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Using a fishless cycle how long would it take to cycle a 5 gallon and how long for a 30 gallon FW.

What fishless cycle are you referring to? Are you going to be adding an existing biofilter to an empty tank? If so, you should still use fish to feed the bacteria with amonia and nitrites. I've heard of people actually "feeding the colony with flake food that decomposes, but that's a lot less efficient.

-Eric
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

Plain household ammonia, non-sudsing kind which is usually colorless.

I'm not sure, but when you do it, tell me, I'd love to know.

-Eric
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

To fishless cycle you need an ammonia source.

Ammonia can come from unscented, uncolored ammonia you purchase at a drug or grocery store. You add a few drops a day testing daily untill you get first ammonia, nitrIte then nitrAte readings.

Using fish food for your ammonia source you add a small ammout of food and wait until it decomposes. As it decomposes it turns into ammonia and will eventually give you your nitrIte and nitrAte readings.

In both cases they're done without fish (hence fishless cycleing), and no fish should be added until the cycling process is complete..

Using a sponge, filter media, or gravel from an established tank is a way of seeding a tank, but still needs an ammonia source to complete the cycle. Usually if you have a seeding source you can start with a small stock of hardy fish who will provide the ammonia.

^_^

Well, I can't speak from experience about what the time difference would be between the two tank sizes. But I would think that a smaller tank would take a bit less time, only b/c you don't need as many bacteria to establish (smaller fish load). It also depends if you have anything to seed with or not.

I have two 10gal tanks: the first (set up January this year), I cycled using fish (with no seeding material) and it took 4 weeks. By the end of that 4 weeks I was already wanting a 2nd tank, and wanted to try fishless cycling, which I had read about. My second 10gal I did fishless using ammonia, but this time I had a small bag of gravel from the (newly) cycled 1st tank. The 2nd one took about 3 weeks.

If I were starting a tank from scratch, I would only do it fishless - no stress on fish, no diseases or deaths. And at the end of it you aren't stuck with "hardy" fish which you may not really want.

I've fishless cycled a 24" x 12" x 12" aquarium (my Panda nursery) in 4 weeks using the fish food method.

The trick here is to add the food as if you were feeding actual fish occupants, instead of dumping a large quantity in one go and letting it all rot. The reason? allow me to explain it as follows.

If someone dumps a dead buffalo in your living room, it would pretty soon become a place you wouldn't want to live in. It would stink to high heaven. Likewise, dumping in a lot of fish food at once and letting it rot would create a hideous bacterial bloom in your aquarium that would look as bad as it smelled.

On the other hand, if someone pops six rashers of bacon in your fridge overnight, every night, you come down to a nice bacon breakfast in the morning (ok, you have to cook it, but you wouldn't turn down free bacon would you? ). Likewise, if you add food piecemeal, you give the filter bacteria time to grow and accommodate themselves to the incoming nutrients. So, when your fishes finally take up residence, they do so in an aquarium with a reasonably established filter. Which means they don't suffer ammonia or nitrite strees, and acclimatise better.

Basically, you can expect even a large aquarium to be cycled in around 6 weeks if you attend diligently to the business of adding nutrients to the water, and do it with care. A tiny 5 gallon will cycle quicker (probably about 3 weeks) but the difference in time scale isn't that radical, because you have to get your bacteria population up and running from scratch. Even if you 'seed' the new aquarium with gravel from an established aquarium, you'll still have to feed those bacteria to get them to grow and multiply, and this takes finite time.

Even when you've done this, you should only add fishes piecemeal. Again, give the filter time to adjust gradually to the incrementally increasing nutrient load, and avoid ammonia spikes that stress your fishes. The LAST thing you want in an aquarium full of fishes is the 'dead buffalo in the living room' syndrome!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I am going to ask.
Why are you going to do a fishless cycle is there any particular reason for doing it that way.

Using starter fish eg Zebra Danios with a good Bio starter/Cycle is surely the easer way to go.

Just curious.

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Keith

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It may be more tedious Keith, but it means that you can add the fishes you want straight away once cycling is complete, and they won't be stressed by ammonia or nitrites. I did it with my Panda Cory nursery and it's been running fine ever since. I don't see my latest batch of Panda babies complaining about it!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I actually didn't find cycling with ammonia to be any more difficult (other than remembering to add the ammonia every day or two).

http://www.nicold.com/aquaria/cyclingmadness.htm

When I cycled my first tank using zebra danios, I only bought them b/c they were considered hardy cycling fish. Then I realized that they weren't really good tankmates for the fish I wanted. And although they were "hardy" in the sense that they survived the cycling process, I think it definitely weakened them b/c they died mysteriously a couple months later.