Hi From SA

[Robin Bancs]

Hi, I'm a complete amateur and have been reading the threads for the past 3 weeks gleaning advice, and have found the discussion very useful. I've had platys for about a year and have proved that I can actually keep fish alive so I'm about to get a bit more adventurous.

I have recently (3 days ago) setup a secondary tank (15L) to house a few breeder females whilst the rest of the 'group' are staying in the main tank. I studied a major in chemistry and have easy access to ammonia, so I ran a fishless cycle on this new tank. To try and accelerate the cycle, I added Stress Zyme (Commercial product) as well as a large ornament from my active tank and a few decorative stones as well to provide a bacterial culture.

On the first addition of Ammonia, I had about 2 ppm show up in the water test. And in the follow up test the following day it was down to 0 ppm. I was naturally stunned, so added more Ammonia, reaching a concentration of 4 ppm yesterday and it's back down to 0 again already. Each time Ammonia was added, I waited an hour for diffusion to play its' role in leveling out the concentration. I've also checked Nitrite levels and they are at 0 ppm as well.

After waiting nearly 4 weeks for my last tank to cycle, I'm finding this too good to be true. Surely it couldn't have happened so fast? Any thoughts?

[Bettarazzi]

Hi Robin. Welcome to AAQ! Can't comment on the fishless cycle. Haven't tried one before. Do you really think it's necessary to go to that trouble with hardy fish like platies? I've never kept anything particularly sensitive but with general community fish I just set up the tank, add some filter boosting product like Cycle, add the fish and off they go. Sometimes I might leave the tank empty for about a week to allow the cloudiness to settle but that's about it.

[Robin Bancs]

Well, that's probably a good point. It's not like they're expensive to replace if it goes pear shaped.

[gulp]

Hi Robin and welcome. Thats very interesting about the fishless cycle. I cant help you with it as I normaly just add a product called cycle, which I think is the same as stress zyme, add the fish and I am done, no worries at all. Sometimes I dont add anything and just start off with a couple of fish at a time with some plants and eventually the bacteria grows and alls good. The type of fish I keep are generally very hard like the platties you have.

What type of fish are you wanting to keep in future? Goodluck with your new tank setup and you are welcome to post pics as we all love to see pics

Jane

[Robin Bancs]

I'm planning on going towards Guppies and or Betta's in the future but that requires more tanks space and effort of course. I think I'll start adding fish in there tomorrow night and see how they go. Inexpensive and hardy will be the plan!

[tracey6565]

Hi Robin, Welcome aboard Like 'Razzi and Jane I've not cycled a tank without fish so can't comment on it, good luck with the new efforts and I hope you have nicely encouraging results!

Tracey

[fishfin]

Hi there and welcome

I'm currently using a product by Seachem called Stability.

It will fully cycle a tank in 8 days without harming your fish.

Maybe a product like that is worth looking into.

[gulp]

Is Stability, Cycle and Stress zyme all the same? I just use Cycle but I guess its the same as the others?

Give us an update if possible Robin :)

[Bettarazzi]

Stability and Cycle are similar. Not sure what's in Stress Zyme but from its name I would think it was more similar to Stress Coat. Stability and Cycle help to establish your biofilter. Stress Coat helps a fish maintain its slime coat particularly during stressful situations like illness or transport.