Help in cycling my tank

I have seen your list of results in post #10, but can't find how much ammonia you have added so far? The nitrite readings have gone up so that must have been made from ammonia. If you haven't added any ammonia, where did the nitrite come from?
Does the fertiliser give a list of ingredients? All the website says is that it contains "nitrogen and phosphorus" but not what chemical the nitrogen is in.

I've added no ammonia yet I will attach a photo of the back of the bottle, this tank is more or less made up of what I've seen on you tube and read on Google which seems to be didnt fully understand or I have been misinformed by certain things but info I have picked up off this forum so far today is more than I've learnt in the last month I'm over dosing 2 pumps a day fert so maybe the nitrite levels is a result of that being a newbie like I say I'm going of what I'm watching but if they are doing it in a fully cycled tank already I'm guessing the results would be much different?

The bottle says it contains ammonium, a form of ammonia, so that's where the ammonia has come from. I suggest you don't add any more till the cycle has finished.

Is 8 ppm the highest your nitrite tester goes? If it is, you could try mixing some tank and tap water 50:50 and see what reading that gives. If it's still the highest number, try 1 part tank to 4 parts tap (a 1 in 5 dilution) and test that. Once you get a reading somewhere on the scale, you'll know what to multiply it by to get the true level. If it turns out to be over 15 ppm, I would do a water change, big enough to get the reading onto the scale. 15 ppm nitrite is where the cycle stalls.


Once you've got nitrite down and the ammonium chloride has arrived, I would then add enough to get 1 ppm, the snack dose, dose #3, in the method in the link I've given you. The bottle says to add so many drops per American gallon which gives a dose of 2.4 ppm ammonia, so add a bit less than half of what the bottle says.
Hopefully the cycle won't take too much longer as you've already grown a lot of ammonia eaters. It's now waiting until the nitrite eaters grow some more.



Once you have fish, that fertiliser may not be a good idea as it contains ammonium. I would be reluctant to add that to a tank with fish. We grow the bacteria to remove the ammonia made by the fish; personally I wouldn't like to add more. There are some products designed for an underwater garden rather than a fish tank and this is possibly one of them.

Essjay said:

The bottle says it contains ammonium, a form of ammonia, so that's where the ammonia has come from. I suggest you don't add any more till the cycle has finished.

Is 8 ppm the highest your nitrite tester goes? If it is, you could try mixing some tank and tap water 50:50 and see what reading that gives. If it's still the highest number, try 1 part tank to 4 parts tap (a 1 in 5 dilution) and test that. Once you get a reading somewhere on the scale, you'll know what to multiply it by to get the true level. If it turns out to be over 15 ppm, I would do a water change, big enough to get the reading onto the scale. 15 ppm nitrite is where the cycle stalls.


Once you've got nitrite down and the ammonium chloride has arrived, I would then add enough to get 1 ppm, the snack dose, dose #3, in the method in the link I've given you. The bottle says to add so many drops per American gallon which gives a dose of 2.4 ppm ammonia, so add a bit less than half of what the bottle says.
Hopefully the cycle won't take too much longer as you've already grown a lot of ammonia eaters. It's now waiting until the nitrite eaters grow some more.



Once you have fish, that fertiliser may not be a good idea as it contains ammonium. I would be reluctant to add that to a tank with fish. We grow the bacteria to remove the ammonia made by the fish; personally I wouldn't like to add more. There are some products designed for an underwater garden rather than a fish tank and this is possibly one of them.

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That all siunds fair enough and makes sense alot of the vids I was watching didn't really have many fish if any, I'm using 'aquarium lab testing kit' with this test kit it's 5ml of tank water and 5 drops of nitrite ill do a couple small tests and see what the results are and I'll stop with the fertiliser

Here is the thing. Having live plants changes how one should cycle. Depending upon the actual quantity and types of plants one use, it may not be necessary to cycle at all. You just stock gradually as soon as the plants have had a chance to establish.

Most plants purchased should have been nursery grown and they should arrive in good shape and with stored nutrients. They do not need to be fed right away. what then do need is some time to establish in their new environment. This should be a couple of weeks. As long as they appear healthy and show some signs of growth, things are fine. Rooted plants are working to root.

Next live plants use ammonia. However, inwatewr, ammonia exisrts in two forms. The dissolved gas, which is NH3 and is highly toxi,c and then the ion Ammonium, which is NH4 and is way way less harmful. Our test kits measure Total Ammonia (TA) which is the sum of NH3 + NH4. How much of the TA in a tank is in each form depends on the pH and temperature of the water. The higher these are, the more of the TA is in the form of NH3. One can remove all the TA from water by removing NH4 or NH3 since when one is removed what remains converts bact to the proper balance based on the pH and Temp.

Finally, the plants are able to take up (NH4) much faster than the bacteria can use the NH3. And this is why a well planted tank does what is called a silent cycle. Even though there is bacteria on the plants and their roots and there is bacteria other places, especially the filter, it is the plants that do the heavy lifting re the cycle. This allws one to stock over time without doing a traditional cycle.

However, how can we know how safe a planted tank is in terms iof adding fish? That is where ammonia comes in. We use this to do a test addition to the tank to determine how much TA the tank can process in 24 hours. For this, 1 ppm of ammonia is all one needs to add. I suggest one tests 12 hours after adding the 1 ppm. If it reads zero then, repeat the test with 2 ppm. The reason for this is the more ammonia the tank clears in 24 hours, the more fish one can put in to start. If you are not in a rush to stock the tank fully ASAP, then go with the 1 ppm. Do not exceed 2 ppm as some plants cannot handle too much ammonia.

Unfortunately Norwich is a city in both the USA and the UK so I am not sure where you live. i am in the states and can help if you are here re finding ammonia. If you are in the UK, then one of the members from there will have to help with this.

Torpica Specialized contains ammonium. However, from your numbers it is minimal. The problem is we have no idea how much ammonium is in the fertilizer. However, it appears to be enough at the rate you have added it to produce more nitrite than is desired.

So what should you do from here? irst, your plant load does not need added CO2 at this time, turn it off for now.

Step one is to get some real ammonia. Next, do a huge water change to reset the tank. I am talking as close to 100% as you can get. To make sure the tank is good to go, test for ammonia and nitrite. Ammonia should be 0 and you want nitrite as close to 0 as possible.

Next, dose ammonia to produce 1 ppm. This is not all the difficult to do. In the states buy Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride and follow the directions at 1/2 the dose. This will produce just over 1 ppm of TA. Based onhow fast pr slow the tank clears this amount of ammonia, the next step becomes clear. If you want to stock more slowly then 1 ppm in 24 is fine, 2 ppm cleared in 2 hours prett much lets you do a big stocking, almost fully for the tank size. If the tank clears only 1/2 the ammonia, you can still add fish but much more slowly and you must strat with fewer.

That's the information I needed from the started, I was speaking with 'essjay' he informed me to do a big water change reset the tank I've done an 80%+- last night and do 2 tests 50/50 tap water/tank water reading was still 8.0+ and 1:4 which was reading around 4.0 after 2mins as the test tells you to do, turned the co2 off as soon as guys on here suggested I did, now waiting on Dr Tim's ammonia to be delivered should hopefully be within he next couple of days, plants have over the last week started to show signs of melting and black spots (black spot alge I believe) on the leaves during the water change I removed 90% of the dead/melted leaves all the plants are still growing, lots of new growth (rotala rotundifolia) especially, yes I'm from Norwich in the UK not America, I'm not in no rush to add fish from the start I ideally wanted a planted tank then would slowly add the fish, my son wanted a fish tank got him a little 10 gallon tank 4 female sunset platys with a 2months to my amazement we had fry in the tank, being me I rushed out got a breeding box and that led onto where I am now (excuse for me to get a bigger tank)

If you have between 30-50% of the volume of your tank in plants and they are growing, then you can safely add a few fish at a time. I never wait more than about ten days before I start adding fish.

itiwhetu said:

If you have between 30-50% of the volume of your tank in plants and they are growing, then you can safely add a few fish at a time. I never wait more than about ten days before I start adding fish.

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Would it be Safe to add fish with such high nitrite levels, would that mean I wouldn't need to dose ammonia into the tank if I was to add fish they would create the ammonia instead?

If you want the skinny on nitrite and how to deal with it re having fish present, please read this, if you don't the answer would be no, do not put fish into water with nitrite.
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/rescuing-a-fish-in-cycle-gone-wild-part-il.433778/

lso, it is not uncommon to have new plants die back, sometime right down to the substrate. Most times they are not dead but have been schocked. They will start to regrow. While plants use ammonium, that does not mean they can handle any ammonia level. To much will harm or kill plants. And. just as different fish species are more or less tolerant of ammonia, so too are different species of plants. This is why you should start with 1 ppm for the test and if it goes well, you can try again with 2 ppm. I would not suggest adding more than that to a planted tank. Often it is the more demanding type of plants that are more sensitive to ammonia.

The amount of time one should allow plants to settle in before adding fish is pretty much a moving target. itiwhetu said it already- the plants must be doing well. Growing is a good sign But plant mass matters as well.

Personally I would like to get on top of the early stages getting the cycle completed and levels stable with the help and instructions of you guys before I even consider adding fish I ask these questions because I look to get a simple answer that I can understand being a newbie to all this I get myself so confused which leads me onto another question at which point would you add the likes of snails/shrimps

Matty24 said:

Would it be Safe to add fish with such high nitrite levels, would that mean I wouldn't need to dose ammonia into the tank if I was to add fish they would create the ammonia instead?

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I would never add fish to a tank with anything but zero readings for nitrites, nitrates and ammonia. I achieve this by low fish stocking and a large amount of plant. Nitrates I believe are one of the main contributor's to stress in fish.

If you add fish to a tank before enough nitrite eaters have grown, you will be doing a fish-in cycle and having to do a water change every time nitrite was above zero. It's much easier to continue fishless cycling (where you only need to do a water change if there's too much nitrite from adding too much ammonia)

Am I correct in thinking I could use use tropica premium nutrition in my tank as it doesn't contain nitrogen and phosphor it says its suitable for aquariums with slow growing plants and many fish (not that is has any fish yet) hoping my ammonia is going to be here in the next couple of days so I can get the ball rolling since a big water change my plants are also looking alot more healthy to the eye to be honest the tiny blacks spots on the leaves have cleared up massively so not to worried about that at the moment but in my mind I just want the to give plants that little bit more

I will tell you something that if you look online you will find most saying the exact opposite. When I began doing fishless cycles as I ramped up my number of tanks, I used plain old household ammonia. I made sure it was unscented etc., but I happily used ammonia that contained surfactants. Mostly, you will be advised against this.

I cycled at least a dozen tanks this way before I switched to ammonium chloride. I used it to cycle both planted tanks and tanks without any plants at all. I never lost a singled fish when I stocked the tank fully once the cycled was complete. The reason for this was pretty simple.

First, the amount of surfactants in the ammonia is very small. In the early days of fishless ammonia was dosed using a drops per gallon method rather than an ammonia calculator. The method was also simple. You added between 3 and 5 drops per 10 gals. daily and when you saw nitrite you reduced this by about 1/2. Consider there are about 20 drops in a ml. So if adding 5 drops they would contain 1/4 ml of surfactants. Let's assume the surfactants are 2% of the ammonia solution. You are putting .005 ml of surfactants into 37,854.1ml of water. There are way less than 2% of surfactants in the ammonia.

Next, I ran carbon when doing a fishless cycle. It removes surfactants. Then, at the end of the cycle I did a huge water change.

Abstract​

The pollution of the world's water resources is a growing issue which requires remediation. Surfactants used in many domestic and industrial applications are one of the emerging contaminants that require immediate attention. Treating water contaminated with surfactants using adsorption provides better performance when compared to other techniques. A variety of materials have been developed for adsorbing surfactants. Activated carbon is the most suitable adsorbent for removing surfactants but is expensive to synthesize and difficult to regenerate.

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from A review on recent developments in the adsorption of surfactants from wastewater

If you want to try using household ammonia, I would suggest using an ammonia calculator which will let you input the concentration of ammonia (normally 5% -10%) into the calculator.

Matty24 said:

Am I correct in thinking I could use use tropica premium nutrition in my tank as it doesn't contain nitrogen and phosphor it says its suitable for aquariums with slow growing plants and many fish (not that is has any fish yet) hoping my ammonia is going to be here in the next couple of days so I can get the ball rolling since a big water change my plants are also looking alot more healthy to the eye to be honest the tiny blacks spots on the leaves have cleared up massively so not to worried about that at the moment but in my mind I just want the to give plants that little bit more

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I think I've read before that yes, putting some food will generate ammonia to feed the beneficial bacteria. If what I've read (and understood off it) is correct the bacterial colony "self-regulates" its size depending on the tank's conditions.