TSS works fine in a fishless cycle. Many members here have cycled this way. They report it really speeds things up. A <10-day cycle is not unheard of using TSS in a fishless cycle.

Use the whole bottle; rinse it out in the tank. Use Prime or other dechlorinator when starting out and when adding water. Keep ammonia <2.0ppm if this is a Betta only tank.

Tips:
---Lots of aeration. Lots
---Filter on high
---Temperature >82*
---Keep it dark

Let us know how this works for you.

Welcome to the forum.

 

Wow thank you! I'll have to give it a try.
Some other quick questions though.
When you say to keep it <2 ppm of ammonia, do you mean throughout the whole cycle? From what I've learned about cycling I thought I had to have it around 4 ppm.
And to provide aeration I will probably try to put in an air stone or two (or any other suggestions?) But will take them out before adding the bettas. I'm assuming the bacteria and everything will be just fine once I remove the source of aeration?

 

Here's what I did in my 10g when I tried it.

Fill the 10g with water treated with Prime, kept the heater and filter running the entire time (I used a sponge filter), tossed in some ammonia to get the levels up to 5ppm then tossed in TSS. Now being a typical male, I don't need to read the instructions that came with the TSS, so I just tossed about 1/4 of the bottle in every day as I went along.

10 days later, I came back and tested and my ammonia levels had dropped to almost 0, so I redosed to 5ppm and a few days later, cycled tank.

 

I've used TSS twice to cycle two 5-gallon tanks and both cycled in less than 20 days. I did have a PH crashes in both tanks where it dropped below 7 and I added some baking soda to get things going again. These crashes occurred when I started reading nitrite and nitrates. You may not have this problem, though. Our local water isn't well buffered.

I found having the API master kit (the liquid one) invaluable during the cycling process.

I agree with Hallyx - high temp, darkness, filtration, and aeration are important.

 

If you can get a bit of mature media from another tank it'll get things rolling along.

 

Unfortunately I don't know anyone with a cycled tank and my LFS moved quite a ways away so I can't ask for something from them

Thank you everyone, I'm excited to get started

 

The amount of ammonia to dose and maintain is matter of opinion and stocking. If you're just going for a Betta and a snail or shrimp or few, enough bacteria to handle 2.0ppm/day of ammonia is plenty. On the other hand, if you're planning on a fully-stocked, high-bioload tank, cycling to the maximum of 5.0ppm is a way to be able to completely stock right from the beginning. The bacteria colony stays just the right size to oxidize the amount of ammonia your livestock produces. No more, no less.

Depending on your water conditions, dosing over 5.0ppm may stall the cycle.

 

Oh ok. It will just be 3 bettas in the tank. I domt have a test kit yet but will be getting one asap so I can find out the water conditions

 

For 3 Betta in a 10g, I'd dose and maintain ammonia from 2 to 3 ppm.

Keep a log and tell us all about it.

 

It's actually 3 betta in a 20g.
I will definitely keep a log but it won't be for a while because unfortunately I have some unexpected vet bills and medical treatments from my horse to take care of. But I will start as soon as I can