Fishless cycle question

"Elaine T" wrote in message
.. .
Margolis wrote:
"Elaine T" wrote in message
...

You know, you can take some old filter media like spent carbon, a worn
out sponge or cartridge, or some biomedia from one of your established
tanks and put it in your new filter for a few weeks. You will
transfer
enough bacteria to keep fish immediately with no cycle. Just be sure
the "donor" tank is healthy.



Not quite true. You can seed a filter to speed up the cycle, but it
still
has to cycle and will cycle. It will just do it faster since it has
"seed"
bacteria to get things started. The fishless cycle is still the way
to go
until it is COMPLETELY cycled.

I beg to differ. I have a month-old carbon bag from an Aquaclear on an
established tank and put it in the new filter of a new tank and added a
few fish. I never saw ammonia or nitrite in that tank. The next time
I was planning a tank, I put extra bio media in the filter of my
largest tank for a month and transfered that to the new filter. Again,
no ammonia or nitrite. This was a Tanganyikan tank and I had to stock
pretty heavily right away too. What, exactly do you mean by COMPLETELY
cycled?

There's a craze for fishless cycling now that is IMO completely
unnecessary. A properly managed tank with a generous load of bacteria
on filter media from an established tank does not "cycle" or stress
fish at all. The fishkeeper must simply consider how many bacteria
have been added and stock accordingly, giving the bacteria time to
reproduce as the tank is filled.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

I guess it depends on which version of semantics you hold to. If
'cycling' means for a system's waste processing capability to be balanced
against the rate of waste being produced, then yes, it is still cycling.
For example, if the bacterial capability of the filter material which has
been added, exceeds the waste production of the new tank, then the tank
is essentially cycled, but there is a die off of bacteria (which is
harmless) until the processing capability drops down to the waste
production rate.

If you take the more pedestrian view (which works for me :~), the tank is
cycled when the waste processing capability equals or exceeds the waste
production rate, so then no, it is instantly cycled in the above case.

Even if that old filter material only had half the bacteria needed, in
less than 24 hours, it would be up to the right numbers, so again, you
are cycled. I agree with Elaine, that it's an easily managed phenomenon
after you have at least one tank running. Pet shops routinely take tanks
out of service (maintenance, sterilization, refits) and they are back up
operating in a few hours. There is no thought to doing a fishless cycle,
or cycling with fish. The environment is almost immediately
re-established using aged filter media.
--
www.NetMax.tk