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Tip #2 Cycle your tanks without angelfish |
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One of the most misunderstood things in the tropical fish world is how to cycle a new tank. When setting up a brand new aquarium, the most important step is the cycling of the tank. This is when your tanks first and most numerous inhabitants are put in place. That's the best part about aquaculture is you get the opportunity to create an entire ecosystem. You want to keep angelfish, your fish create waist, that waist creates chemicals toxic to you angelfish! So you need to grow a large colony of beneficial bacteria to consume these toxins.
These toxins mainly ammonia and nitrite - rise to very high levels until the bacterial colony is large enough to process them. This colony needs these toxins to survive so in the past in order to cycle your new tank most people would just add a "starter" fish and let is suffer in the tank while the bacteria grow.
Knowing that all you need to grow these bacteria is ammonia we now have an alternative way to cycle commonly known as Fishless Cycling. This is pretty much the same process but instead of harming your angelfish you allow your tank to develop its cultures with an alternative source of ammonia.
The first thing to do is set up our new tank filling it with the filters, air stones, rocks and whatever else we are going to use. The good bacteria you want in your tank is sedentary meaning it lives on the surface of objects and does not move around. They will not live in the water but on the glass, in your filters and whatever else you have in your tank. The more surface area they have to grow on the greater biological load they will be able to handle.
Fill your tank with aged or filtered water. Do not uses water from another tank remember the good bacteria does not come with the water. If you want to speed up the process and you have a tank already cycled take an object (gravel, rock, or filter) from that tank and place it in the new tank. Now add ammonia.
You can get ammonia from almost anywhere. I just added a piece of hamburger meat and left if to rot for a few weeks but my wife hated it! The ammonia can be just plain household ammonia but make sure it's pure ammonia with no additives. Put 3-5 drops of pure ammonia per gallon in the tank and add a few drops every day.
After a few weeks you will have a cycled tank full of bacteria just waiting to eliminate the waist from your new angelfish! I'm not one for a lot of test but I've found that 3-4 weeks of fishless cycling and any tank is ready to go. |
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