Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So there has been lots of varied discussion about how to fishless cycle a new system. It might be nice to sum it up in one place. without an existing system to steel water from, what other options are there?
I see the off the shelf amonia as risky. Pee in it perhaps? But what about a few buckets of water from the local bluegill pond - plus a couple fish. Ideas?

Mark

The bacteria occurs naturally. You don't actually have to do anything. Provide a source of ammonia and they will come on their own. They multiply fastest in warmer water, so if you have cold water the process will take longer. A bucket of water from an aquarium or pond will do little, very few bacteria exist freely suspended in the water, they colonise in and on the media. If you're able to get someone to wash an aquarium filter in a bucket of aquarium water that would definately be more useful.

As for ammonia sources, there's plenty. You can buy 'Urea' from your garden centre, use 'Humonia' (note, both of these take a couple of days to convert to ammonia), you can use bottled Ammonia (non-cloudy) or chuck some starter fish in like gold fish.

IMO, hummonia is the most cost effective option... hmm... actually it is free...
Aligns quite well with the AP concept of converting waste to useful nutrients...

Also using pee when cycling without fish allows the limits to be pushed further...

And as MrOrange has pointed out, the bacteria is naturally occuring bacteria, as long as an ammonia source is provided... so I would not really bother too much about water from an established system, gravel from an established system, etc... especially when the weather is warm...

One important thing to remember when cycling fishless, although there is not fish yet, the more aeration you can provide, it does speed up the cycling process somewhat compared to one with minimum aeration... so chuck in the airstones and run the water pump constantly so that more water splashes on the surface creating aeration...

And the last most important thing that is required when cycling the system, (I cannot believe I am saying this as six months ago, I was exactly the opposite)... Patience...

so where can i buy bulk Patience ? cuz ill need lots.

I could have sworn there was a fishless cycling thread somewhere, I'm sure I've written the instructions many times!!!!!!

Even when doing a jump started cycling with water and gravel from another mature system, some patients is required. Plan on 6 weeks so that when it takes a lot less you can be happy and if it takes the whole time, you are not upset.

Anyway, to fishless cycle you want to dose up to about 1 or 2 ppm of ammonia and let the system run. Some people might tell you that a higher ammonia level will work faster but if you go too high (which is easy to do) it will then hinder the whole process and perhaps start to smell. Anyway keep doing daily tests till you see ammonia drop and nitrite start to climb. You can perhaps add a little more ammonia through this process but keep it minimal as ammonia hinders the bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate. The nitrite spike takes longer than the initial ammonia spike usually. Once the nitrite starts to fall you are getting close. Say once your nitrite gets to 0 and the ammonia is 0 and you have nitrate. go ahead and dose up to 1 ppm of ammonia again and see how long it takes to get back to 0. Once you can dose to 1 ppm of ammonia and within 24 hours be back to 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite you can call your system fishlessly cycled. Keep adding small regular doses of ammonia to the system until a few days before you are gonna add fish. Make sure the ammonia and nitrite have a chance to reach 0 before adding fish and after adding fish, keep testing as you increase the feed to avoid causing spikes.

I was able to fishless cycle a barrel ponics system this way using aged humonia (aging it in a sealed bottle lets the urea convert to ammonia before use so there isn't the lag from dose to ammonia reading that you get with urea or fresh urine) during cold weather in only about 3 or 4 weeks. It doesn't take much humonia in such a small system 100-200 ml per dose was plenty. Even in my big system (600 gallons at the time) 400-500 ml per dose was plenty for cycling. I had no aquarium owning friends or AP systems to get water or filter gunk from. The only extra additive I used other than the aged humonia was a small hand full of fresh worm castings (along with some worms) in each grow bed.

Ah just did a search and found some threads with Fishless cycling in the topic title
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2104&hilit=+fishless+cycling+
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1933&hilit=+fishless+cycling+
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6581&hilit=+fishless+cycling+

I am actually rather shocked that we don't have a fishless cycling instructions thread stickied in the basic info or useful info sections of the forum. I might have to fix that.

Well yeah, they call it a holiday... get your system all setup and running, dosed it with ammonia, test for 1-2pmm.

Then go for a 3-4 weeks holiday that is too far for you to physically get back to your AP system for a quick look.
By the time, you get back, the system should be pretty close to cycled...