Hi,

Just starting my first aquarium, a 16 gallon bow front... I've read a lot about the nitrogen cycle and I am aware that it make take some time. I am really looking forward to adding fish to my aquarium but want to make sure the cycle is complete before I do so. I am seeking everyone's impression and advice on the use of bacteria supplement (live bacteria), as it seems to be the quickest way to establish the cycle.


thanks
numchuk lansing

You have to cycle your tank properly. You can't just drop in live bacteria and have a cycled tank. IF you can find a supplement that has LIVE bacteria in it, it can help, but it won't replace the cycling process.

To help the cycle, you can get 2 good handfuls of gravel from an established tank. Put each handful into a nylon stocking. Put one in the bottom of your filter - being at the bottom will push the bacteria up into your media - and put one on the floor of your tank. If you can, try to get some established filter media from someone's tank that you can put in your filter along with your media as well. This seed material (filter media and gravel) will help to seed your tank with good bacteria and give your cycle a boost. You can also use decorations from an established tank too - just make sure none of the seed material dries out between the established tank and your tank, or the good bacteria dies.

Cycling using fish usually takes 6-8 weeks, since you have to do water changes to make sure the ammonia doesn't get so high that it kills the fish. Doing a fishless cycle tends to be a little faster (not always, but usually - I had one take only 4 weeks and one that I screwed up took 8 weeks,) because you don't change any water and can dose the ammonia higher than you could if you had fish in the tank. When you do a fishless cycle, you can also add a few more fish when the cycle's done than you could if you cycled with fish. You still can't fully stock immediately, but can add a few more than you normally would at first.

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

Adding alot of plants first, you can introduce more fish sooner, even right away. Your tank does what's called a "silent cycle". I did that on my 20 gallon long, and never did get an ammonia or nitrate reading, with 7 fish in the tank. Last friday, I finally got some nitrates, but not near enough to hurt the fish and I now have 14 fish in there...

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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

The most important part of establishing a nitrogen cycle in a tank is you need a source of ammonia - be it a piece of rotting raw seafood from the grocery store, daily doses of flake food or even daily doses of straight ammonia. If the bacteria you want to inhabit your tank have nothing to feed on, addition of bacteria is useless, they will just starve and die.

With that being said, I have had success with Tetra SafeStart bacteria-in-a-bottle tank starter stuff. With a piece of seafood and TSS, I have successfully cycled 2 tanks in under 10 days. But that's just me - there will be many and more who say any bacteria-in-a-bottle solution is a waste of money. It's up to you to determine if it's worth your while.

Just my thoughts....

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

It never hurts to add it in. Results may vary. Just don't add without an ammonia source already in the tank or it will be the same as throwing your money in the garbage.

The guy at the store said to just add that stuff and wait a week. it didn't click at the time that what he said didn't make any sense. later that day i decided to add fish flakes to the tank as the source of ammonia. tested the water yesterday and already had some nitrates, along with small amount of ammonia but no nitrites. will not be introducing fish until i do a few more days worth of tests. planted some plants yesterday and i imagine that may affect the cycle as well.

Indeed, plants will dull the cycle a bit. Plants can utilize the nitrogen in ammonia (NH4+) and nitrite (NO2-) much easier than in nitrate (NO3-), so they will soak up a good portion of the ammonia and nitrite. Glad to hear you're seeding the cycle with supplement and a source of ammonia.

If there's too much bacteria and not enough food, some bacteria will die off and generate ammonia which will help the other bacteria.

I would give it at least a solid week (you can decide whether to test or not) before you test and make a determination about whether to add fish. Though you might have created a cycle at the moment, the system is still very unstable and might crash or go through some mini cycles before everything stabilizes to the point that you can add fish.

Just my thoughts...

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

I did what Holly described in her post and I had a fully cycled tank in 2 and a half weeks. If you decide to fishless cycle you can also up the temperature and increase the aeration which will boost the metabolism of the bacteria thus giving the cycle a boost. I have used the bacteria additives as well but in my experience they aren't really good at helping the cycle along. The type I was using was Nutrafin Cycle. I found it useful if I wanted to boost the bacteria in a tank that had already completed the cycling process, for instance, I had added 4 new mollies to my quarantine tank that up to that point only had guppy fry in and the filter could not handle the increased bio load at once, the NH3 and NO2 had both spiked to 0.5ppm within 24 hours, I added some "cycle and the NH3 and NO2 was back to 0 within an hour or two.

So the bacteria additives can be helpful but not in establishing a whole new cycle at once.

The cheaper quicker option is still to get the gravel/filter media from established tank and then increase temperature slightly and increase aeration.

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45g pentagonal
4 Swordtails, 2 dwarf Gouramis, 5 Mollies, 1 Rainbow Shark, 6 Molly fry 6 zebra danios

88 gal Malawi tank
4 Yellow labs, 1 Baenshi, 2 Borleyis, 3 Trewavas, 2 Livingstonis, 1 Venustus, 2 Green Terrors

I agree with the comment below. I did a careful test of several bacteria supplements and the only one that worked acceptably was Tetra SafeStart. It did the job.

Cycling doesn't always go as planned, so be patient. I had several tanks cycle quickly, then had one that took forever. I have no idea why it was different, and I think that happens a fair amount to people. Not an exact science for some reason.

Do not be in a hurry to introduce fish. Transplanting is stressful enough without nasty water to cope with.