FISHLESS CYCLING Discussion Thread

I'm hopeless at arty things but maths was my favourite subject at school. I got a grade 1 O level 

If you do get fish but not the full amount, not even 75% then yes, you would lose some bacteria over the weeks. The solution is either to keep adding ammonia until you can get most of your fish in one batch, or get some fish and add the rest a few at a time weeks/months later.
If you choose the latter, you could use less than 3ppm ammonia to cycle. For example, if you intended to get only a third of your final stock list straight away, you could get away with using enough ammonia to get 1.5ppm as the big dose and 0.5ppm as the smaller dose. Possibly even 1ppm as the big dose and 0.3 ppm as the smaller dose.
But you would need to add the remaining fish a few at a time if it is a few weeks after the first batch.

It takes very little longer to grow enough bacteria for 3ppm compared to 1ppm. It's getting them started that the slow bit. Under optimum conditions, they can double in 24 hours. So they can double from enough to dispose of 1ppm to 2ppm in around a day and around 2 days to go up to 3ppm.

For a shrimp only tank, I would think 1ppm as the big dose, with one third ppm as the snack dose, would be more than enough.

The Range Household ammonia at £1.00 is no good it has an additive

That is what I have just done, could not find it in any of the local shops. and time is pushing now. Tank arrives in the shop tomorrow, so by Friday cabinet should be up and tank on top and 3d backgrounds stuck in and drying. Sand not here yet have 50kg on order. also when GF was not with me I ordered up a C02 system with refillable bottle, works out cheaper than the soda stream adapter.
do you have a link for crushed aragonite, bot seen it on Amazon yet.

going for south American type fish, I do not want to raise the PH , but you said I could do with the added hardness for the cycle, or will the bi carb be enough, plus if so what dose of Bi card am I looking at, no rush will be sunday I think before I start the cycle

Your hardness is very low so you do need to raise it a bit once you have fish. This will also raise the pH a bit but hardness is more important than pH. You don't have to raise it by much, nothing like what Rift Lake cichlid keepers need - they also have to add special salts if their tapwater isn't hard enough, using aragonite/coral isn't enough, and they usually use just that as a substrate to get more of it in the tank.

Bicarb - half a teaspoon in 100 litres water will raise the KH by 1 german degree. You need to get yours to at least 3 german deg while cycling. The best way to monitor this is with a KH tester. Bicarb is bicarbonate of soda which is sold in small tubs in the home baking section of the supermarket. Adding this will raise the KH fast, though it won't affect the GH. You need to use aragonite/ coral for that. But this is a slow process so boosting the KH fast is the quickest way to get the tank cycled. At the end of the cycle, you'll change 90% + of the water before getting fish which will get rid if the bicarb.

pH - some water companies add carbon dioxide to the water supply, which loweres the pH. Does yours change a lot on standing? Mine goes up by 0.2.
As for the testers, the way to use them is to start with the one labelled just pH. If that shows the highest colour, use the high range pH one. There is an overlap, my pH falls in this overlap so I call my water 7.5. With all the testers, if the value is off the top (or bottom) of the scale, the colour still shows as the top (or bottom) colour.
Unless the pH change on standing is huge, you don't need to let water stand before adding it to the tank during a water change.

That is a big change! If you have somewhere you could leave the water change water to stand overnight, that might be an idea. Or alternatively, do 2 smaller water changes a week once you have fish rather than one bigger one.

Hmmm, that sounds odd. maybe your water company is extra good at disinfecting you water supply 

I have a suggestion for you to try, which you don't often hear. Go out and buy a bottle of Tetra Safe Start. Just that product, don't let the shop persuade you to get anything else. And don't get it on-line as that adds another possible stage for it to be deactivated in the post. Have a look through all the packs on the shelf and if there are packs with a later use by date, get one of those.
The instructions will be for if there are fish in the tank. Don't get fish, just assume the ammonia you've added comes from fish. I haven't used the product myself but I understand the instructions have to be followed closely. The bit about not using anything that 'detoxifies' ammonia won't apply even if your dechlorinator does this as it is a while since you filled the tank and the effect should have worn off by now.