Plan for Fishless Cycle

[radreef02]

currently fishless cycling 115g redsea tank, started dead rock & live sand.
Dosed 120ml MB XLM & 20ml of ammonia source to get 1-2ppm ammonia.

Directions, leaving tank with no addition of ammonia or WC for 9 days.

Upon the 9th day, my fish will not be ready to go into the display tank.

I will be adding the fish in this order (all in QT) :

Month 1: no fish
Month 2: 2 Clownfish & yellow & melanurus wrasse & maybe my damsel
Month 3: Yellow tang, Convict tang, Orange shoulder tang (all currently 1")



Can I leave my tank fishless for the meantime of my fish being QT'd & what's the cleanest route to keep ammonia in the tank? Ghost feed a few pellets a day, a week?

Should I not leave it fishless & just go buy QT'd clowns & put them in day 10 of cycle


thanks

 

[Propane]

You can leave it fishless if you want. I don’t think your bacteria will starve but it doesn’t hurt to dose ammonium. Just make sure to have no ammonia before you add fish.

 

[brandon429]

Has anyone done coral/inverts only and no fish at first?

Fish seem to be the main cause of disruption in a display tank, given the current circumstances in the hobby with pests (ich, velvet, parasites, etc.). I have been in this hobby for 18 years, and the amount of pests that are showing up lately is much more (could also be the fact that we have...

www.reef2reef.com

you have a critical part of the plan fully backwards, that thread has a helpful plan adjust

 

[brandon429]

That’s for handling the order of fish addition above, corals and inverts vs when to add fish so you don’t completely undo your quarantine efforts


regarding the cycle, it cannot be starved once started that’s not how bacteria in water work. It doesn’t matter if you feed them again or not, the bacteria cannot be starved even if you didn’t feed them for two years (there are fallow study threads for that duration)

an open topped reef in a home that has already been fed and inoculated one time can’t uncycle in the conditions you’ve assembled the tank in

 

[GARRIGA]

I’ve known about Fishless cycling since the 80s although back then it was raw shrimp and ammonium chloride yet still learned from this.

 

[brandon429]

Bottle bac sellers make cycling videos that lead to bottle bac sales

notice how disease controls aren’t mentioned in any old cycling science articles or videos

best to focus on disease preps and apply updated, non sales based cycling science. We have a fifty page thread of systems applying it / here so far is the condensed version. If the op plans on running a separate fallow holding tank, a separate reef, to fallow pass all corals, cuc and new hard scape items then proceed

but if this is a one tank home, see that initial thread posted. Disease controls depends on it

the cycling part is the easy part, simply wait nine more days as listed.

 

[radreef02]

Bottle bac sellers make cycling videos that lead to bottle bac sales

notice how disease controls aren’t mentioned in any old cycling science articles or videos

best to focus on disease preps and apply updated, non sales based cycling science. We have a fifty page thread of systems applying it / here so far is the condensed version. If the op plans on running a separate fallow holding tank, a separate reef, to fallow pass all corals, cuc and new hard scape items then proceed

but if this is a one tank home, see that initial thread posted. Disease controls depends on it

the cycling part is the easy part, simply wait nine more days as listed.

One thing I left out is that I do plan to QT all coral & buy QT’d inverts

Once the fish are done the 40b will be setup for coral QT. My current coral is sitting in my wife’s 10g fishless for 76d


Hoping that will fix the issue brought up, otherwise please help me understand


I didn’t know that once cycled you don’t need to keep feeding, I was aware that you had to have some ammonia source once cycled (I’ve never done a fishless cycle)

 

[brandon429]

That's truly unique disease dedication then for sure. I've never seen pre qt'd corals but it's a great business model and if someone is that dedicated to condition them before sale and they have the breath of what you're looking for then that's really cool. It'll save you prep headaches for sure.

The reason cycles can't starve is because even an unfed cycle will self cycle in a few months given simple wait time. Page 98-102 of Dr Reefs bottle bac study thread/ poster MSteven1 documents a four month wait cycle, no feed, no bottle bac given.

Open topped systems in a home actively exchange both bacteria and feed with any water system in the home

The tank has to be fully sealed to stop the cycle. It will perpetuate endlessly given the description of your cycle, it cannot starve. One of the longest nonfed cycle studies on this site is from poster DJCity here where he left live rock unfed for three straight years in his garage. He then dosed the rocks with ammonia and they reduced it overnight, as cycled systems do. Amazing testimony to what aquatic bacteria really do, which is very different from the picture painted by salespersons

Of all cycling bac available that's the last brand I'd use / MB / but still the fact remains, nobody on this site has a failed bottle bac cycle that couldn't keep fish alive. They always work out fine even with variables tank to tank given that ~ ten days wait time plus initial feed and dose


The hint that if you didn't feed the bacteria, that they'd starve with a little unfed time = old cycling science


There is not one display reef tank on this site that's starved its cycle.

 

[taricha]

Can I leave my tank fishless for the meantime of my fish being QT'd & what's the cleanest route to keep ammonia in the tank? Ghost feed a few pellets a day, a week?

After an initial ammonia dose, a little fish food every week is fine to keep things going bacterially in the absence of fish.