Cycling a 10 gallon aquarium

jgoad92

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I set this tank up about 10 days ago and I have been throwing a bunch of fish food flakes from my fresh water aquarium every couple of days but I still have not seen an ammonia spike yet.

Every time I check the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates all read 0 or close enough to 0.

Am I just not being patient enough or do I need to do something different?
 

Dr. Reef

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1. Use pure ammonia in cleaning supplies section from Ace. They are only one with 100% pure ammonia. If un sure shake the bottle, if it foams it's no good. If you find 100% pure ammonia dose to 2 ppm.

2. get a deli shrimp from frozen section and throw it in there in a media sock till Ammonia hits 2ppm.

3. Urinate in the tank a little.

One of those methods will get you to kick-start the nitrogen cycle. Good luck
 

sbash

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4. Switch to all live rock and 'skip' the initial nitrogen cycle entirely.

5. Does bottled bacteria (dirt cheap these days).

6. You can keep using the food method, I have done this to cure small amounts of rock many times, but it takes a couple months to build up enough of a culture to sustain an aquarium.

Was there any 'seed' rock? i.e. even a small live rock.
 

Dr. Reef

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7. Forgot to mention dr. Tim or some other company that produces Reef stuff has bottled ammonia as well to kick-start cycle
 
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jgoad92

jgoad92

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None of it was live when I started. Other than having to try to find some live rock which of these would be the quickest method to get it cycled and ready for fish?
 

Big G

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+1 on the Ace Brand Janitorial Strength ammonia. One drop per gallon - usually. Your mileage my vary, so test for the level of ammonia you desire.
 

sbash

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Replacing the rock with all live rock would technically be the fastest... Otherwise, bottled bacteria would be the fastest way to cycle the tank.

Ammonia would be the fastest way to grow the cultures, but adding the bacteria directly would be faster. Some claim your tank is fully cycled inside of 48 hours. Using ammonia would still take weeks...
 

Dr. Reef

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Just my two cents bacteria in a bottle is nothing but waste of money.
 

sbash

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Just my two cents bacteria in a bottle is nothing but waste of money.

Which ones have you used?

I have used the ProdiBio (startup) system, and was good to add fish after 72 hours. I also used weekly supplements for 6-8 week afterwards. This was many years ago when it was a very new (and expensive) way to do things.

I also know someone who used the Aquavitro Seed product succesfully. It was safely tested to add fish inside of one week.

I do understand this concept is controversial, which it should be with all 'new' ways of doing things. However, it is important that OP has all the information available to him/her so he/she can make the decision he/she is most comfortable with. That said, if I were to use these productions again, I would 'over dose' them just to be safe. Also, it is important to not do a water change right away (give it a couple-few weeks); since you would be dosing into the water column, it would take some time for the bacteria to establish onto the rocks. It is also important to 'ghost feed' throughout the dosing period, this way you are introducing a food/ammonia/nitrogen-cycle source for the bacteria to feed on. The science is fairly sound on dosing bacteria, but differentiating snake oil from effective products is likely the challenge here...

Lastly, I am a huge proponent of the 'instant' cycle that all live rock provides... In a tank this small, $50 in live rock would be more than enough to skip over all this fuss...
 
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jgoad92

jgoad92

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Well I got a jug of ammonia and poured a small amount and tested it and it's reading a little over the 8ppm that my chart goes to. Is that too much or will it be ok?
 

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