If I could stress one thing on a bait tank is that it takes time to cycle. And to remember CYCLE! CYCLE! CYCLE!!
There are two types of Cycling.
with fish and with out fish known as fishless cycling
Cycling actually refers to the nitrogen cycle. It is a process where waste products from your fish converts from harmful chemicals to harmless chemicals, naturally!
Getting Started Cycling Tank.
The following describes the chemistry changes that occurs in your new aquarium before it balances naturally.
During cycling, the fish inside will be stressed because and they may die or fall sick before the balance is reached. To cycle the tank, you should use cheap and hardy fish because they are tough enough to handle this difficult mission! Start out with a few bait fish, You don't want to just dump a good haul of bait into your just started bait tank to have all your hard work go belly up in a few days.
Ok I know you're on the starting line all ready to go so lets get started!
What you need:
A tank (of course)
hardy fish
A Biological Filter setup (The term setup is used because a bio filter is not complete without established bacteria colonies. Aquarium cycling is all about establishing these bacteria. If you need help on a bio filter setup, you can refer to the aquarium filtration section.
Day 1
There are people who top up the tank with water and leave it for a week or two before putting the fish. Skip those wasted time! Let your tank stand for 1-2 days is more than enough! The tank does not start the cycling process without ammonia, and that comes only from fish waste! Just remember to add a correct dose of antichlorine+antichloramine to the water you use so as to remove chloramine and chloramine. Chlorine and chloramine are added by the water supply company to kill bacterias to make it safe for humans to drink. However, when we do aquarium cycling, we need bacteria to multiply to eat the fish waste, so help the bacteria! They are our friend.
Note: Bacteria that help in the cycling process are grouped together and called 'beneficial bacteria'. We want to preserve them and let them multiply in our filtration systems!
To add ammonia to the water, hardy fish should be introduced. Anywhere from two to five inches of fish may be used per ten gallons of water (any less and the tank may go through another, but smaller, cycle when more fish are added in future;(THIS IS WHAT MOST PEOPLE SEEM TO BE EXPERIENCING WHEN THEY ADD MORE BAIT TO THEIR TANKS!!!)) any more and the water condition may go beyond what your hardy fish can tolerate). Ammonia is produced from fish waste. In short, your fish eats food and converts it to ammonia.
In the first day, with the introduction of the cheap, hardy fish, there should not be enough ammonia produced to be measured because it is diluted by the volume of nice clean water. Therefore,
All readings should be near zero.
Day 2
Feed the fish as usual, but not too much until there is leftovers in the tank. Leftovers rot and can cause the waste levels to go out of control. Don't forget we are not changing water throughout the cycling process! (Did I hear 'yay!' ?). I know this goes against most of what alot of us preach about not feeding your bait, but in order to cycle your tank its a must.
Remember that during cycling, we try not to change the water because we don't want to prolong the time it takes for the tank to cycle. Everytime you chance water, you are removing the waste chemicals that we need!.
Important!: Used aged water or dechlorinated water only! The smallest amount of chlorine will set you back in the cycle, especially in the beginning stages where beneficial bacteria is still in minute quantities.
If changing water is absolutely necessary, keep it small and less than 20% of the total water volume. Best if you don't change at all.
Ammonia should be rising to a measurable amount.
Day 3
Ammonia rises quickly to almost dangerous levels. You should see a spike in the ammonia level if you are actively testing the water. The fish in the tank should show signs of stress due to the water condition going bad.
During this period, be careful not to feed too much because the fish may lose their appetite. Put a little food at a time and only put more if the food is finished.
Also, control the amount the fish eat. You should not always feed until the fish won't eat anymore. It is generally better to keep the fish a little hungry. Especially when feeding dry pellet foods, a fish may become overfull when the food absorbs water and expands in the stomach. It is better to feed a more small meals than less big meals.
First stage bacteria are consuming ammonia and converting them into nitrite. However, as the bacteria is still very little, only a very small amount of ammonia is being converted into nitrite. As the ammonia being consumed by bacteria is less than the ammonia the fish is producing, ammonia levels in the tank continues to rise, however, at a slower rate.
First stage bacteria are growing to become established, but the amount is still very low.
Nitrite level is low, unmeasurable quantity.
Day 5
Ammonia level maxs out and starts dropping. This is because the first stage bacteria has grown in quantity to be able to consume ammonia and converts them to nitrite faster than the fish can produce them. The result is a drop in ammonia level and rise in nitrite level. During this time of maximum ammonia, less hardy fish may fall sick or even die.
If you observe your fish having difficultly coping, you may want to change some water in the tank so the ammonia is more diluted. As warned earlier, use aged and dechlorinated water only! Don't change the water if not absolutely necessary.
Ammonia maxs and drops.
Nitrite levels rising.
Day 8
First stage bacteria are now well established. Ammonia level drops at a faster and faster rate and finally to zero. Nitrite levels begin to rise faster than before. During this time when the ammonia drops rapidly to zero, you will notice the fish becoming active and happy, looking for food, fighting, getting active. This is because this is their first break from the stressful "work" in the last few days. Congrats, you are halfway there already!
First stage bacteria well established.
Temporary improvement of water condition.
Day 14
Nitrite levels has climbed to reach the maximum levels. Again, fish in the tank will start to show stress. During this time, partial water changes can be made but I don't need to tell you now, change less than 20% and use de-chlorinated water only.
Nitrite levels maxs.
Day 27
During the last few days, second stage bacteria grows as they consume the nitrite and converts nitrite into nitrate. Nitrite levels continue to be elevated for several weeks.
Nitrite being converted to nitrate by second stage bacteria.
Day 29
Second stage bacteria are well established. These second stage bacteria are able to convert nitrite as fast as they are produced. Nitrate levels now becomes measurable.
Second stage bacteria well established.
Nitrate levels rises.
Day 30
Both first and second stage bacteria are now well established. Ammonia produced by fish is converted into nitrite and then nitrate with no excess because there are now enough first and second stage bacteria to process them. Congratulations! Your tank is fully cycled and ready for your fish to be put in!
NOTE: You may experience that when you add more fish to your tank that you go through another cycling process
additional notes:
1. A rise in nitrate levels after the tank has cycled may cause an algae bloom. This is because nitrate is a plant nutrient. To prevent excess algae, you may want to put in some water plants to absorb and use the nitrates as they are produced by second stage bacteria. This effectively starves the algae of the nutrients they require, bringing them under control. Also, you will have happy plants!
2. Although the tank has fully cycled, it is important to continue to look after the beneficial bacteria in your tank through proper maintenance practices.
Fishless cycling with AMMONIA!!!
Using ammonium chloride: This is the other most popular way to cycle a fishless aquarium. Simply add chemical ammonia to the tank water and let the process cycle. The benefits of this method are that the tank does not cloud up with a bacteria bloom and you don’t have to look at an aquarium with dead fish on the bottom. Plus you can somewhat accurately determine the amount of ammonia being added to the tank. The drawbacks to this method are that the proper ammonia solution can be hard to find and when you do find an ammonia solution you may not be able to easily determine its concentration.
Why do you need proper ammonia? Most of the ammonia solutions that are easy to find at grocery or hardware stores are for household cleaning use. They usually contain an additive for scent or something else. Never use anything but pure ammonia. Also, many of the ammonia cleaning solutions which have a heavy ammonia order also have very high pH and the smell is ammonia gas. Over time, the ammonia is leaving the solution so the concentration is changing (getting lower). Most start out between 4 and 11% ammonia but rarely is the concentration given on the bottle, so it can be hard to figure out how much to add. If you are going to use an ammonia solution, proceed cautiously at first until you have an idea of how much ammonia is actually being put into the aquarium water. For this you need to be able to accurately measure the amount of the liquid you are putting into the water. Add some solution to your aquarium, let it mix and then use your test kit to measure the ammonia concentration in the water. You want to have an initial ammonia-nitrogen concentration of 2 to 3 mg/L (ppm). Do not go above 5 mg/L.
Whatever the source of your ammonia, the following is the way to proceed. Add the ammonia solution to the Tank so that the ammonia concentration is between 2 and 3 mg/L (but, as mentioned, do not go above 5 mg/L). Record the amount of liquid you added. Wait 2 or 3 days and measure the ammonia and nitrite. Continue measuring ammonia and nitrite every 2 or 3 days until you start to see some nitrite. This is a sign that the ammonia-oxidizing bacteria are starting to work. Add half the initial amount of ammonia you added to the water on day 1. Continue measuring ammonia and nitrite every 2 or 3 days. Around day 9 to 12, the ammonia will probably be below 1 mg/L, maybe even 0, but nitrite will be present. Nitrite does not spike until somewhere between days 14 and 20. You want to be careful adding more ammonia because you do not want the nitrite-nitrogen over 5 mg/L as this will start to poison the nitrite-oxidizing bacteria. Add a little ammonia every few days (1/4 dose), making sure the nitrite does not go above 5 mg/L. Once you start to see the nitrite decrease, it will drop pretty fast. The cycle is completed when you can add the full dose of ammonia (2 to 3 mg/L-N) and overnight it all disappears to nitrate with no sign of nitrite. Now you can start to add fish.
My Fishless Cycling!!!
Here is how I do it, you may or may not agree with the method. It is also has the potential of spreading diesease through your tank.
Find a friend who has an aquarium and have them clean their gravel using one of the those gravel vacuums, place all that cloudy, mucky looking water into a bucket and bring it home. Next while your filter and pumps are running, stir up the contents of the bucket so that its all suspended again and pour it into/through your filter. Make sure that you don't keep the contents of the gravel cleaning in the sealed bucket for to long as you don't want the bacteria to start dying off. As soon as possible is my recommendation. By "SEEDING" your filter you have basically jump started your whole process. Just ensure that you do have some fish in the tank to keep the bacteria fed. The first couple of hours your tank will most likely be all cloudy and there will be stuff all floating around, which is OK b/c your filter will take care of it. Test your water ammonia, nitrates and nitrites the next day if every thing is within parameters add a few more fish. The next day test your water again and note your water tests. You may see a rise in some of your readings as your newly seeded bacteria have to establish themselves. As you test your water and you see that your readings have leveled out, add more fish. Usually in about a week or two your tank can be fully cycled and be up and running. I have also found that if I use water from the lake or pond that my times to cycle have been reduced from the fact that there is bacteria already freefloating in the pond/lake/brook water.
