so yesterday i bought my first real aquarium. until now i had two small goldfish tanks that were going well, but the fish got old and died. now i decided to get a big aquarium and do everything right this time.

only problem is i cannot decide how to cycle my tank before i get my fish. my friend has a tank with a few angelfish and some small tropicals and he cycled his for 4 weeks with a few zebra danios, and said he never had any problems with his fish dying off unexpectedly. however, being the impatient person i am, i read up on a way to cycle your tank in less than two weeks by adding pure ammonia to the tank daily until the tank has cycled. has anyone here tried the fishless method? does it really work? or is it easier/safer/worth it to just get some danios and cycle my tank with them?

any advice helps. thanks guys!

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29g planted, Eheim 2215 canister, Top Fin 150w heater.

Albino Cory x 4, Guppy x 8, Oto x 3, Bolivian Ram x 2

Welcome back to the hobby from retirement, so to speak

I've used the fishless method to establish four tanks and there's others on here who have done it more. I swear by it - it might require some patience, but in the end fishless is the way to go because then you have absolutely nothing to worry about except time.

Dosing pure ammonia is one way. To do this, get 100% pure unscented ammonia with no surfactants (sp?). If you can get your hands on some medical-grade, then you won't have to worry at all but most ppl can't. Getting the right dosing is important, and I've never dosed straight ammonia so I'm not sure what the dosages need to be.

Another way is to do daily doses of fish food. This takes marginally longer because you need to give the food time to break down and generate ammonia. Easier than straight ammonia, and the cheapest.

A third way (my preferred way) is to get a raw piece of seafood, stick it in a filter bag, and drop it in the tank. Kind of a fire-and-forget method, but it can make your tank smelly for awhile.

Adding things like used filter media (your local pet store might give you some of theirs, or let you buy it off them), or a mesh bag full of used aquarium gravel (that hasn't been sitting in storage for years - it needs to be fresh out of an aquarium) help seed your tank with nitrifying bacteria and will help move things along. Lastly, I use Tetra SafeStart on my tanks. It's a bacteria-in-a-bottle "tank starter" and I've had success with it, but many and more on here will tell you it's a waste. Just my personal methods though. I've had two verified successes with TSS where I cycled two tanks in under 10 days.

The other way is to use fish. For the sake of the fish's well being, I wouldn't do it. The advantage to a fishless cycle is it takes shorter and you don't have to worry about partial water changes every day to keep your fish from dying. Danios are tough, but when the ammonia or nitrite hit around 5 ppm (and they will, without water changes), the danios have a 50/50 survival rate.

Just my thoughts...

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

thanks for the help! how long does the fish food method take, do you know? i read somewhere that it takes over a month and can still not even provide sufficient ammonia to cycle the tank fully.

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29g planted, Eheim 2215 canister, Top Fin 150w heater.

Albino Cory x 4, Guppy x 8, Oto x 3, Bolivian Ram x 2

Always go fishless, using fish is cruel, they may not die but they will suffer, quickest is to use seeded gravel or filter media. I used fish food and it took about 6 weeks. If proprietary starters work use them, I did. Just make sure you test daily and please don't be tempted to add your fish too soon. The other advantage of using fish food is you can add plants when you set the tank up.

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Chris
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Fish food will probably take longest (up to 2 months), and straight ammonia will be the shortest, but more involved.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

how much do testing kits cost usually, and what kind of kit do i need? i want to try it with straight ammonia, i reeeeally want my fish! (:

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29g planted, Eheim 2215 canister, Top Fin 150w heater.

Albino Cory x 4, Guppy x 8, Oto x 3, Bolivian Ram x 2

Only know Australian prices, get an API master test kit, avoid test strips, they are notoriously inaccurate. Not cheap but a must. Don't rush it or you will have dead or sick fish

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Chris
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API test kit costs about 25 bucks and lasts quite a while

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

Read up on how to do a fishless cycle with ammonia. It is not just throwing in ammonia and its magically done. Very easy to do but requires that you dose like you are supposed to and test daily and track what is going on. If you are not familiar with the nitrogen cycle, I would recommend reading up on that as well. It cannot be done effectively with strips, if you're tempted to buy them. I have heard of people doing it in a week to 10 days, but there are some that have gone 6 weeks or more. It doesn't matter what anyone has done before, they are ALL different. Get your friend to give you some of his gravel to help you.

If you want to go with plants, you could add a lot of plants, get them established and then slowly add fish - takes discipline. Also known as a silent cycle.

I'm doing a fishless cycle now, and it looks like it's going to take around 5 weeks. Every tank is different. My other tank, I'm doing a silent cycle with fish and plants. The plants act as a filter to keep ammonia and nitrates low, but I was able to have fish right away. My nitrates have never gotten above 5ppm. You can see in my signature what I have had in this tank since the first week of cycling. Never saw nitrates before the 4th week, never have seen ammonia or nitrites ever

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20 gallon long:Amazon Swords, Ruffle Swords, Red Flame Swords, Fanwort, Wisteria,8 Lemon tetras,
6 otos, 11 Amano shrimp, 3 mystery snails, 3 Bolivian Rams, 3 black skirt tetra and 2-3 lemon tetra fry
10 gallon: 30 lemon tetra fry, give or take...1 gallon Anubias, Fish: 1 betta

guys, i just bought some ammonia, the only kind my local shaw's had. it says it has surfactants, is this really a big deal? i read up on them, they just lower the surface tension of the ammonia. is this okay to use to cycle the tank or do i really need to go find a different type of ammonia?

if so, do you guys know where i could buy some?

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29g planted, Eheim 2215 canister, Top Fin 150w heater.

Albino Cory x 4, Guppy x 8, Oto x 3, Bolivian Ram x 2

The lower surface tension could affect the bacteria's ability to break it down,

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55 gallon FW community
20 gallon Goldfish
10 gallon firebelly toad

I bought some ammonia from Ace hardware when I cycled my tank. I don't know if you have an Ace hardware in your area, but what I bought said "Ammonia, Janitorial Strength Formula". As long as it does not contain any detergents or scents you should be fine.

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75 Gallon Planted

I bought mine from Ace Hardware too. They have a janitorial strength...10% ammonia with no surfactants.

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20 gallon long:Amazon Swords, Ruffle Swords, Red Flame Swords, Fanwort, Wisteria,8 Lemon tetras,
6 otos, 11 Amano shrimp, 3 mystery snails, 3 Bolivian Rams, 3 black skirt tetra and 2-3 lemon tetra fry
10 gallon: 30 lemon tetra fry, give or take...1 gallon Anubias, Fish: 1 betta

As far as testing kits go, there's two main types, and here's my thoughts on each:

Test Strips:
Pros: Cheap, easy, and fast.
Cons: Not cost effective, not very accurate.

Liquid test/drip test/liquid titration kits:
Pros: VERY cost effective, accurate (easy to read levels, and more precise)
Cons: Expensive initial cost ($35 at PetsMart), time-consuming and fairly involved testing procedures.

We here generally recommend the API Master Freshwater Test Kit, and here's some pros and cons I've encountered with it:
Pros: Glass tubes don't discolor and are easy to wash out, Pet Supplies - Pet Supply Store - Pet Products | PetMountain.com sells more test tubes too, tests for pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Same website sells test kits for GH and KH as well, which I would strongly recommend.
Cons: Glass tubes might shatter if you're not careful. Ammonia test kit gives a 0.25 ppm false reading sometimes (might be that it detects ammonium as well or something like that).

Other liquid test kits are made by SeaChem and Salifert. I have no experience with them, however.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!