cycling the tank

[duncanl36@yahoo.com.sg]

what happens if you don't cycle the tank?

[teebs]

what happens if you don't cycle the tank?

If you really SUPER DUPER lucky. without cycling, your ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and phosphates are 0, then nothing will happen...

[onizukaa]

if dont cycle the tank, if you're keep alot of fishes, prepare few plastic bag to throw them away.

[duncanl36@yahoo.com.sg]

if dont cycle the tank, if you're keep alot of fishes, prepare few plastic bag to throw them away.

is there a very fast way to cycle your tank?

[raydiative]

is there a very fast way to cycle your tank?

patience is key my friend... you wun want to regret not cycling your tank in future... =]

[onizukaa]

buy live rock.

buy live sand

dose bacteria

wait for 1 month doing the ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate test

you can enjoy few years of stable tank and not regret

1) Wasting $$ to let the fishes die

2) Enjoy/relax knowing that the fitration is good

[yikai]

one of the most important aspects of starting a new tank is CYCLING. regardless of how old ur rocks, sand everything are. if you have no patience to cycle, you most likely will not have patience for anythign else in the rest of ur reefing journey. take this cycling period as a mental test of ur patience.

u want to cycle hours, days, weeks, up to you. the longer the better. Not only will cycling longer help to stablalise ur tank, it will give chance and time for beneficial liveforms to proliferate on ur rocks and tank. beneficial pods and macroalgae will grow during the time u choose to wait.

[HellBliss]

yea.. i cycled my tank for 1 month+ although ammonia and nitrite were always 0 when i test for them. this way bacteria has a chance to stablise and form according to ur system. and also sometimes organisms on rocks dun die immediately but after a few days. tts why cycling do not take HOURS but at least 1-2 weeks.

[albinosage]

If you really SUPER DUPER lucky. without cycling, your ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and phosphates are 0, then nothing will happen...

That's actually bad advice. If I have an empty tank, and don't cycle it, all pollutants will be zero too. In fact the first couple days of cycling, very likely to be zero too.. some newbies will actually test on day 2, see a zero on their test kit, then take that as a sign that their tank is super bullet proof tok kong, and go throw in 10 fishes the following day.

It actually worries me that for every newbie responsible enough to seek out advice, there could be 10 or more who silently don't have the patience to do things the right way.

what happens if you don't cycle the tank?

Anyway, I'm not fishing for praise or a "well done" when I say this, but I have received several PMs over the months from other newbies who ask me how I keep my tank so clean of algae and nutrients. The answer is always, patience and proper cycling. Seriously, a little patience in the beginning will pay out in the long run.

[jackywongto]

not sure if he posted this just for fun....or to kill time...

[albinosage]

not sure if he posted this just for fun....or to kill time...

School holidays come early this year? Waste my time typing the reply above. Duncan, you owe me 5 minutes of my life - I even proof read my post for typo okay.

[jackywongto]

School holidays come early this year? Waste my time typing the reply above. Duncan, you owe me 5 minutes of my life - I even proof read my post for typo okay.

give him benefit of doubt lor... maybe he really don't know...

[albinosage]

give him benefit of doubt lor... maybe he really don't know...

someday when I grow up, I hope to be blessed with your sense of tolerance

[duncanl36@yahoo.com.sg]

someday when I grow up, I hope to be blessed with your sense of tolerance

im sorry if you thought differently but i had to study because i have exams coming so i was not on my com for the night so please Don't be so bad and also i was serious about this topic because i had a FOWLR which lasted about two months before everything died because (at that time i never knew about this forum and the kind people here willing to help) i did not cycle the tank

[RockyBoy]

im sorry if you thought differently but i had to study because i have exams coming so i was not on my com for the night so please Don't be so bad and also i was serious about this topic because i had a FOWLR which lasted about two months before everything died because (at that time i never knew about this forum and the kind people here willing to help) i did not cycle the tank

Ok.. lesson learnt and move on.

For reef tank, it is important to cycle for a period of time to get the water parameters stable before adding any livestocks.

[jackywongto]

ok since this is a genuine question:

Cycling the tank.

When you start up a new tank, your tank do not have all the benificial bacterial.

Cycling basically means getting the tank to reach the equilibrium of having sufficent bacterial to break down ammonia (bad) -> nitrite (bad)-> nitrate (not so bad) as fast as they are produced.

When you introduce the 1st fish (or some ppl use market prawn) in the tank, it will produce waste and ammonia will build up in the tank due to the lack of the 1st stage bacterial. Over days, the bacterial will slowly build up and ammonia concentration will decline but nitrite will start to increase. When the 1st stage bacterial are fully established, ammonia will be processed as fast as the fishes are producing it.

At this stage nitrite will start to peak. Nitrite is also very toxic to the fishes. Again we have to wait for another batch of bacterials to grow in population to bring nitrite level down. When this bacterials are sufficient in numbers, the nitrate will boom so slowly nitrite will be undetectable.

when nitrite is eliminated, the tank is cycled. equilibrium is reached. This takes approximately 4 weeks.

The resultant nitrate is not as harmful to fishes. Large concentration of it does harm the fish well being and they might be more susceptible to disease. Reqular water change will help keep the nitrate level in check. Growing Mangrooves, installing denitrators, having deep sand bed will help too to keep nitrate level within acceptable levels.

Now when you add new fishes, the balance is offset again. more fishes = more waste = need time to let the bacterial grow again.

So even after tank is cycled, it depends how many fishes you add at one time. If you add several at one time and several again a week later, the bacterial will not be able to populate and break down the ammonia and nitrite in time and fishes die. That is why ppl say go slow, go slow

Give the bacterial time to be established in your tank. Each time the equilibrium is offsetted (whether by introduction of new fishes/corals, increase in feeding frequency or quantity, dead fish/ corals unremoved) you need to give time to tank to balance the ecology system.

hope this help.

[ReDDeviLs]

some people in the past often use market prawn to the new tank to kick start cycling, the rotting market prawn will cause ammonia spike and so on. like the above bros mention, so i wouldnt go into that.

the reason is because some tanks have ammonia that couldnt really be detected and the spike in ammonia will give u a guide range via the test kit. 0 ammonia and all doesnt mean its ready or finish cycling, it may not have taken place YET.

try to get your desire level on the parameters first. once livestock goes in, you wil have a hard time adjusting it then.

Gdluck.

[RockyBoy]

some people in the past often use market prawn to the new tank to kick start cycling, the rotting market prawn will cause ammonia spike and so on. like the above bros mention, so i wouldnt go into that.

the reason is because some tanks have ammonia that couldnt really be detected and the spike in ammonia will give u a guide range via the test kit. 0 ammonia and all doesnt mean its ready or finish cycling, it may not have taken place YET.

try to get your desire level on the parameters first. once livestock goes in, you wil have a hard time adjusting it then.

Gdluck.

ya... dead prawns, a bit of urine..

[raydiative]

im sorry if you thought differently but i had to study because i have exams coming so i was not on my com for the night so please Don't be so bad and also i was serious about this topic because i had a FOWLR which lasted about two months before everything died because (at that time i never knew about this forum and the kind people here willing to help) i did not cycle the tank

dun think bro dino mean to be bad or whatever, you will soon found out that he's a friendly guy whom is more then willing to share his knowledge on reefing and hopefully some occasional frags! =]

since you have your exams coming, you can let your tank cycle till ur exams are over and reward yourself with some shopping at LFS once your exams are over and your cycling is completed. There are many comprehensive write up on cycling which can be easily obtain from online.. in fact bro jacky have already given a good summary on it already with the other bros adding their 2 cents to it as well...

For your benefit and more time to study.. check out the links below..

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/cycling.shtml

http://fishinsects.suite101.com/article.cf...marine_aquarium

http://www.fishchannel.com/saltwater-aquar...re/cycling.aspx

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/startinga...er_Aquarium.htm

hope this helps.. =]

[angelfishlover]

I usually cycle by throwing in fish food inside the tank.I just use freshwater fish food(because i feed my neon tetras with the food) as they're cheap.

[duncanl36@yahoo.com.sg]

ok since this is a genuine question:

Cycling the tank.

When you start up a new tank, your tank do not have all the benificial bacterial.

Cycling basically means getting the tank to reach the equilibrium of having sufficent bacterial to break down ammonia (bad) -> nitrite (bad)-> nitrate (not so bad) as fast as they are produced.

When you introduce the 1st fish (or some ppl use market prawn) in the tank, it will produce waste and ammonia will build up in the tank due to the lack of the 1st stage bacterial. Over days, the bacterial will slowly build up and ammonia concentration will decline but nitrite will start to increase. When the 1st stage bacterial are fully established, ammonia will be processed as fast as the fishes are producing it.

At this stage nitrite will start to peak. Nitrite is also very toxic to the fishes. Again we have to wait for another batch of bacterials to grow in population to bring nitrite level down. When this bacterials are sufficient in numbers, the nitrate will boom so slowly nitrite will be undetectable.

when nitrite is eliminated, the tank is cycled. equilibrium is reached. This takes approximately 4 weeks.

The resultant nitrate is not as harmful to fishes. Large concentration of it does harm the fish well being and they might be more susceptible to disease. Reqular water change will help keep the nitrate level in check. Growing Mangrooves, installing denitrators, having deep sand bed will help too to keep nitrate level within acceptable levels.

Now when you add new fishes, the balance is offset again. more fishes = more waste = need time to let the bacterial grow again.

So even after tank is cycled, it depends how many fishes you add at one time. If you add several at one time and several again a week later, the bacterial will not be able to populate and break down the ammonia and nitrite in time and fishes die. That is why ppl say go slow, go slow

Give the bacterial time to be established in your tank. Each time the equilibrium is offsetted (whether by introduction of new fishes/corals, increase in feeding frequency or quantity, dead fish/ corals unremoved) you need to give time to tank to balance the ecology system.

hope this help.

thanks for the help i really appreciate you spending so much time typing such a long thing and instead of using market prawns can you use a couple of dead fish?

[teebs]

thanks for the help i really appreciate you spending so much time typing such a long thing and instead of using market prawns can you use a couple of dead fish?

U can use anything that will rot in the aquarium actually. What you want to do is to create an amnonia spike to start your cycling process.

[albinosage]

dun think bro dino mean to be bad or whatever

Haha, I don't think I mean to be bad too. I wish I was that hardcore, but I find it hard to be bad on purpose. I was half joking in the earlier post about wasting my time cos I was replying from my phone in the toilet. You guys probably took it a bit out of context cos I was too shy to mention that I was reading SRC while.. erm.. delivering packages. You know how fricking small the keypads are on smart phones?!! Type so much rubbish with my fat fingers making typos every few letters and end up finding out that it was probably a prank. Hahahaha

Duncanl36, if your topic was meant to take us for a ride (considering the other thread), I think anyone would be angry too, since cycling of the tank is a topic that is asked at least once every month, despite the search function and FAQ sticky. I mentioned 2 pages earlier that you seem responsible enough to ask about cycling instead of silently making mistakes, I give you credit for that. Peace.

[zorden]

Haha, I don't think I mean to be bad too. I wish I was that hardcore, but I find it hard to be bad on purpose. I was half joking in the earlier post about wasting my time cos I was replying from my phone in the toilet. You guys probably took it a bit out of context cos I was too shy to mention that I was reading SRC while.. erm.. delivering packages. You know how fricking small the keypads are on smart phones?!! Type so much rubbish with my fat fingers making typos every few letters and end up finding out that it was probably a prank. Hahahaha

Duncanl36, if your topic was meant to take us for a ride (considering the other thread), I think anyone would be angry too, since cycling of the tank is a topic that is asked at least once every month, despite the search function and FAQ sticky. I mentioned 2 pages earlier that you seem responsible enough to ask about cycling instead of silently making mistakes, I give you credit for that. Peace.

Now you are not shy...?

[jackywongto]

Now you are not shy...?

you damn funny, did a thread from a month ago ??? hehe