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Re: [APD] Getting shot of Nitrate Xperiment



I believe Robert T. Ricketts wrote this email section below:

> Stuart Halliday wrote, in part:
> 
>> The idea of the experiment was to test out methods of fishless cycling.
> 
> Fishless cycling, as originally popularized on the web, was never intended
> to provide de novo bacteria by chance.  To be practical and timely, some
> inoculation had to be provided.

I found that even when I bleached the filter, heater, tank inners and 
substrate, it still provided nitrifying bacteria from somewhere.
:-)
But as you say, it's by chance.

>  Originally the rock wool potting material
> of commercial hydroponic-grown aquatic plants was suggested for those
> lacking safe mature filters on other tanks.

I never read that before. But it's stunning obvious when you point it out. 
:-) Then I've only been in the hobby 4 years.
Funny how the books on aquarium keeping just tell you to cut off the rock 
wool from the plant and throw it away.

>  But in the many web versions,
> apparently this requirement was dropped along with the inflation of the
> ammonia levels employed.  Both of those factors are detrimental to the
> process from what I see on the web and from my own experience.


OK, not knowingly adding bacteria is not going to provide enough bacteria to 
cycle a tank right away. But most people say you need 30-40 days to cycle a 
tank and that seems to be true from my experiments.
When I rinsed out a 3 month old 6" disc fine filter from my Eheim into the 
test tank, it barely speeded things up. Perhaps by a 7-10 days.
But as you point out, it makes the cycle much more likely to happen.

At least the commercial bottles of bacteria hold billions of bacteria so get 
over the initial slow population growth of a 'traditional' cycle.


I'll be interested in finding out how long it takes to cycle my test tank 
with rock wool.

Funny that shops don't sell cheap bunches of rock wool taken from the bottom 
of their plant tanks to allow aquarists, new and old, to cycle their tanks 
more quickly. Seems like a nice little earner.

Can you buy dry rock wool somewhere?

-- 
Stuart Halliday
http://mytriops.com/
200 Million years in the making...
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