Talk:Fishless cycling

Fishless cycling is important for salt water aquariums, much less so for fresh water. It is a subject and topic best left to advanced hobbyists. Beginning fresh water hobbyists should not attempt this procedure. New hobbyists may follow the following simplified procedure. Do not buy any fish until after the aquarium is set up. To set up a new tank, wash your hands well, then wash the tank, gravel, and accessories using only tap water. Then fill the tank with tap water. If the setup is all new, add a small pinch of flake food, and a well rinsed, green leaf of lettuce, cabbage, etc. Aerate or otherwise circulate the water for 24 hours to allow the chlorine to dissipate. Alternately, you may use the recommended dosage of water conditioner to eliminate the overnight wait, but read the label carefully and follow the directions. Then add a few fish. The rule of thumb is one inch of fish to two gallons of water in new aquariums. The next day, feed a small amount of flake food, step away and observe. If the fish finish the food, add another small pinch of food. Otherwise try feeding again the next day. After a week, you may add more fish, up to roughly one inch of fish per gallon of water.Kfinel (talk) 05:44, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

So much original research (a.k.a. Save the article!)
When I read this page, I assumed that only a single person had created it/worked on it, due to the fact that it seems entirely sourced from one's personal experience. Even though personal experience is an invaluable source of information for topics like this, we really need to try to find some books or websites where people have officially "published" this information. I found this when researching the topic for myself, but am overall very inexperienced/unfamiliar with fishless cycling. It's an important topic, and I'd like to see it remain on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, originally sourced articles are extremely often flagged for deletion, so I do hope some of the contributors are watching this talk page and can be bothered to track some down.

I'll keep it in mind as I do further research. Unfortunately (for this purpose), the most detailed information I've come across so far seems to come from forum posts, which of course can't be cited here.Jtrnp (talk) 23:20, 13 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I did a quick Google Books search: . I think you can find reliable sources there. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:52, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Cost of Fishless Cycling?
First off, it's unsourced, but my primary gripe is that saying that a testing kit is an additional expense is silly, as you would need a test kit regardless of how you cycled and even when you cycled, unless you just didn't really care about whatever was in the tank actually staying alive. It is akin to including the cost of the tank in the equation – you're gonna need it regardless of how you cycle. Besides, feeder fish cost money, too, so the only real way to not spend anything is to just cycle with your final fish and hope nothing goes wrong. 73.217.152.206 (talk) 21:09, 22 June 2021 (UTC)