# Can't decide–*fishless cycle or fish-in cycle?



## ro laren (May 3, 2012)

I just set up a 29 gallon tank- arranged rocks and gravel and filled it up last night. I have a bottle of 10% ammonia from Ace hardware; I have an API liquid test kit; I have done a lot of research on how to do the fishless cycle.
But I am not sure I can face the prospect of the better part of a month with no fish in the tank. This aquarium has been so long in coming that my patience has nearly run out.
I think want to stock the tank with Sterba's cory cats, celestial pearl danios, and endlers livebearers. 

Options: 
1. I've read that the Sterba's cory cat is fairly hardy. Does anyone think that they would survive a fish-in cycle if I picked up a couple tomorrow? 
2. Or should I just grit my teeth and start a fishless cycle?
3. Or, should I pick up a zebra danio from petsmart and use it to do the fish-in cycle instead? (And how many do i need to use?) I really don't want a zebra danio permanently. Do you think they'll take it back after my cycle is complete?


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## Manafel (Sep 4, 2011)

I would do a fishless cycle, for a few reasons:
1. you won't have any fish deaths/suffering
2. you won't have to do as many water changes, BECAUSE there aren't any fish
3. all around, I think it is less stressful to do a fishless cycle


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## Brendalynn23 (May 1, 2012)

I agree with PP. I had fish when it cycled and it was frustrating and depressing watch my fish die one after another until it was all done. My tank is healthy now and my fish are as well but I lost almost all my original fish. That sucked.


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## bigcountry10 (Sep 24, 2011)

Go Fishless !!!
I have been putting my 40 gallon together literally for a year this past April, when i had it done and ready to go in April I was like you, just itching to get something in there. But I was patient and did the fishless cycle, and have had an entire month to plan things out, plus i put some of my plants in so they could start getting situated. I know it seems like a long time, but it's really not. plus you can have that extra month to save up a few more dollars to buy some more fish.


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## ro laren (May 3, 2012)

Yes I think you're all correct. We don't have the money to lose my fish in the cycle and have to restock. And it would be depressing to lose the poor things to ammonia or nitrate poisoning. *sigh* time to dose the tank with ammonia.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Well, some will say to just plant heavily and stock slowly and you won't have to worry. True, but does require a little bit of discipline. Even though I am a planted tank person and have them in all of my tanks, I still think that the fishless cycle is the ONLY worry-less, issue-less, form of cycling a tank. I may have to spend 30sec conducting some form of test most days, but that is not an issue for me. Not stressing the fish in any possible way is. JMO.


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

I vote for planted.


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## ro laren (May 3, 2012)

> Well, some will say to just plant heavily and stock slowly and you won't have to worry. True, but does require a little bit of discipline.


I think that was the other clincher for me– I don't want to stock, like, a fish a week. I have no other tank to house newly-purchased fish in, so I would end up having to drive to the shop (25 minutes freeway driving away) every week for my next fish. Whereas as I understand it, if I do the fishless cycle properly, I can stock a bit more fish at a time.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Thats cool. Planted is safer than not, but not the safest. Just comes down to your personal comfort level.


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## ro laren (May 3, 2012)

> Thats cool. Planted is safer than not, but not the safest. Just comes down to your personal comfort level.


I am thinking of planting the bottom with HC. I can only afford to buy one for now, they're a bit pricey at $5 for a small plant. I can divide it up though. I'd like it to carpet eventually but have only fish-friendly lighting right now, not plant lights. I also have a couple of sword-type plants and a large moss ball– how would those things affect my cycle? Would they slow it down by taking ammonia away from the bacteria? if so, i'll wait till my tank cycles....


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

I still contend that 90% of fish losses during the cycle are poor quality fish from pet stores conbined with inexperienced purchasers, and not ammonia, In a reasonable sized tank with 3-4 fish per 20 gallons and a good water change schedule, the fish will not suffer and the project will move along nicely. You may even learn to like a lightly stocked tank, which would be a good step for most hobbyists, and you willl get used to a good water change regime. 
I just don't ever lose fish during the cycling of the tank. I get my fish from local breeders or through a wild source importer, which generally means they start healthy, and I always try to stock lightly, even in established tanks. 
So I'd suggest a slow starting fish in cycle. Take your time and begin with the endlers.
Corys are very sensitive fish.


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## ro laren (May 3, 2012)

> So I'd suggest a slow starting fish in cycle. Take your time and begin with the endlers.
> Corys are very sensitive fish.


Good to know. I'll get the endlers first. Thanks...


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

ro laren said:


> I am thinking of planting the bottom with HC. I can only afford to buy one for now, they're a bit pricey at $5 for a small plant. I can divide it up though. I'd like it to carpet eventually but have only fish-friendly lighting right now, not plant lights. I also have a couple of sword-type plants and a large moss ball– how would those things affect my cycle? Would they slow it down by taking ammonia away from the bacteria? if so, i'll wait till my tank cycles....


Before you go and buy HC, read up on its care requirements. It can be tough and has specific lighting, fert, substrate, and/or CO2 requirements. Can be grown without CO2, but everything else has to be right.


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## Crazy (Mar 1, 2012)

Honestly, unless you have the time and supplies/expertice needed to do a fish in cycle of any manner you need to stick with fishless. There is no point in cycling a tank just to watch fish die as it happens. A fish in cycle requires daily PWC's and a constant eye on everything.


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

CrazyMFFM said:


> Honestly, unless you have the time and supplies/expertice needed to do a fish in cycle of any manner you need to stick with fishless. There is no point in cycling a tank just to watch fish die as it happens.* A fish in cycle requires daily PWC's and a constant eye on everything*.


I beg to very strongly disagree.

when you start a tank planted, wait a week, add a small bioload, don't add food for a week, then stock up the tank and start very light feedings, you don't have to do anything else. No testing, no water changes, nothing. Just replace the water that evaporates. 

No ammonia nor nitrItie spikes result with no stress to any of the fish.

my .02


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## Crazy (Mar 1, 2012)

beaslbob said:


> I beg to very strongly disagree.


Bob what part of not for beginners don't you understand? The OP already said he can't get a whole lot of plants, therefor he cannot plant to a level to make the tank safe (silent cycle). Try reading a thread before you put your overpriced two cents in. All you are doing is making yourself look like an idiot, again.


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

CrazyMFFM said:


> Bob what part of not for beginners don't you understand? The OP already said he can't get a whole lot of plants, therefor he cannot plant to a level to make the tank safe (silent cycle). Try reading a thread before you put your overpriced two cents in. All you are doing is making yourself look like an idiot, again.


Ro Laren already has sword type plants in there and a large moss ball already. and is thinking of getting some HC as well.

Ro Laren:

I think you will find $10 worth of anacharis bunches will make all the difference. Just spread them out at the back of the tank. Hopefully you will see a very surprizing rapid ammonia decrease.


my .02


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## Crazy (Mar 1, 2012)

Ro Laren, I think you would do best to stick with a fish out cycle as the majority of this thread has voted in the interest of your fish's health. However you are free to do what you wish, but I urge you to do research into proposed 'alternate' methods.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

Both systems work and both are perfectly fair for fish. One small fish for 5-10 gallons for a slow start will not die, and partial water changes twice a week are perfect in a cycle. 
I don't get the fish suffering or dying observation. I have never seen this outside of tanks people have stocked heavily from the get go. Give me a bare 30 gallon with brand new equipment and I will bring 3-4 healthy fish through the cycle with minimum effort and inconvenience to them and to me. It's easy as long as you can go with 3-4 small fish for several weeks. 
At a wholesaler's, where 100 fish can go into a raw tank and all losses are expensive, you would do daily 50% changes. In a decent sized tank, the story is different.
Bob's approach is different from mine because he has his own system. He uses no dechlorination, no filtration, no water movement and no water changes, an approach to fishkeeping I strongly disagree with. But the fishless cycle is an experiment that has been documented to work as well as the fish in cycle with low stocking does. Both are based on time and patience.


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## ro laren (May 3, 2012)

> Before you go and buy HC, read up on its care requirements.


Thanks Jr- I love the way the stuff looks and I had read it needs tech to thrive but I wanted to believe I could do it. But I've decided to plant some Pygmy chain sword instead.... I can do that with low light, right?


> All you are doing is making yourself look like an idiot, again.


That seems a bit far, Crazy.


> Both systems work and both are perfectly fair for fish. One small fish for 5-10 gallons for a slow start will not die, and partial water changes twice a week are perfect in a cycle.
> I don't get the fish suffering or dying observation. I have never seen this outside of tanks people have stocked heavily from the get go. Give me a bare 30 gallon with brand new equipment and I will bring 3-4 healthy fish through the cycle with minimum effort and inconvenience to them and to me. It's easy as long as you can go with 3-4 small fish for several weeks.


Thanks very much Navigator. I might have decided to stock 3 endlers right away if I'd read your original reply before dosing my tank to 4ppm ammonia. As things stand I decided to go fishless so I could stock the tank a little quicker (not just adding a fish or 2 a week).
Anyways, sorry I lost track of this thread, I didn't realize there had been new posts. Such exciting ones, too....lol


> Bob's approach is different from mine because he has his own system. He uses no dechlorination, no filtration, no water movement and no water changes, an approach to fishkeeping I strongly disagree with.


I disagree with those things too, but I totally see that the fish-in cycle when lightly stocked and lightly fed is not the raging animal abuse that it has been described in many instances.


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## zero (Mar 27, 2012)

ive always done fish in cycles and havnt had any deaths. im with navigator on this


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Like anything else, just how you prefer to do it. IMO, fish-ins are better for experienced aquarists that know what to do when the water starts getting dangerous.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

In many ways, reading the the cycle has taken on a life of its own in aquaristic circles, and become an orthodoxy. The idea of stocking lightly and letting the cycle work though is an old one - smart fishkeepers have been doing it for decades. The fishless cycle appeared as a way of illustrating how the cycle worked, and early references to it were as a chemistry experiment to teach why respect for low stocking at the outset was important. 
Test kits started becoming popular around that time, and suddenly, water testing was really in. Originally, the testing was for pH, but that fell out of fashion and the emphasis shifted to ammonia/nitrate etc.
It's all fun, but if you lock into a routine, do water changes before they are desperately needed, at least once or twice a week, stock intelligently and with thought, and watch your fish, test kits are unnecessary. I admit, I have kept fish for 45 years and my views are coloured by experience - I see problems quickly. But with regular water changes, even in new tanks, I have no problems to see. I haven't owned a test kit in years, for anything other than water hardness and the odd pH test out at a river somewhere.

It drives me crazy when someone posts a description of a well-known parasitic or bacterial infection, and people immediately start telling him/her to test the water. It's as if decades of learning and observation of disease are out the window to be replaced by colour coded test strips. It's nice for the pet shops, as they don't get blamed for their increasingly lower quality stock. No one is talking about start up fish deaths from bad fish farming practices, over use of antibiotics in raising fish, hormonal manipulation of sex ratios and colour, the effects of inbreeding and hybridization on our fish, etc. We'd all be better off taking a bit of time to learn the external symptoms of fish disease so that we could make good purchases, rather than learning the colours on testing cards.

If your tank is properly set-up and maintained from the get go, no one needs an API master test kit. If it's fun to use one, enjoy.


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## zero (Mar 27, 2012)

ive been putting togeather a disease booklet type thing for my own reference, is there any good websites you know of where i can find information for more in depth reading?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

navigator black said:


> In many ways, reading the the cycle has taken on a life of its own in aquaristic circles, and become an orthodoxy. The idea of stocking lightly and letting the cycle work though is an old one - smart fishkeepers have been doing it for decades. The fishless cycle appeared as a way of illustrating how the cycle worked, and early references to it were as a chemistry experiment to teach why respect for low stocking at the outset was important.
> Test kits started becoming popular around that time, and suddenly, water testing was really in. Originally, the testing was for pH, but that fell out of fashion and the emphasis shifted to ammonia/nitrate etc.
> It's all fun, but if you lock into a routine, do water changes before they are desperately needed, at least once or twice a week, stock intelligently and with thought, and watch your fish, test kits are unnecessary. I admit, I have kept fish for 45 years and my views are coloured by experience - I see problems quickly. But with regular water changes, even in new tanks, I have no problems to see. I haven't owned a test kit in years, for anything other than water hardness and the odd pH test out at a river somewhere.
> 
> ...


I don't necessarily disagree with anything you said, but I will say this....

A fishless cycle was sold to me as a *fast* way to be through the cycle and move on to the point where I could safely keep fish. Fast because you could drive ammonia levels in the 4-5ppm range and not worry about harming anything and not have to worry about water changes. There have been people that have successfully done it in a week to 10 days. I didn't do it to save any fish, but it seemed (and it was) a better method compared to the fish-in cycle that I had just gone through. If I could do fishless and then stock as I please (according to my tank size of course) and not have to worry so much about super slow stocking, light feeding, etc...why wouldn't I? Not that these aren't good practices to learn, but neither is so critical in a tank that has cycled. I did a fishless cycle on a 125g tank that took just shy of 4weeks and once it completed I stocked it with 85 fish the first day (mail order fish) and never even saw a trace of ammonia or nitrite. The bio system was conditioned to the point it could be dosed to 4ppm ammonia and be gone in about 30 hours. The method was worth it to me and that is what really mattered.

I personally believe that a fishless cycle is perfect for a new aquarists. Simply because all of the things you mention above that says....discipline. If you know any new aqaurist that has that trait, let me know. Very few come here and try to attain knowledge before they stock, some get advice here and still take the store's advice that leads them down a road hard to recover from for their fish.

I know someone that I have talked to about my fish for a couple of years now, talked to them about the right things to do, and how bad store advice is, and would you know they still got talked into 2 Guppies and 2 Platies in a vase-like "tank" that may hold about 18oz? Granted, even talk of a fishless cycle will not help that instance but it shows how new aquarist are too excited about stocking their tanks and not want to do anything slow...of those that get advice first, decent advice, before going out and starting off with too many too fast. 

Are fish deaths from bad stock? Possibly. Nonetheless, most of us are stuck with what we have and certainly just starting out, it is highly unlikely that alternatives would be known. If the stock is weak, isn't this more a bolster to test or do a fishless? More of reason? Because maybe the fish are genetically weak to start with and maybe not able to handle even low levels of ammonia or nitrites? Seems like testing and weak fish so to speak, would go hand in hand. Or, one necessitate the other. Could be wrong but it at least would seem logicial to me.

A test kit is a tool. Just like tools that you use to work on a car, you may like old fashioned wrenchs to do your bolt/nut work, but I may like ratchet/socket to do mine. Point is, tools are tools and peoeple use them in their own ways. It is a choice to own a test kit and if it is never used....it's a $25 loss. No biggie and may be needed one day. When you got started, there was no such thing as a test kit and you learned the old way. If they were around like today, your mind set could be totally different. Not wrong, just different. I own a test kit. I use it to test ph more than anything, but have had one of my tanks go cloudy once and tested my tap with almost 2ppm ammonia. How would I have known without it, especially doing about 75% water changes on my tanks per week and bringing in all that ammonia to my tanks?

When it all comes down to it, if a person _*wants*_ to do a fishless cycle that is their choice. You cannot without testing of their water say that a fish-in cycle is just as safe. One thing is for sure and *absolutely * certain, a fishless cycle will not harm anything. I don't think that anyone should ever try to talk them out of it if they simply just don't want to take a chance. You cannot fault someone for being too careful or at least wanting to be.

Not an argument, but I think we spend way too much time telling people they don't have to. Maybe it is true, but maybe not for someone new and anxious to get going and seeing lots of sh+t swimming in their tanks.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

beaslbob said:


> I beg to very strongly disagree.
> 
> when you start a tank planted, wait a week, add a small bioload, don't add food for a week, then stock up the tank and start very light feedings, you don't have to do anything else. No testing, no water changes, nothing. Just replace the water that evaporates.
> 
> ...


I do like when someone that claims to never test, says you don't need to test. What is that based off of? Your experience? I would assume so. However, everyone's experience is different.

Can the fish live through a spike if there is one? Maybe. If I put my hand around my cat's throat and squeeze to the point I restrict some air and make it hard to breathe, the cat could live like that for weeks....but was it something I needed to do with an alternative to it? Point is, just because your fish lived through your methods doesn't make them any better than those mentioned by Crazy. You would never know if you needed to do a water change due to a spike, or ever done a water change to begin with. Your opinion doesn't really hold weight.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

beaslbob said:


> Ro Laren already has sword type plants in there and a large moss ball already. and is thinking of getting some HC as well.
> 
> Ro Laren:
> 
> ...


You need to do some more of your famous testing and I am sure you will debate the results I am about to give you....

Plants will not suck up ammonia nearly as fast as you think. Not even close. I have done a planted, fishless cycle. My tanks had established and plants growing very well in my shrimp tank and was just going to add my shrimp when I decided to add ammonia first. I dosed to 2ppm (low amount) and it sat at that value for over a week...closer to 10 days. Not arguing whether or not plants consume ammonia, but the uptake is much slower than you think, and even slower if the tank is a low light tank. Mine is a medium lighting tank.

A cycled planted tank will dissipate ammonia nearly instantly but the majority of that action is done through the beneficial bacteria, not the plants.


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