Dr Tim’s fishless cycle
- Thread starter Hetts
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RocketEngineer
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Yeah, I know. But constantly adding ammonia once you kickstart things means the bacteria is always fighting an artificial input vs having an actual input from something like a fish. I’m not sure about you, but I’m not interested in keeping bacteria, I’m trying to house fish and corals. 
Gotcha, thanks!!Yeah, I know. But constantly adding ammonia once you kickstart things means the bacteria is always fighting an artificial input vs having an actual input from something like a fish. I’m not sure about you, but I’m not interested in keeping bacteria, I’m trying to house fish and corals.
Keko21
Valuable Member
I used Dr Tims to start my cycle as well. If your tank is 30 gal or more I'd say dump the whole bottle of bacteria in if you haven't already- not going to harm anything and will speed up the process.
Stop adding ammonia, its just delaying the process especially since you are already at 1-2ppm. Just let the bacteria do it's thing. Once ammonia and nitrite are at 0ppm do a 40-50% water change and start stocking (1-2 fish at first depending on the size of your tank). Dont be surprised if you get a little pop of ammonia after you add the first couple fish, it'll get eaten up in a day or two and you'll be back to 0ppm.
Stop adding ammonia, its just delaying the process especially since you are already at 1-2ppm. Just let the bacteria do it's thing. Once ammonia and nitrite are at 0ppm do a 40-50% water change and start stocking (1-2 fish at first depending on the size of your tank). Dont be surprised if you get a little pop of ammonia after you add the first couple fish, it'll get eaten up in a day or two and you'll be back to 0ppm.
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OK, looks like a slow start. With BioSpira or TurboStart, you can expect ammonia to hit zero after 2-3 days.
I discovered the reason for the repeated dosing of ammonia. I am studying model aquaria, tiny ones, 0.2 L. I was interested in developing a method to measure ammonia consumption that happens in the sand after inoculating it nitrifying bacteria.
It turns out that with the initial ammonia dose, the nitrifying bacteria are not firmly attached to the sand. The entire aquarium but not a sample of sand shows activity. By the third ammonia dose, maybe before, the activity of the sand sample matches that of the entire aquarium. What seems to be happening is that initially the nitrifying bacteria live in the water or unattached flocs, but do finally colonize the sand and stick. Cool, right?
By the way, it is not unusual for Dr. Tim’s to be a dud or slow. After 7 days of little or no ammonia reduction, buy another product.
