laga77
Active Member
I had a 20G tank set up for a small Anglerfish. Unfortunately, after a month of doing really well, he got ich or velvet and died. I tried treating with CP in a HT but still lost him. Since it is a small tank, I replaced the gravel with new and installed a reverse flow under gravel filter. The rock that was in there was rinsed and set outside in single digit temps for five days. So starting with dry gravel and rock on 1/9/17 I filled with fresh water at 1.026 SG. I then turned the heater up to 85F and added 30 drops of ammonia hydroxide AKA Janitorial Strength Formula cleaner from Ace hardware. Ammonia hydroxide is ammonia and water. This amount measured 2ppm on the API test. To this, 2 oz of Aquavitro Seed was added. The next day, I added 4 oz of Bio-Spira. These amounts of bacteria were used because it was what I had leftover from cycling my 120G FOWLR last year. That tank took 12 days to cycle. It took 2 days for the ammonia to go to zero and the nitrite to spike to 5ppm. Then, each day I added another 30 drops of ammonia. Each morning the ammonia tested zero and the nitrite was 5ppm until day 8 when the nitrite dropped to .25ppm. Today is day 9 and the ammonia and nitrite are zero and nitrate is 25ppm. The heater is removed and when the temp comes down I will go to the LFS and get a Damsel and a Peppermint shrimp to maintain the tank until I can find another Angler. This is the 8th tank I have cycled in the past 6 years. All used ammonia and some kind of bottled bacteria. The larger tanks also had some live rock from an existing sump. This was the shortest time at 9 days. The longest was 20 days for my Seahorse tank. That was because it did not have a heater and the temp never got over 74F. Temp definitely speeds up the cycle.
