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When doing a fishless cycle can you use ammonia and filter media?

4K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  Mikaila31 
#1 ·
I started using drops of ammonia to do a fishless cycle and then found someone willing to give me her old filter and some live plants tomorrow. Do I use all 3 (ammonia, old filter media, live plants) or a different combination?
 
#2 ·
If you get old used filter media added to your filter and put plants in, you're set. Let that run for a day or two, check your water parameters and start stocking, no ammonia needed.
Using used filter media is actually the safest & fasted way for new tanks!
 
#5 ·
If you are not going to add one or two fish,then yes you will need to add a couple drops of ammonia every other day to keep the bacteria (good kind) from borrowed material alive.
Must either be fish ,to produce ammonia through waste,or drops of ammonia.
Should you decide to use fish (one or two),, then I would do sizeable water change to remove the ammonia you have been adding. Then test the water a couple hours later for ammonia. If you get zero for ammonia,then you can add one or two small fish and they will then become source of ammonia for the bacteria in the borrowed filter material to feed on.
Is important to keep the borrowed filter material wet in aquarium water (NOT TAPWATER) while transporting it to your tank. Once fish or fishes have been added,feed sparingly and test the water each day to ensure that ammonia and nitrites do not become toxic. This should not happen if bacterial colony on filter material you borrowed stays wet and is moved quickly(within a few hours) from your friends tank to yours.
When ammonia and nitrites read zero and you detect NITRATES, then weekly water changes each week and not overfeeding or overstocking,,will provide you and your fish with many hours ,days,months,of enjoyment.

If you wish to wait until tank has matured before placing the fish in the tank, then once the borrowed material is placed in your tank, continue to add a couple drops of ammonia each day ,or every other day ,until ammonia and nitrites read zero, and NITRATES appear. Then do 70 to 80 percent water change using dechlorinator for new water .and add fish (not too many). Good Luck!
 
#6 ·
Just curious here...but if you're getting the needed filter media (bacteria), why do you NOT want to add fish now that you can?
 
#9 ·
That's why I explained up top that reusing old filter media is the safest & quickest way for doing that;-)
 
#8 ·
the tank will be fully cycled once you start using the old filter and plants, just make sure they stay wet during transfer.
 
#11 ·
If you have already spiked the tank with the used filter media you wanted to get, these readings will not go up the way they would cycling your tank alone.
 
#12 ·
Using mature media, will speed up a cycle and you can fully skip the cycling process at some times. However this depends greatly on how much mature media you receive and the about of bacteria it contains. It can be somewhat confusing. I would not be surprised if the mature media does not fully cycle the tank when doing a fishless cycle. You will experience a mini cycle of sorts levels may be weird for a few days and you may get a low ammonia spike and nitrite spike during a short period of time.

When trying to figure how far some mature media will get you, you need to look at the bioload of the tank. For an example we will say its 15 mollies. Next you need to consider the amount of media the tank has. For simplicity we will say there are 3 sponges in the filter. Bacteria is spread evenly in the filter and you can take 1/3 of a tanks media without harming its cycle. So you get one of the mature sponges, its safe to assume this sponge will be able to fully support 5 mollies or a similar bioload without mini cycling.

If you add it to a ten gallon tank it will cycle it. As the bioload of 5 mollies is more than a 10 gal usually holds even if you are doing a fishless cycle. If you add it to a 55gal it will not do the same. The 55gal could support 5 mollies or a similar bioload right away with the mature media and you can slowly increase it until the tank is fully stocked. The fishless cycle though will allow you to fully stock the tank once it is finished. If you try this with the mature media you will still experience a cycle.

Of course this is normally more confusing as tanks usually have many different kinds of fish and often you are stocking different fish and trying to estimate there bioloads compared to each other.:) Its confusing, but at least thats how I figure it out and cycle my tanks. I've never actually done a successful fishless cycle:oops:. I've had no problems setting up a brand new tank, putting rummy nosed tetras or GBR in it a few hours later, then adding some mature media from another tank an hour later.

With your media I would add enough ammonia to the tank to read 4ppm if this is gone within 9hrs(I think) and you have no nitrites, but you do have nitrates. Then I would consider it fully cycled. You may see no nitrite spike as the bacteria are already there. You only see a nitrite spike when you don't have enough bacteria. The food(nitrite) builds up because they can't eat it all. If it doesn't build up it means there are enough bacteria to eat all of it.
 
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