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none fish cycling

hixy

Member
Joined
14 Nov 2007
Messages
232
Location
stourbridge west midlands
Hello folks i started cycling my aquarium about a month ago and it is taking ages to cycle,i still have a small trace of nitrite and the ammonia is going through the roof any idea on how long this is going to take.The tank is a fluval roma 125 and the filter is a eheim 2229 wet and dry filter,I am adding ammonia chloride every day not measuring it just tipping a little in every day ,


cheers mick
 
you need to measure and test. Dose ammonia to 4 ppm maximum and wait for it to reach 0. Before adding more. Fishless cycling is the best way. Well done.
 
how much ammonia is in the tank? Too much can stall your cycle. What is your nitrate figure? What temperature is your tank water? if your ammonia is over 4 ppm i would do a 50 percent water change. This will also introduce minerals to help the cycle.
 
I think your tank temperature is too high. It should be set to around 22-26 degrees. Im thinking anything that high would kill the bacteria that you are trying to establish. I could be wrong though.
 
i cycled my tank at 4 ppm ammonia. It took just over two weeks. Do a 50 percent water change with dechlorinated water and then retest.
 
Hi all,
I'd stop adding the ammonium chloride particularly if you are just tipping it in. I'm not keen on adding ammonia at all. I don't see any benefit to it, and think that it is probably actively damaging in the planted tank. If you have plants, "cycling" just isn't relevant.

If you plant the tank, and then leave it until the plants are growing actively with a large biomass and you have some biofilm and periphyton, you don't need to cycle it. A planted tank is never really cycled in the conventional way (although an un-planted tank would be). You could definitely overwhelm even this system, with a substance with a very high BOD (or by introducing a truly huge fish load in one go).

Plants are very efficient as biological filters, and as long as you can supply sufficient oxygen (not a problem when the plants are actively photosynthesising) they have the ability to assimilate very large amounts of nitrogenous "waste".

Have a look at these posts for some more discussion, particularly Clive's ("ceg4048") posts in the first thread:
<http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=10572>
<http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=18200&hilit=fishless+cycling+Darrel&start=10>
<http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17590&p=180865>

cheers Darrel
 
on the subject of fish in cycling- i know the damage it can do to a fish and the legacy it creates. Even nearly 20 years later, the evidence is all too clear. it is not big, And it really is not clever.
 
darren636 said:
on the subject of fish in cycling- i know the damage it can do to a fish and the legacy it creates. Even nearly 20 years later, the evidence is all too clear. it is not big, And it really is not clever.

Did you read any of the 3 threads posted by Darrel on page 1? :thumbup:

When I first saw this thread I thought, here we go again. Fishless cycling may have it's place but it's place is not in a planted tank.
 
Hi all,
Every-one is entitled to their opinion. I think the thing we all agree on is that it just isn't acceptable to deliberately place any fish in an environment where we know there may be toxic levels of ammonia (NH3) or nitrite (NO2). I'd like to think that I have enough understanding of the biological processes in the tank to make sure that I don't ever do this.

I only keep planted tanks, this is because I am convinced that the single factor that has the most positive effect on water quality is actively growing plants. However I've not managed to convince every-one, as this post from the BCA forum shows. <http://www.britishcichlid.org.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=5904&start=10>

cheers Darrel
 
Just had a read of that thread.

They introduce just as many problems as they solve in the tank.

Maybe they have difficulty in growing plants?

There are always going to be people on either side of the fence and some sitting on it not knowing which way to go.

For me, a newly setup planted tank, does not want ammonia dosing into it for obvious reasons.
 
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