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Tank cycling discussions


Zev

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there is a perfectly good stickie in the fish room on cycling tanks - created by someone living in New Zealand, tested in New Zealand and using iitems that can be purchased in New Zealand.

While you are posting what looks to be a perfectly good link, have you tested what it suggests to see that it valid?

fish keeping,cycling in particular is done in many ways, some successful some not. When giving advice it pays to know that what one is is talking about is good advice and good advice is gained by many years of experience,, both good and bad.

In all my years of fishkeeping I look to water changes first and foremost as a solution and when ammonia is high this always works.

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This could probably be a new topic but a question that i often ask my self particularly when we see threads like the locked one.

Why do the shops that sell fish to these new hobbyists put more emphasis on cycling their tanks before fully stocking their tanks.

Is it ignorance or the lack of knowledge on the part of the LFS or just money talking. Lets sell him a bunch of fish and he'll be back in a couple of weeks cos half them are dead"

Send him home with a handful of tetras, a testing kit and some reading material. Surely this would be the way to go.

I couldnt find Jennifers article but here is the basics without going into a step by steps. Cheers

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/cycling.php

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Yep, all opinions including the sticky mentioned. It would be nice to find studies.

As I mentioned above, everytime someone brings home a fish from the LFS, it is a 100% water change. Every time a fish moves in a stream, it does, or has done for it, a 100% water change.

As for the bacteria in a bottle .. tried that. Waste of money was my experience.

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Yep, all opinions including the sticky mentioned. It would be nice to find studies.

As I mentioned above, everytime someone brings home a fish from the LFS, it is a 100% water change. Every time a fish moves in a stream, it does, or has done for it, a 100% water change.

As for the bacteria in a bottle .. tried that. Waste of money was my experience.

Yes the sticky is an opinion but it is also a valuable tested guide to cycling aquariums and a good, actually an incredibly good unbiased guide to any beginner or inexperienced fish keeper interested in cycling an aquarium in a way that is safe to aquatic creatures.

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Yep, all opinions including the sticky mentioned. It would be nice to find studies.

As I mentioned above, everytime someone brings home a fish from the LFS, it is a 100% water change. Every time a fish moves in a stream, it does, or has done for it, a 100% water change.

As for the bacteria in a bottle .. tried that. Waste of money was my experience.

This is the rest of the article you quoted from. And also what the issue was- Changing the perimeters.

If there is a difference between your tank water parameters and your tap water, then it may be worth starting a new thread to get advise on how to proceed, however if there is no ammonia present, then 20 - 30% water changes on a daily basis shouldn't be a problem.

I have seen quite a few studies science papers although all american and canadian. However when i go to find them now the links are dead. I will see what i can find.

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Is it ignorance or the lack of knowledge on the part of the LFS or just money talking.

Being on the LFS end of that, I try my best to ensure that the customer knows the best way to cycle the tank, and often I wont sell them a large quantity of fish or will advise them not to do something. Very little customers want to test their water at home either.

I find a lot of people don't want your advice either.

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Being on the LFS end of that, I try my best to ensure that the customer knows the best way to cycle the tank, and often I wont sell them a large quantity of fish or will advise them not to do something. Very little customers want to test their water at home either.

I find a lot of people don't want your advice either.

Agreed, I have spent many hours in the LFS up here and I have heard for myself the advice given out. 99.9% of what I have heard is good, sound, unbiased advice. I have seen many many times people ignoring that advice and insisting on needing this and that. At the end of the day the shop assistant has no choice than to sell them what they ask for.

I have also read on this forum people saying that the LFS told them this and that yet I have been in the shop that very time and know very well that that was not what they were told.

But this thread is not for debating this but for discussion on cycling should anyone wish to do so.

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This is the rest of the article you quoted from. And also what the issue was- Changing the perimeters.

If there is a difference between your tank water parameters and your tap water, then it may be worth starting a new thread to get advise on how to proceed, however if there is no ammonia present, then 20 - 30% water changes on a daily basis shouldn't be a problem.

This is the problem with mandates that say you can't change more than 50% of the water at a time because you'll shock (osmotic ) the fish. In the thread that was locked, this wasn't likely to be the case because water chemistry were going to be very similar, and so a 90% or higher was going to be safe in that respect.

Now if the source water and tank water chemistry are quite different, then those mandates are very likely to apply.

Here's another opinion on the matter. http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/wchange.html

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Now if the source water and tank water chemistry are quite different, then those mandates are very likely to apply.
it is rarely when you are trying to sort a cycling problem that the source and tank parameters are the same so massive changes can kill
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We may need to change the title to just "discussions". most of these get soo off topic that if anyone was actually looking for info on cycling their tank, would have no choice but to go straight for the sticky (not a bad thing, I'm just pointing it out)... or was this the plan all along? :lol:

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it is rarely when you are trying to sort a cycling problem that the source and tank parameters are the same so massive changes can kill

And my expectation would be the exact opposite. If you assume most new owners who are going to have the problem use the same dechlorinated or aquifer chlorine free tap water, then I can't see that the amount of total dissolved solids ( unless specifically added by the tank owner ), are going to change that much over the first few weeks of the life of the tank. If someone has measured TDS changes over the cycling period I'd be interested in seeing the data.

Things may well be different if you use RO water, and have substrates that are not inert.

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