cycling with fish

[Greg Gore]

I kind of jumped the gun and added fish to my 80 gallon tank. so I was wondering is there a way to cycle faster with fish?

Thanks

Greg

[George]

Not that I know of but read about salting to save your fish from the nitrite spike.  Good luck.

Possibly you could introduce bacteria from another system.

[David Marland]

I started with adding the plants and goldfish the same day of start-up after ageing the water for a week. I started adding Seasol a seaweed compound mix. It took six months for my nitrate levels to show, that’s the sign that your bacteria are working, soon after I started adding small amounts off sea salt and Epson salts, I started adding aquarium water from the fish I am planning to eat, plants are growing better now and fish are happy, I am based is just outside of Perth Western Australia.

Welcome Greg, this can be a fun hobby have fun.

[George]

That is a very long time.  Six weeks is more typical, or even less.

David Marland said:

 It took six months for my nitrate levels to show, that’s the sign that your bacteria are working, 

[Greg Gore]

I found my solution literally. It's called microbe-lift special blend. It's for fish tank filters. It gets the ecosystem in your tank going faster. I added it today, so I will see what happens in the next week.

Cheers

[David Marland]

I was doing the test wrong? Not shaking the bottle long enough or something plus I fell for the there’s no nitrites so there wont be any nitrates thing.

Then I saw the you tube clip from this website,

[George]

I don't see a link to the site.

Possibly you had nitrates earlier but the plants were taking it up.  My nitrates have always been low but plants grow well.  

David Marland said:

I was doing the test wrong? Not shaking the bottle long enough or something plus I fell for the there’s no nitrites so there wont be any nitrates thing.

Then I saw the you tube clip from this website,

[David Marland]

Sorry here is the link I found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1DrY4Qaj5Y

I recommend watching all her clips as well as some from this guy who gave me the idea for my setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqLyM4gfWUE

Hope this helps,

I have only been doing aquaponics 14 months now give or take a month, I started with ten small goldfish in the IBC. Then because it was still cold I setup a 200ltr aquarium indoors for my eating fish. The fish are vary large at the moment. They spent summer outside, then I brought the three barramundi indoors. And left the three Silver Perch in the IBC.