Starting the Cycle

Heartened by the judgment of the Wet Web Media crew, I decided to go ahead with the 30 gallon Craigslist tank.  :-)  First step is to test out the tank in its new home and to start cycling it.  What does cycling a tank mean?  Whenever you start up a new tank, or completely change the water in an aquarium, have you ever noticed that the water starts to cloud up after a couple of days?  You think to yourself, "Sheesh!  This thing gets dirty, quick!" and your natural tendency is to clean out the tank again.

What happens?  When you put fish in the tank, you feed them and their waste produces ammonia.  Out in the wild, fish eat and poop all they want.  But remember, in the wild, the proportion of fish to water is a whole lot better than in a fish tank.  And in the wild, the water is constantly running.  A fish tank is a closed environment.  In it, the ammonia produced would cause a fish to eat and poop til it died.  So, to help out aquarium life, nature gives up bacteria.  When you see the cloudy water, it's because the bacteria are in full bloom seeking to bring some sort of equilibrium to the tank.  They take the ammonia, turn it into nitrites, and then the nitrite into nitrate which the plants can absorb and fish have learned to live alongside it.  Cycling can take a few weeks.

Remember those carnival fish you'd take home as a prize?  How often did they just die overnight?  That's because they weren't in the best shape in the first place, and most likely when you brought it home, you put it right into an uncycled fish bowl.  Shock + weakness + ammonia build-up = death.  So while testing the integrity of the tank, I thought it would be good to start cycling the new tank.

I filled the tank up with about 10 gallons of water and dechlorinated it.  Then I took a gallon of the water from Bully's current small apartment of an aquarium and poured that into the tank.  Since I don't have any test fish to feed and then produce waste starting the cycle, I had Bully help me out.  Then I took a gallon from the tank and refilled Bully's tank with that.

I also pulled out one of the plants and threw it in there to help the process.  Then I borrowed the filter from Bully's tank and ran it for a few hours to help share the bacteria (apparently, bacteria love to hide in filters).  I stirred up the gravel in Bully's tank to collect some mulm (the waste in the gravel), and then I threw in an Eco-Bio Rock which I had from before (they tell me that if you pull it out and dry it and store it, the bacteria will hibernate and will live for another day.  I e-mailed the Onedersave people to ask if my rock was still good and they responded:

----Original Message-----
From: ONEdersave-Customer Service <customerservice@onedersave.com>
To: Allen Echiverri
Sent: Mon, Jun 6, 2011 6:18 am
Subject: Re: EcoBio-Rock

Hi Allen,

EcoBio-Rock bacteria go dormant until you put it in water again. But it may take a little longer when restarting. You should definitely try using it.

Thank you for your interest in EcoBio-Block Products.

Customer Service

ONEdersave Products LLC

Clear Water - Healthy Fish

EcoBio-Block

So, I'm giving it a shot. :-)

Then, while all this was going on, the filter I ordered arrived this morning from Amazon, safely delivered by the Ontrac guy.  I don't know how Amazon found OnTrac as a delivery service, but my guy is fantastic.  He makes deliveries before 8AM because he knows that I'm usually checking the roses out front around that time!  Good guy.

In any case, I decided to go with an Aqua Clear 50 filter because it can be adapted to an under-gravel filtration system to promote movement under the substrate which I will lay down next week, improving oxygen to the roots of the plants.  Now some people say an HOB filtration system (Hang on Back) disturbs the water surface too much with its "waterfall" effect and will diminish the CO2 I'll be injecting into the aquatic environment (the plants will need CO2 to flourish).  But I don't think that will be too much of a concern because the tank is tall and the water from the filter will glide into the tank.  I'm also considering anchoring some floating plants in the filter case outflow reservoir into the aquarium to ease the re-entry.  We'll see about that.

Again, to help with the cycling process, I made use of Bully's home.

Mind you, this filter can pump 300 gallons of water an hour.  At its lowest setting, it goes at 66 gallons/hour.  Bully's current tank is 3.5 gallons.  LOL!  You can see him on the other side of the tank swimming to stay still!

The filter has a sponge at the bottom, a charcoal pouch, and then some ceramic doo-dads that are supposed to help keep good bacteria.  Most of the things I've read say there's no need for the charcoal because it could purify out things you want to keep in.  I'll run it while cycling, especially with the new water, and then try pulling it out after the tank is cycled.

So that's where things stand today.  Let's hope the take makes it through the night!  :-)


Cost summary:


Tank:  $10.00
Filter:  $29.95
Total to date:  $39.95