Cycling a new tank? Sal****er mollies available!

[Arrhae]

If anyone in the Toronto area is looking for some fish to cycle a new tank
with that are less aggressive than Damsels, I've got some sal****er raised
baby orange sailfin mollies available that I'm soon going to have no room
for when they get bigger. They were born in and have lived all their lives
in full marine conditions, if anyone would like to rehome a couple... Other
than the slightly disturbing red eyes, they're very cute!

I've also got gobs of java moss seeded with baby snails, for anyone that has
fresh/brackish water puffers and might need some...my beloved Puffie died a
few weeks ago and I haven't been able to bring myself to replace him...

[Greg Bunch]

Don't use fish to cycle a new tank! It is an unnecessary and inhumane
method, increasingly frowned upon by serious aquarists.

I successfully used household ammonia to cycle a brand-new 5-gallon
aquarium. It is easy to do so, and the cost is almost zero.

WIth this method, you can immediately take the ammonia up to lethal levels
far past what any fish could survive. As a result, the bacteria develop and
reproduce very quickly, and in a much shorter time, you'll have a far
stronger colony capable of supporting a robust population of desirable fish.

When I did it, after only 14 days the bacterial colony in that little
5-gallon tank was fully metabolizing 3ML of household ammonia each day in
about 11 hours. I was very conservative, and carefuly monitored nitrite
levels over the next 8 days, while adding daily 1ML maintenance doses of
ammonia.

For the full story, with pictures and references, take a look at:
http://members.cox.net/gbundersea/aquaria/5gallon/cycling.htm

Also see my Jensalt sump horror story site:
http://members.cox.net/~gbundersea/aquaria/badsumps/badsumps.htm

You should be able to find those mollies a good home, free of ammonia,
without too much trouble. :-)

--

Greg Bunch Creator of the MXTENDER Optical
gbundersea AT cox DOT net Strobe Cable System for the Sea&Sea
http://www.gbundersea.com MX-10 and the Save-A-Lens Kit
for MX-10 and Motormarine

"Arrhae" > wrote in message
...
> If anyone in the Toronto area is looking for some fish to cycle a new tank
> with that are less aggressive than Damsels, I've got some sal****er raised
> baby orange sailfin mollies available that I'm soon going to have no room
> for when they get bigger. They were born in and have lived all their
lives
> in full marine conditions, if anyone would like to rehome a couple...
Other
> than the slightly disturbing red eyes, they're very cute!
>
> I've also got gobs of java moss seeded with baby snails, for anyone that
has
> fresh/brackish water puffers and might need some...my beloved Puffie died
a
> few weeks ago and I haven't been able to bring myself to replace him...
>

[Racf]

"Greg Bunch" > wrote in message
...
> Don't use fish to cycle a new tank! It is an unnecessary and inhumane
> method, increasingly frowned upon by serious aquarists.
>
> I successfully used household ammonia to cycle a brand-new 5-gallon
> aquarium. It is easy to do so, and the cost is almost zero.
>
> WIth this method, you can immediately take the ammonia up to lethal
levels
> far past what any fish could survive. As a result, the bacteria
develop and
> reproduce very quickly, and in a much shorter time, you'll have a far
> stronger colony capable of supporting a robust population of desirable
fish.
>
> When I did it, after only 14 days the bacterial colony in that little
> 5-gallon tank was fully metabolizing 3ML of household ammonia each day
in
> about 11 hours. I was very conservative, and carefuly monitored
nitrite
> levels over the next 8 days, while adding daily 1ML maintenance doses
of
> ammonia.
>
> For the full story, with pictures and references, take a look at:
> http://members.cox.net/gbundersea/aquaria/5gallon/cycling.htm
>
> Also see my Jensalt sump horror story site:
> http://members.cox.net/~gbundersea/aquaria/badsumps/badsumps.htm
>
> You should be able to find those mollies a good home, free of ammonia,
> without too much trouble. :-)
>
> --
>
> Greg Bunch Creator of the MXTENDER Optical
> gbundersea AT cox DOT net Strobe Cable System for the Sea&Sea
> http://www.gbundersea.com MX-10 and the Save-A-Lens Kit
> for MX-10 and Motormarine
>
> "Arrhae" > wrote in message
> ...
> > If anyone in the Toronto area is looking for some fish to cycle a
new tank
> > with that are less aggressive than Damsels, I've got some sal****er
raised
> > baby orange sailfin mollies available that I'm soon going to have no
room
> > for when they get bigger. They were born in and have lived all
their
> lives
> > in full marine conditions, if anyone would like to rehome a
couple...
> Other
> > than the slightly disturbing red eyes, they're very cute!
> >
> > I've also got gobs of java moss seeded with baby snails, for anyone
that
> has
> > fresh/brackish water puffers and might need some...my beloved Puffie
died
> a
> > few weeks ago and I haven't been able to bring myself to replace
him...
> >
>
>
>
>
Not sure, but it may be that cycling a Salt Water setup may be a
different matter.....than fresh...I know really nothing about Salt Water
aquaria.......except the pH is like 9 and they use stuff like live rock
and sand....it may be that dumping a lot of ammonia in there would not
be a good thing......but I really do not know.....

Mollies have been a standard for quite a while for a number of
reasons.....

[SG]

In article >, Racf wrote:
>>
>Not sure, but it may be that cycling a Salt Water setup may be a
>different matter.....than fresh...

Cycling is the only area where marine and fresh water aquariums are
the same. Everything else might as well be completely different.


>Mollies have been a standard for quite a while for a number of
>reasons.....

Mollies aren't a standard any more. Even people who choose to ignore
fishless cycleing use damsels. There is not a good reason to use any
fish as fishless cycleing does the same job better.

[SG]

In article >, Greg Bunch wrote:
>Don't use fish to cycle a new tank! It is an unnecessary and inhumane
>method, increasingly frowned upon by serious aquarists.

I agree.

If you are cycleing with live rock some people recommend a
piece of shrimp or other seafood from the deli counter. Others
recommend that nothing is needed to cycle the tank as the die off from
the live rock will be enough to start the cycle.

[Greg Bunch]

"Racf" > wrote in message
...

> Not sure, but it may be that cycling a Salt Water setup may be a
> different matter.....than fresh...I know really nothing about Salt Water
> aquaria.......except the pH is like 9 and they use stuff like live rock
> and sand....it may be that dumping a lot of ammonia in there would not
> be a good thing......but I really do not know.....
>
> Mollies have been a standard for quite a while for a number of
> reasons.....
>

I'm just the opposite! I know little about freshwater aquaria, but I'm
pretty sure ammonia can be used to cycle them too. My aquariums, including
the 5-gallon, are all sal****er. I have the 5-gallon, a 29-gallon with
10-gallon sump/filter, and a 120-gallon with a 30+ gallon
sump/filter/refugium, 250 lbs live rock, and 220 lbs live sand. Normal pH
for marine systems is about 8.2-8.3.

I'm a staff diver at the Aquarium of the Americas here in New Orleans. One
of the curators told me that they, like most public aquariums, cycle new
tanks by adding ammonia. They use ammonium chloride, which is a commercially
available solution, but the clear household ammonia is cheap and works
perfectly. The technique is the same.

Some people just use a raw shrimp to produce the initial ammonia. That works
too, but I prefer the clear ammonia. To me it's cleaner and less smelly,
plus you can measure exactly how much ammonia is being added.

NOTE TO ANYONE PLANNING TO USE HOUSEHOLD AMMONIA FOR CYCLING A TANK: BE SURE
YOU BUY AMMONIA WHICH IS CLEAR AND CONTAINS ONLY DI WATER AND AMMONIA. DO
NOT USE THE YELLOW VARIETY, WHICH IS VERY COMMON IN MANY STORES. IT CONTAINS
LEMON SCENT AND COLORING. BE CAREFUL, AS I HAVE RECENTLY SEEN CLEAR
AMMONIA WHICH ALSO CONTAINS OTHER ADDITIVES, SO READ THE LABEL CAREFULLY!

I think mollies have been used largely because they're cheap. Since all that
is needed is a source of ammonia, be it household ammonia, ammonium
chloride, decaying shrimp, or live rock, there is no reason whatsoever to
use a live animal.Even if a fish is inexpensive, I think it's unethical and
inhumane to expose it to the deadly poison of ammonia, given the simple and
economical alternatives. Besides, it's hard to beat the cost of a 99-cent
bottle of ammonia!

Fish used for cycling often die. Even if they survive, and appear unharmed
afterwards, they aren't. Ammonia causes irreversible gill damage, thus
permanently injuring the fish and shortening its life span.

I'm not a PETA activist or anything, it's just that wasting an animal like
this is totally unnecessary. The idea that doing so is required for tank
cycling went by the wayside long ago. There's a lot of information out there
on fishless cycling, and all serious aquarists now use some variation of
such methods.

--

Greg Bunch
gbundersea AT cox DOT net
http://www.gbundersea.com
Creator of the Digital Lens Dock,
MXTENDER Optical Strobe Cable System
for the Sea&Sea MX-10, and the Save-A-Lens Kit
for MX-10 and Motormarine

[Arrhae]

On 8/2/03 5:05 PM, in article ,
"Glenn R. Holmes" <grholmeNO@JUNKattglobalDOTnet> wrote:

> Why not gat a smaller tank and convert them over to a brackish
> environment? You may also want a hospital tank and they could be used to
> keep it run-in for you? Just a thought!

I've currently got a brackish tank and was thinking of moving some of them
that way, but I thought I'd check to see if anyone might want some of the
red-eyed ******* stepfish in their current salty state, as well...

The hospital tank/mean fish isolation ward's in need of a cleaning and some
form of filter repair since it broke and killed the puffer and the damsel
living in it, and it has no lid...given the frequent splashing noises from
the nanoreef since the original pair of mollies moved in, I don't think I'd
be able to keep them contained in that for long. It normally runs brackish.

[Arrhae]

On 8/2/03 1:56 AM, in article ,
"Greg Bunch" > wrote:

> Don't use fish to cycle a new tank! It is an unnecessary and inhumane
> method, increasingly frowned upon by serious aquarists.
>
> I successfully used household ammonia to cycle a brand-new 5-gallon
> aquarium. It is easy to do so, and the cost is almost zero.
>
> WIth this method, you can immediately take the ammonia up to lethal levels
> far past what any fish could survive. As a result, the bacteria develop and
> reproduce very quickly, and in a much shorter time, you'll have a far
> stronger colony capable of supporting a robust population of desirable fish.

Doesn't that tend to kill your live rock, though, cycling so quickly?

The only time I attempted a fishless cycle it didn't seem to work...just
couldn't get the ammonia levels down...since then I've just preferred used
filter crap and adding fish *sloooowly*...

Regardless of how you choose to cycle, though, I'd certainly recommend
avoiding damsels as first fish unless you want damsels in that tank until
they die of old age...mollies don't usually require you to break the entire
tank down to catch them!

[Arrhae]

On 8/2/03 4:15 AM, in article , "Racf"
> wrote:

> Not sure, but it may be that cycling a Salt Water setup may be a
> different matter.....than fresh...I know really nothing about Salt Water
> aquaria.......except the pH is like 9 and they use stuff like live rock
> and sand....it may be that dumping a lot of ammonia in there would not
> be a good thing......but I really do not know.....
>
> Mollies have been a standard for quite a while for a number of
> reasons.....

They just tend to come from the fish store in fresh or lightly brackish
water, generally...

The spots on the fins of orange sailfins look lovely under actinic lighting.
<g>

[Greg Bunch]

"Arrhae" > wrote in message
...

> Doesn't that tend to kill your live rock, though, cycling so quickly?

I used this method in a new 5-gallon species tank, containing only
substrate. Take a look at the website for the full story:
http://members.cox.net/gbundersea/aquaria/5gallon/cycling.htm

I wouldn't use this method in a tank with LR, since I think high ammonia
levels would indeed be detrimental to the rock. Often, the curing of the LR
provides all the ammonia necessary to cycle a tank. If for some reason it
didn't, one could probably supplement it with a small amount of ammonia, but
I definitely wouldn't add a lot.

I just brought my 120-gallon FOWLR online within the last month. I didn't
add any ammonia. Only 5 weeks ago, 250 pounds of FABULOUS live rock from
Gulf-View (www.gulf-view.com) and over 200 lbs of live sand went into the
bare tank. I seeded it with substrate and filter drippings from my
established 29-gallon tank. Ammonia never rose above 0.50 ppm, and along
with nitrites, quickly fell to zero! Nitrates peaked at 40, and 8 days later
had fallen to 20, so the rock, sand, and refugium are obviously working. All
this occurred without my doing ANY water changes!

The 29-gallon was heavily overstocked, due to the fact that 3 of the fish
had grown considerably in the 2-3 years we've had them. After
triple-checking the water parameters, I moved them on 7/20/2003 into the new
tank, only 3 weeks after adding the LR. The fish are doing great!

The live rock from Gulf-View was incredible. We counted at least 9 species
of macroalgae, feather dusters, nudibranchs, tunicates, crabs, bivalves,
sponges, etc, even some Christmas tree worms! We keep finding more stuff. It
has at least 3 species of hard corals on it too. No big colonies, but a fair
number of small clusters. I want to keep all that stuff thriving, so I'm
determined to maintain low nitrates in spite of this being essentially a
fish tank. With the rock, sand, and fuge I think I have a good shot at it. I
started dripping kalk to keep Ca and KH high. I had been using B-Ionic, but
that gets expensive. After reading a whole lot on the subject, I found Mrs.
Wages Pickling Lime for $1.49 a pound. I rigged up a cheap but effective DIY
drip container, and I was in business. So far, so good!

>
> The only time I attempted a fishless cycle it didn't seem to work...just
> couldn't get the ammonia levels down...since then I've just preferred used
> filter crap and adding fish *sloooowly*...

Not sure why the ammonia wouldn't drop. It did so for me very well in that
small tank, but I also seeded it from my 29, and added some of the "bacteria
in a bottle" just to diversify things. It obviously worked, as my fish moved
in only 22 days after starting the tank from scratch.

>
> Regardless of how you choose to cycle, though, I'd certainly recommend
> avoiding damsels as first fish unless you want damsels in that tank until
> they die of old age...mollies don't usually require you to break the
entire
> tank down to catch them!
>

Damsels are indeed a pain. I had one, who took over the entire 29-gallon
tank. He was keeping our puffers completely off of the rock, so much that
they started getting an overbite since they couldn't nip on anything to wear
their teeth down. Thankfully, I caught him with little trouble, and found
him a safe new home. Very pretty fish, but bad attitude!

[Glenn R. Holmes]

Nice of you to offer them, kind of funny it started a dialog aboout how
to run in a tank. :)
You may want to trade them in to a nearby LFS. Try Aquarium Services,
they may set up a trade with you.

A couple of nearby LFS's used to buy my SW bred mollies. I'd convert
them over to brackish for them if they wanted. Curiously, I have
observed over the years that mollies in SW do better than in FW.
Good luck
Glenn
Arrhae wrote:

> On 8/2/03 5:05 PM, in article ,
> "Glenn R. Holmes" <grholmeNO@JUNKattglobalDOTnet> wrote:
>
>
>>Why not gat a smaller tank and convert them over to a brackish
>>environment? You may also want a hospital tank and they could be used to
>>keep it run-in for you? Just a thought!
>
>
> I've currently got a brackish tank and was thinking of moving some of them
> that way, but I thought I'd check to see if anyone might want some of the
> red-eyed ******* stepfish in their current salty state, as well...
>
> The hospital tank/mean fish isolation ward's in need of a cleaning and some
> form of filter repair since it broke and killed the puffer and the damsel
> living in it, and it has no lid...given the frequent splashing noises from
> the nanoreef since the original pair of mollies moved in, I don't think I'd
> be able to keep them contained in that for long. It normally runs brackish.
>

[Arrhae]

On 8/5/03 7:28 AM, in article ,
"Glenn R. Holmes" <grholmeNO@JUNKattglobalDOTnet> wrote:

> A couple of nearby LFS's used to buy my SW bred mollies. I'd convert
> them over to brackish for them if they wanted. Curiously, I have
> observed over the years that mollies in SW do better than in FW.

The parents along with my guppies in the nanoreef look quite
happy...freshwater mollies always look rather miserable to me.

I've just noticed an odd dorsal fin on one of the guppies that I've never
seen before (they're mostly black/orange illegitimate Endler hybrids), it's
black and quite long, and then there's a very light purple section and poof
at the end, almost like a poodle's tail! I should try and get pics with the
digital camera. The siblings of those fish are in mostly freshwater, and
none of them have quite as interesting fins...