Fritz Zyme 7 & Gravel with nitrifying bacteria how quickly do they work?

[aussieman57]

Recently set up a 40 breeder using Carib Sea gravel with nitrifying bacteria and added Fritz Zyme 7. Added 5 pearl danios. Tank has been up and running a little over 1 week. Tested the water yesterday and got reading of zero ammonia, zero nitrites & nitrate 5.0 ppm. This tank can't possibly be cycled in that small a time frame. ??? First time using packaged nitrifying bacteria. In the past always cycled new tanks without these products.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I doubt if those tiny fish in that big amount of water can produce enough ammonia in a week to give one a reading. I keep more CPDs in a planted 5.5 gal. with a bunch of red cherry shrimp than you have in tour tank. The shrimp colony has been there for over a decade. 1/2 the CPDs came over a year ago and the other half about 3 years back.

I am a big fan of Carib Sea's Torpedo Beach sand. I bought most of it a number of year ago- probably from 2012 through 2014 or 15. I got it from an online site that was selling it in 20 lb. bags with the cycling stuff. They ran summer promos with free shipping and that included the heavy stuff. (I was ordering about 3 times/summer and getting 3 bags each time) The sand came with liquid in it and an a couple of sealed packets. I threw out the packets and rinsed the heck out of the sand. I did not want what they claimed would cycle a tank.

Generally, the way to use a bacterial product for cycling a tank is to use live bacteria in sufficient quantity to cycle the gallons one has so one can put in close to a full load of fish. You should only need to add the bacteria once to do this. I am only aware of three products that contain the needed bacteria. Dr. Tim's One and Only, Tetra's Safe Star and a product. if it is still available, ABIL https://avecom.be/bioproducts/abil/

My preference re these 3 products would be to add them to a tank and then add enough ammonia to produce 2 ppm. If in 24 hours it shows .25 ppm or less of ammonia and/or nitrite and some amount of nitrate, it is good to go. Do a big WC and add fish.

There are a number of other options open to you. I am not a fan of using fish to cycle and do not help folks to do so. I can suggest other ways to get your tank cycled, some would allow for more fish, but that is qualified by what options are available to you.

1. Do you know anybody near you who have healthy cycled tanks?
2. Do you have or plant to have live plants in the tank?
3. What sort of filtration are you using. One can buy cycled sponge filters.

 

[Rocksor]

Recently set up a 40 breeder using Carib Sea gravel with nitrifying bacteria and added Fritz Zyme 7. Added 5 pearl danios. Tank has been up and running a little over 1 week. Tested the water yesterday and got reading of zero ammonia, zero nitrites & nitrate 5.0 ppm. This tank can't possibly be cycled in that small a time frame. ??? First time using packaged nitrifying bacteria. In the past always cycled new tanks without these products.

So did you test your tap water for nitrates first?

 

[aussieman57]

1. No
2. Live plants arriving this week. Hornwort and Anubias.
3. Aquaclear 110.

Did some further research on this Fritz Zyme 7. Several sources state fish can be added immediately after nitrifying bacteria are dosed in the tank.

 

[aussieman57]

So did you test your tap water for nitrates first?

Yes. Tap water contained zero ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Have also spoken with municipal water source and they state that nitrites and nitrates come out of the municipality with undetectable levels.

 

[aussieman57]

 

[aussieman57]

I am not a fan of using fish to cycle and do not help folks to do so.

I get that this is personal preference. On another note the LFS guy who runs his mouth like he has verbal diarrhea tells me this when I tell him I'm going to use some dither fish to help cycle the tank ... "you would not poison your dog would you". At this point I had enough of his BS and asked him if he sells live feeder fish, ever culled fish or sold fish that customers will use for target fish and asked him if he would murder his dog. First time I've seen motormouth speechless.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I would have answered you re feeder fish and culls v.s. cycling with fish.

In nature many fish are food. Predatory fish etc. eat them. This is natural. If you wish to keep fish which require live food, then you have to use feeder fish. Dogs do not eat each other under normal circumstances. But look at the ingredients in many dog foods and you will find you are feeding them other animals killed for that purpose. If one makes the decision to keep fish which require live food, then it is the fish keeper who is choosing to use live feeders.

If one breeds fish for ornamental uses (i.e. not to be eaten), any deformed fish will usually go unsold. But in nature most will not survive. They will either end up as food or else live a fairly short time and may struggle to do so. Unless one is willing to keep all the deformed fish they breed until they die, the next best option often is to recycle them as food. Some fish will spawn in tanks even if that was not something we wanted. If the result is a deformed fish that will be bullied etc. and likely to suffer before it dies, what should a responsible fish keepers do with it?

One the other hand using fish to cycle a tank has very well known risks for the fish. One knows that they will be intentionally exposing a living creature to toxic chemicals. Even when one can do so in a way that does no long term harm, can we know that the fish doesn't suffer to some degree during the process? What we do know is that stress is one of the things that opens fish to attack from bacteria, parasites etc. because stress weakens their immune system. So even using multiple waters changes to protect the fish from ammonia as best as we can, they are still being stressed by the water changes as well as the chemical exposure.

Finally, if one can find plain household ammonia which contain some surfactants but nor other additives, you can use that for a fishless cycle, I know this is true because my first few fishless cycles used this. I did do two things however. I ran carbon in the filter(s) during the cycling and at the end I did a really huge water change. About 10 years ago I switched to ammonium chloride.

I do not judge those who cycle with fish. I will offer an alternative if they are interested, but I will not aide in doing a cycle this way. But the above is how i feek and what motivates how I try to do things.

 

[twentyleagues]

Fritz will cycle the tank. Follow the directions. Ive used mb7 which is very much like fritz's product and a product from tlc that seems to work the same also. The two I've mostly used have dosing directions on them that when followed I've never had issue with ammonia or nitrite when starting a new tank.

 

[RD.]

inally, if one can find plain household ammonia which contain some surfactants but nor other additives, you can use that for a fishless cycle, I know this is true because my first few fishless cycles used this.

I believe that you meant plain ammonia, that does NOT contain surfactants, or other additives....