Fishless Cycle, New Tank

This is my first tropical tank, near beginning of fishless cycle. Thought you may be interested to see my data every few days, and maybe offer some advice! Chart attached (hopefully). Temp is 25C, seeded with some filter squeezings and fake plant and ceramic media from established smaller tank.

Eagerly awaiting nitrites!

Date pH Ammonia Nitrite Nitrate
03/10/12 7.6 0.5 0 2
04/10/12 7.6 4 0 3
05/10/12 4 0
06/10/12 4
07/10/12 4 0
08/10/12 4
09/10/12 7.8 4 0 0

Good luck with everything. The "do and do not" link in my signature summarizes some of the most common questions we get with new members cycling.

Raise your tank temp to 30 degrees if possible, it will help speed up the cycle... good luck with it

Terry.

10 days into fish less cycle and measured first nitrites at 2ppm today. Now the long wait......

......and first nitrates the following day; text-book cycle so far.....fingers crossed!

Trying to add my fishless cycle data, 12 days in so far.....

Latest data 15 days into fishless cycle. Am I reading the data correctly; that after processing the 4ppm ammonia successfully into nitrites and nitrates, there was a drop in activity as I have been dosing only up to 1-2 ppm ammonia for last few days, fearing over-dosing and stalling? Hence the drop in nitrites and plateau in nitrates? Tonight I have dosed ammonia back up to 4 ppm, see what happens in a few days time! Expert opinions very welcome! Hope I haven't stalled it too severely......chart attached. Thanks in advance for any advice or confirmation that I'm understanding the data correctly!

Well I thought all was going well, but now I need some advice; after seeing reduction in ammonia and a brief nitrite and nitrate showing, but with ammonia not going down to zero, I decided yesterday I needed to dose ammonia up to 4ppm again, which I did. 24 hrs later ammonia still at 4ppm but zero nitrites (fair enough if all previously added ammonia had been converted and yesterday's addition is yet to process), but nitrates DOWN close to zero. I've done no water changes, haven't touched anything. How can this be? Data chart attached. Will leave it for a few days and keep daily testing......any ideas? Thanks!

Quick pic of tank set up so far waiting for cycle!

Day 21 of fishless cycle, ammonia dropping to zero within 24 hrs, entering nitrile spike, nitrates building. Data chart attached. Everything ok, I think!

Some advice please; should I re-dose ammonia to 2 ppm every day or every other day?

Thanks to anyone who replies!

Day 21 of fishless cycle, ammonia dropping to zero within 24 hrs, entering nitrile spike, nitrates building. Data chart attached. Everything ok, I think!

Some advice please; should I re-dose ammonia to 2 ppm every day or every other day?

Click to expand...

Depends on how high the nitrItes are, if they are off the scale(the API test turns purple straight after putting the drops in), then best is to do a large 90%, even 100% water change to remove all nitrItes, then redose the ammonia. The reason is because neither the ammonia or the nitrIte eating bacteria like high nitrIte concentration.
As for frequency, if the nitrItes are spiking, you can dose to 1ppm every day instead of 2ppm every second day, then once the nitrItes keep going down fast enough, you can increase the ammonia dose to the desired level. But even if you dose every second day it won't harm your ammonia eating bacteria to be honest.

And on a side note, testing nitrAtes during a nitrIte spike is pointless because in order to measure nitrAtes, most home tests turn the nitrAtes to nitrItes and then measure the amount, so if there's nitrItes in the water, the test will show higher value for nitrAtes than the actual concentration.

Well this is a surprise; I was thinking I was in for a drawn out nitrite spike, feeding ammonia every evening to 2ppm; but this evening I measure zero ammonia, zero NITRITES and increasing nitrates! Is my tank/filter cycled? Will keep up with 2ppm ammonia daily this week and keep measuring everything, while taking temperature down slowly to 25C. I was expecting nitrite phase to be twice as long as my lengthy ammonia phase, but looks like it could be done after a little more than three weeks total. I will not be stocking fully to start, then only very slowly over coming months, so as long as it's fully converting 2ppm ammonia to nitrates within 24 hours I guess I'm done?

Updated data chart attached.

Thanks for the help and advice!

I agree, 3 weeks does seem rather quick (but certainly not unheard of)... i noticed a couple of points at this stage for you though..
1/ Keep the temperature where it is, lower it the evening or morning before you add your first fish.
2/ Remember to keep a very close eye on NitrAtes AND PH, a big rise or fall in these respectively may stall your cycle. A water change shouldn't harm a good, even slight colony of bacteria during a cycle, don't be afraid to carry one out if any results indicate you to.

Great approach to your first stocking , although you can theoretically stock to what your filter and tank size allow, it is usually recommended to do as you plan...closely monitoring yet more test results as you go.

Always nice to see a succesful fishless cycle, best of luck...

Terry.

I ran the cycle at 28C, and seeded it with mature filter squeezings regularly, and from the beginning took all the mature ceramic media from my established 20 l tank and put in in the 100 l, so maybe this helped speed things along. And of course only processing 2-3 ppm NH3 daily kept it shorter than a fishless cycle for an immediate full stock. Thanks for the support; will post some more pics once I move the lodgers in ;-)

Old fish happy, new fish happy, tank clear, zero ammonia and zero nitrites. Fishless cycle success! Thanks for the help!