Hello guys, my tank is cycling now. I am using bacto start. I heard that clownfish is very hardy and may helped with ammonia for cycle and they may be able to live until the cycle is completed. Anybody tried it before?
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Hello guys, my tank is cycling now. I am using bacto start. I heard that clownfish is very hardy and may helped with ammonia for cycle and they may be able to live until the cycle is completed. Anybody tried it before?
I think people confuse the old days when you put a fish through a high Ammonia spike and then a high Nitrite spike over the course of a month or more to complete a cycle. When you are using bacteria now a days, the process is extremely quick and the directions even tell you to put a fish in from day one and I have done this several times with no ill affects and absolutely no signs of stress from the fish. With bacteria, you should not even notice an Ammonia spike, (usually within a day or two) and the Nitrite spike is not harmful, (usually happens by day two or three) and the whole process only lasts five to eight days. The fish does not go through hell and you don't have to watch an empty tank.
That being said, I have never used the bacteria you are using, but there are several out there that have been used successfully and the two I have used are Bio Spira and Fritz Turbo Start 900. Whatever you decide though, good luck.
Like I said, I have used Bio Spira and Fritz Turbo Start 900. I used Bio Spira about 12 times and each time I didn't even notice an Ammonia spike and the Nitrites lasted a few days, but never went high enough to worry and the process was done by 8 days every time. I used Fritz for my DT and actually used ammonia to kick it off since all my fish were in QT and not ready to go in yet and that one did take a bit longer, but no more than two weeks.Not sure what bacteria you are using, but I just finished cycling a new tank and it definitely was not an 8 day process. Ammonia and nitrites are food for the bacteria, so unless your tank is totally seeded already, you have to see some sort of spike with each, right? Every system is different, but I’ve never been able to cycle a tank in less than 2-3 weeks.
This is on par with using a damsel for the cycle. In my option this is a very out dated method. Either use a dinner shrimp as mentioned above or dose pure ammonia (only do this if you are comfortable handling chemicals and know how to do it).
But to answer your question, yea a clown fish would work as long as it isn’t too young (3/4-1” or bigger) if it’s too juvenile it’ll likely die. I’ve known people to use clown fish as they don’t want a damsel in their tank after the cycle and they are near impossible to catch. I would recommend using another method mentioned above though.
If you have fish food, you could just toss a bunch in the tank. That’ll work the same way the dinner shrimp would.
Use just a raw frozen shrimp. Put it in a pantyhose or mesh to more easily pull it out after it's done its jobThe shrimp is cook? Or the frozen shrimp? Can i leave the whole shrimp in there? How long i can leave in the tank?
I did clown with bacteria, 0 casualties.Hello guys, my tank is cycling now. I am using bacto start. I heard that clownfish is very hardy and may helped with ammonia for cycle and they may be able to live until the cycle is completed. Anybody tried it before?