New Tank - Cycle Or Use Water Additives?

 

Hi everyone, I'm a newcomer to the hobby - I've done plenty of research of recent months, in terms of reference books, PFK magazine and of course; online research but have yet to acquire my first tank.

Over time, my 'planning' has evolved (on the premise that everything I've read seems to advise that bigger really is better, coupled with the fact that I live in a bungalow with only one location suitable to site a tank) from a Tetra 54l Starter set-up, to a Juwel Primo 60 through a 70 then a 110, to a Juwel Rio 125 to the point where I'm now saving towards a Juwel Vision 180.  Although I'm trying not to set my sights too high, I'm hoping to finish up with a live plant/rock/wood and of course; fish set-up.

As well as reading up, I've also visited and spoken to staff at a number of retailers in my area and almost without exception have been advised (sometimes quite disparagingly) that "cycling a new tank isn't actually necessary, we stock a full range of water conditioners that will let you add fish the same day, or certainly within 24hrs".

Am I just being recognised as a noob and targeted for easy sales.  How good are these products, should I go down that route or stick to my plan to be patient and cycle the tank the way I've read up about it.

Can anyone offer relevant advice, opinion or anecdote. please.  As I've mentioned, the space I have available is limited, so I'm intending going for the biggest start-up I can afford, but obviously I don't want to mess it up and waste money/make mistakes that will dim my enthusiasm for the hobby.

 

Hi there and welcome to the forum. 

I'm thrilled to hear that you have decided to go for a larger tank. You won't regret it.n

It's great that you have researched fishless cycling, and are planning to go forward with it. I thought this might be helpful for you...
https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/blog/articles/2017/7/20/promises-in-a-bottle?rq=cycling
Generally it is thought that some additives may speed up cycling, but it's not an overnight thing.
A good way to give a fishless cycle a kick start is to use some media from a mature tank to seed your filter. There are several people on this forum who are willing to send mature media. Even with this it can still take a couple of weeks to complete the cycle, but that's better than without.

I'm hoping to finish up with a live plant/rock/wood and of course; fish set-up.

If you can get to a point where the plants are growing happily in your tank (which you should be able to quicker than you can cycle a tank), you can add say three fish straight away and build up the stocking slowly adding up to a third more fish each week

There are no products that cycle a tank within 24 hours. The two that actually do something if they have been stored correctly since manufacture are Dr Tims One & Only and Tetra Safe Start...

Don't forget Biomature, which has been cycling tanks successfully since the 1960s - the only one to be at all reliable until Dr Tim's.
Tetra Safe Start works now because it's make up has changed, and it now uses Dr Tim's 'recipe'. I'll be using it soon when I set up my big tank again, but I'll also be using PolyFilter, just in case.

Hi

I keep seeing something called Aqua plus which is suppose to help cycling but no idea if it does or not. Maybe others might know more about it.

I keep seeing something called Aqua plus which is suppose to help cycling but no idea if it does or not. Maybe others might know more about it.

There seem to be a number of non-fishkeeping products by that name but I assume the one you're referring to is Fluval Aqua Plus. 

I did read the Practical Fishkeeping mag staff making positive comments about their early experiences with Microbe-Lift Nite-Out II - but accepted that it was too premature to say anymore at present; I wonder if Microbe-Lift has got hold of the coveted recipe! The staff at my LFS tell me that Microbe-Lift Extreme is the same recipe as Seachem Prime.

I don't think any of these products are instantaneous, though.

In my naive days, and failing in a fishless cycle using fish food and without bicarbonate of soda (which I ought to have used due to such low KH of 1-2), I used Tetra SafeStart to get the process moving. However, knowing what I know now, I'd do a fishless cycle.

Me too.
So many fish, not enough tanks. 

Ahhh, that makes sense. 

The community creator can be very addictive 

Rainbowfish sound good to me.. careful if you do start looking at cichlids, for hard water you want the African ones not the South American ones for hard water. These are quite unique in terms of stocking as you need to overstock them and have a lot of rocks in the tank etc etc - they arnt really a beginner species.

Actually your water isn't hard at all. For fishkeeping, hard water starts at 10 german deg and yours is only 7. This is why it is better to go with numbers rather than words.
The two units used in fish profiles are ppm (which is the same as mg/l CaCO3) and dH aka German degrees. The values you need to compare to a species' hardness range are 125 ppm and 7.0 dH.

So to take your rainbowfish, Boeseman's and Lk Kubutu need hardness 10 - 20 dH; Lk Teberas 10 - 15 dH; and banded 8 - 20 dH. The word 'hard' in your water company's website is misleading.
And those 4 species also need to be in shoals of at least 6 of the same species and a tank at least 120 cm long.
Info from here http://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/
Dwarf rainbows are the exception; they need hardness 5 - 15 dH and a tank over 60 cm long, so they'd be fine.


Provided you ignore fish that must have very soft water, the majority of soft water fish will be fine in your water. I'm afraid African cichlids - or at least the ones from the Rift Lakes like L Malawi and L Tanganyika - are not an option as your water is much too soft for them. But kribs (African river cichlids, Pelvicachromis pulcher) need hardness 0 - 12 dH so they'd be fine, as would the south American cichlids Apistogramma cacatuoides (0 - 268 ppm) and A. agassizii (0 - 179 ppm).