BJP

I spent most of yesterday running around aquiring a lot of stuff to try a little heads up test.

4 new 10 gallon tanks.

Each tank was given one 5 pound bag of new gravel, a new Aqua Tech 5-15 power filter with standard carbon floss bag and a little stringy/foamy bio insert included, 10 drops of Genesis dechlorinater, 2 level tablespoons of Aquarium Pharmaceuticals brand salt, filled with water and each tank had 1/2 teaspoon of clear ammonia added.

No heaters will be used since it's hard to gaurantee they'll heat equally and exactly in all four tanks all the time. Room temperature around 72 usually.

No glass tops were used but poster board size foam board was placed between the tanks to eliminate any chance of splashing from one tank to another.

PH 7.3
KH 70ppm

Tanks placed in the bedroom where the only light source is diffused sunlight through a closed blind except when I cut the overhead on for brief periods.

Tank A- had nothing else added
Tank B- Had 1/2 cup of gravel from an aged aquarium added into a knee high baggie then dropped onto the bottom of the tank.
Tank C- had two capfuls of Cycle added as instructed on the package.
Tank D- had one 1 ounce package of Bio-Spira added as instructed on package.

The ammonia was added after 30 minutes of run time with the gravel, Cycle and Bio-Spira added instead of prior.

Let's see what happens and when.

Jay

Cool test! Seems to have covered the bases, I agree cross contamination could be a disqualifying issue or accident.

You are not married are you I can just see me trying to explain why I am doing this to my accountant Wife.

Jay

BJP

Single. Hopefully I can finish and get the four aquariums out of the bedroom before I met anyone. I didn't even try to explain it to my friends yesterday when I was looking for a shotgun to tag along on the adventure which ended up requiring stops at

1 K-mart
2 Petsmarts
4 Walmarts
5 pet/fish stores

I wanted to set this up with 5 gallon aquariums and found two at the first store which led to the marathon trying to find two more unsuccesfully and the single bottle Aq Pharms ammonia test kit. I gave up last night at the last Walmart and just bought 10's and I'll aquire the 2 bottle ammonia kit next time I get to the city. I should have enough to last this week.

BJP

Results for Day 1

After about 7 hours, roughly 4ppm ammonia in all four tanks, no nitrite or nitrate detectible in any of them.

Loman

This is a really great experiment. Thanks for doing it and for sharing the results. It is probably lacking statistical merit but the results will certainly be sufficient to make me rethink things depending on what happens.

__________________
Loman

24 Gallon Saltwater Aquapod
1 Royal Gramma
1 Blue Devil
1 Bicolor Chromis Lyretail
1 Scooter Blenny
1 Chocolate Chip Star Fish
Crabs and Snails

20 Gallon Freshwater
Swords, Zebra Danio, Neon Tetras, Albino Cat Fish, Plecostomus, snails

10 Gallon QT Saltwater
10 Gallon QT Freshwater (Divided)

Tommy Gun

Ok, please do not "hear" this as me being anything but curious, but no nitrate in any tank, including the ones with Biospira and cycle?

Like Jay and Loman, I am curious to see how this turns out. If I had the time, I would try to do the same with you so we could really compare results. It would be great to see what is quicker. Are you planning on putting fish in each tank when your tests show a completed cycle?

Honestly, just being curious, not derogatory at all.

BJP

There was the barest hint of a color change to the Cycle and Bio-Spira nitrate tests compared to the other two but not enough I'd want to try assigning a number yet. As I mentioned before in the other threads, I don't expect a single dose of either per instructions to accomplish that. It's the repeated doses of Cycle that should and for that matter Bio-Spira if additional doses were called for. I'll be redosing the Cycle tank with Cycle at seven day intervals per instructions. The Bio-Spira tank will get no more Bio-Spira since the instructions do not call for it. The bottle of Cycle is being stored in the refrige as instructioned on the package.

I'll be playing the back end of this based on what happens and in conjunction with what the herd wants to see happen once we get there. Long term I'd like my bedroom back. So no long term additions please. If anyone wants them, they can have the cycled tanks for free since I want have storage space for them. There's also a chance I could be talked into sterilizing the tanks and repeating the experiment using different products if a need develops.

Tommy Gun

The only thing I think would be interesting to see is what tank is cycled 'the best'. For example, if I did this experiment, I would drop like 10 or 15 rosy red minnows into each tank all at once and see if I could spark off a mini-cycle. Since I know the guy who bought my lionfish, I could just give them to him for feeders after they were quaranteened, of course.

It is a good experiment and I know that the cycle will probrably add nitrates, and like you said, maybe Biospira if it was a multiple dose type product. Believe it or not, my bet is that even though it wont be the first tank cycled, the tank you put nothing into will have the strongest cycle and would handle the 10 to 15 minnows better than the rest. I have no reason for feeling that, but it is my gut instinct.

BJP

I should probably add more about the gravel in Tank B.

The gravel placed in the baggie was taken from a ten gallon that's been running with no live plants for over a year now. It's current occupents are a herd of catfish young from the lake out back. Feeding is once a day in that tank with filtration consisiting of a single small Whisper HOB. The gravel should be completely stocked with bacteria by this time. No water or anything else from that tank was used, just the 1/2 cup of gravel.

Tommy Gun

Would you speculate that this tank would be the first to complete a cycle then? In my mind, I would say so since you know for sure that there is bacteria, of the right types, in the gravel.