# How long is enough for the fishless cycle ?



## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Hi guys ^^ 

As I said yesterday when I became a member, my tank has been recycling for over a week now, but on the other hand, I don't know how long should the fishless cycle be. So How can I tell if the tank is ready? 

*c/p*


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Recycling?

I think fishless cycles can take close to a month, but some can be done in as little as a week. They are all different and it helps a lot if you have material from another tank to put in it.

What are you using for your source of ammonia?


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Well I got all of the old setup's gravel, which was a lot, and half the plants, because I lost some of them in the days I had no fish. I don really have a means of testing the ammonia, but do have ph and chlorine test kits, and they show 6.8 for ph and 5 for chlorine. 
Now if I play it by ear, the color of the water, the ph and all, I'd say the cycle is finished, because my plants are recovering their leaves from the initial impact.

What do you think ?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Chlorine test? If chlorine is present, it will kill off your beneficial bacteria. Did you condition your water? The only way to know if your cycle is complete is to do a ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate test. I'd get a kit.


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Yeah I know, but the kit is not available in my town, so I don't know what to do. Although through the years, I have never had one of those test kits and had no problems.
I can tell you this much: the bio media has gotten the right color already, and if I move the gravel and the water gets disturbed, the bio filter does a quick job clearing the water.
I think I'm gonna try with some guppies and se what happens don't you think ?


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## Amie (Sep 15, 2010)

Me personally, would not. But-it's your money and your fish. If you want to risk trowing both away that's also your choice. JR is right. If you are trying to cycle then you do need a test kit to find out for sure if it is done or not. If you can't buy one in your area you can order one on ebay or maybe aquabid. I would say that your tank is NOT done cycling in one week. Also, you need to keep the source of ammonia going. Old gravel is a great start (by the way-the gravel did not dry out did it?) but you need to add more on a regular basis. I did my fishless cycle by adding 1 piece of flake food per day so that there was a constant source of ammonia being added.


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

No, the gravel never got to dry because I had the old tank going until the day I filled the new one, which by the way has laterite under the gravel in order to have real nice plants (I already tried it on the old tank). Well when I say guppies is not the kind of guppies you think. Here in my country, we have guppies in any pond, but they are not those fancy guppies with a long colorful tail he-he; the ones I mean are those used to feed big fish, only problem would be that they withstand the most adverse water conditions (I've seen them in smelly ponds and wells breeding by the thousands). Those are the kind of guppies I am talking about. Remember that I live in a tropical country (Colombia), where that kind of fish is plentiful. Now getting the kit for me right now is kind of dificcult, due to domestic economy , so I would just have to wait for at least a month then. Maybe the guppy test would help a little, although the water I threw in was half rain/half tap, precipitated with a touch of aluminum sulfate, because my tapwater is hard as a rock, so I didn't wanna take any chances with it (my old tank had a really annoying calcium buildup), and I don't think there is going to be a problem.


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## Amie (Sep 15, 2010)

Can you take your water to the pet store and ask them to test it?? Most of them will. You could try that with the Guppys and at least it will add a constant source of ammonia to the tank to help the cycle. Then when finished you could just put them back where they came from. I think it's a sin to use them as feeder fish.


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Don't worry. I don't like fish that feed from other fish ^^. I would't do that ever! the guppies are keepers, as they are a nice species; I love to see them giving birth and all that. I'll get a few tomorrow, and I'll keep you guys posted.


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Ok guys, I took my chances, and at two weeks, finally put the following fish in the aquarium (I actually never did a fishless cycle):

4 Swordtails
3 Plecos
6 Zebras
2 Angelfish
1 Betta 
2 Corys
4 Tetras that look like axes (I don't know the english name for them) 


As I said, I never did a fishless cycle before, and so far, the fish are doing really well, not to mention the plants. The plecos have plenty of food from some kind of algae that are growing on my bogwood, and so are the swordtails. No complanis so far, and I will explain as follows the filter setup I got.

I took some 6 meters of electrical tubing (the one that looks like a spring and is made of pvc and looks green) and cut it in about 25 mm long pieces. I then made cuts across the sections of the pipe, every two sections, but diddn't cut all the way, so the pipe held itself together and still had plenty of space por the air to flow. 

I put all of these cut pieces inside a recycled washing machine pvc barrel, where at the bottom I had put three layers of filter cloth, and about two pounds of activated carbon. 
I put an eva foam with properly drilled holes, to separate the carbon from the cut pipes. 

Using my ols aquarium, y put some normal grey foam to separate the submersible pump from the filter's outlet, and filter the water a bit more. 

When I posted my first question the "cycle" had been going for about 9 days and the water was as clean as it could be. 

Today, (I'll upload some pictures) it looks well, all the plants are reproducing well and the fish are doing even better.


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## Amie (Sep 15, 2010)

Did you add all these fish together and how long ago up that?


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Hi Amy ^^

No, I put them there little by little, like in a period of two or three days, but they've been there for over a week now. As you can see on the photos I just uploaded, (which are about three days old) everything is fine. Actually What I did was to only wait until the water was clear and then I put the plants and then the fish. 

Under the gravel is a 2.5 mm layer of laterite, which the corys love to play with. 

:animated_fish_swimm


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

that is a very nice setup!I love the stand,very nice looking texture!Did you buy it or build it?


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Thanks he-he. I made it from scratch. What took me the longest was the filter, but there it is now


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## aQualung (Oct 20, 2010)

Amie said:


> Did you add all these fish together and how long ago up that?


Maybe all his old gravel and plants were enough to transition this fast?

Who knows but we can wait and see.

OP good luck on your new tank!


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

Ok guys: it's been over a month now. My fish population has grown a bit. The fish are doing fine so far.. I now got:

4 angelfish
3 plecos
4 swordtails
6 zebras
4 mollies
4 tetra hatchets (or something like that they are called in english)
2 corys
1 betta

The only problem so far, has been what seemed to be a fin rot in one of the angels, for which I just put it in isolation for 24 hours in saline water, and the problem is gone, although I found later that I was overfeeding them, and angel fish get very aggressive when you overfeed them (didn't know). They all changed their behavior a little because I now feed them only once a day. No way of sharing pics today but I think I will soon.

The question now is whether I do water changes or not. The test kits are definitely unavailable in my town. I can only control ph which has been stable at 7.0, and chlorine, which is zero. 

Any feedback ?


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## Amie (Sep 15, 2010)

How big is this tank again?


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## Nappy (Nov 24, 2010)

I got a 200 lt (50 Gal) tank. By the way, as you may have heard, here in my country it's been raining heavily, and I'm wondering if I coud use some of that rainwater for my tank ?


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## rtbob (Jul 18, 2010)

I would think if the rain water was collected directly (not as run off from a roof or anything else) in a CLEAN receptacle it would be okay. 

My self I would collect the water from the container very soon as to help prevent any type of contamination from parasites, bacteria or what ever. I would than store it in a clean container with a lid for future use.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Rain water is fine as long as its in a clean container.It can cause some fish to spawn.


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