, then add your ammonia too get a level of 5ppm.

Let it go for 24hours, if the cycle is complete the ammonia should be zero, along with the nitrite but cause we cant test for this, you'll have too go by your nitrate readings.

After the 24 hours your ammonia is at 0ppm, your nitrates should be over 20ppm. Just as an estamite.

Let us know how you go.


Also kinda weird that you have a nitrate test kit and not a nitrite? Normally its the other way around.. :?

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Also kinda weird that you have a nitrate test kit and not a nitrite? Normally its the other way around..

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I ran out and so did my local LFS, to busy ( my wife says lazy) to drive elsewhere LOL

lets see if the cycle works, i will post

thanks mate

No probs, you cant really so anything wrong when doing a fishless cycle. As there are no fish too bare the mistake.

true true,

looking forward to adding soem fish now

we'll see tomorrow :wink:

I'm giving fishless cycling a go for the first time. I plan to use it a little differently though and wanted to get your collective thoughts.

I want to cycle a mini-reef setup that has 7 tanks with a wet/dry filter. As I am waiting for my stand to be built I'm going to cycle most of the bio-balls I intend to use in the wet/dry. I'm doing this by filling a 1200ltr/hr canister filter and running it on a separate tank. My plan is once the cycle is complete I'll tank the bio-balls out of the canister and put them into the wet/dry. PH and temp will be comparable (actually I'm going to run the spare about 7.5 and the mini reef at 7).

Is this a viable plan? anything I need to do differently?

Thanks.

that will work but undertand that only the canister will be ready at the end of the cycle

alot of your good bateria hang on the glass in the gravel on the structures in the tank,

you will need to give these items a chance to "catch up" later

the setup you discribed will speed up the process alot though, i have heard of alot of peolpe useing the same setup to install fish tanks in resteruants when they are the last thing to go in 48hours before grand opening. works well ( although they do add three or four well esthablished filters and cut them back over time, same principle)

Good to hear I haven't made a complete mess of it. My fish load will be relatively small and I will add water to the setup from established tanks and well as from the tap. I'll keep a close eye on the parameters hopefully it will do the job.

Thanks for the response.

i would still try and let the tank cycle for as long as possible

it may just make it easier, thats all :wink:

Hmmm...

I think about re doing the fishless cycle once the reef is setup, should be much faster. 90% w/c on 900ltrs is pretty hefty though.

I ended up transfering some of the biomedia to the reef and then minicycling it. I added 2 drops of ammonia until the nitrite went back to 0. It took 5 days. After another day I added 2 adults and 2 juvi's. It all worked really well and my plan is to continue to fishless cycle the remaining media in the spare tank and transfer it bit by bit as more fish are added.