3 Weeks Into Fishless Cycle - No Nitrites

[librarygirl]

Hi everyone,

I previously had a Marineland Eclipse 12 tank that I tried to cycle both with fish (due to bad advice from LFS) and then without fish after they all died overnight (I believe it was PH shock after a large pwc). After 6 weeks and some inexplicable problems (bad odor, foamy water, etc) I gave up and tore the tank down. Three weeks ago I bought a new 20 gal glass tank with Fluval Internal U2 filter and AquaClear 20 HOB, new decor, substrate (gravel), etc.. I'm using the ACE Brand hardware ammonia (I'm in the U.S).

I do have an air stone as well as surface agitation from both filters and tank is heated to about 85 degress Fahrenheit. My tap water is rather soft (GH is 3, KH is 2). I haven't tested the tank's GH/KH yet but can do so if you think it would be informative. I haven't changed the water since first adding it, other than topping it up once per week due to evaporation (I use Prime).

It was three weeks yesterday and I still do not have nitrites or nitrates (using the API Master liquid kit). Ammonia is dropping slowly and I've re-dosed as necessary. I'll add my log below. Should I be seeing nitrites by now? Help would be appreciated.

Date -- Ammonia -- NitrIte --- NitrAte -- PH -- Notes

6/12/11 - day of starting - dosed to 2 PPM Ammonia - didn't test anything else
Let the tank sit until 6/18, did not test
6/18/11 - 1.5 ammonia, did not test anything else. Added a mesh bag of about 1 cup of gravel from a seeded tank and a small rock from a seeded tank
6/19/11 - 1 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, 7.4-7.5 PH
6/20/11 - 0.5-1 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, 7.4-7.5 PH. Re-dosed ammonia to 3-4 PPM
6/23/11 - 1-2 ammonia, did not test anything else
6/24/11 - 1-2 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, 7.4-7.5 PH
6/26/11 - 1-1.5 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, 7.4-7.5 PH (2 weeks since start)
6/27/11 - 1 ammonia, 0 nitrite, did not test anything else
6/29/11 - 0.5-1 ammonia, 0 nitrite, did not test anything else. Re-dosed to 3 PPM ammonia
6/30/11 - 1-2 ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite, did not test anything else
7/1/11 - 1-2 ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, 7.4-7.5 PH
7/2/11 - 1-2 ppm ammonia, 0 nitrites (3 weeks since start)
7/3/11 - 70% pwc to try to get things kick-started (with Prime), added small crumbs of fish food, re-dosed ammonia to about 2-3 (tested ammonia a few times, got different readings, the test may have been contaminated or skewed)
7/4/11 - ammonia 0.5, nitrites 0 , nitrates 0, redosed ammonia to 2
7/5/11 - ammonia 2, nitrite 0 , nitrate 0, ph 7.4-7.5
7/6/11 - ammonia 2, nitrite 0 , nitrate 0, ph 7.4-7.5. Added some crumbled up fish food.
7/8/11 - ammonia 2, nitrite 0
7/9/11 - ammonia 2. (4 weeks since start)
7/11/11 - ammonia 2. Added seeded mag sponge filter from an established tank
7/12/11 - ammonia 1, nitrite 0, nitrate 0-0.25, ph 7.5
7/13/11 - ammonia 0.5, nitrite 0, nitrate 0-0.25. Redosed ammonia to 2
7/14/11 - ammonia 1, nitrite 0, nitrate 5 (Day 33 today)
7/15/11 - ammonia 0.5-1, nitrite 0, nitrate 5
7/16/11 - ammonia 0-.5, nitrite 0, nitrate 5
7/17/11 - ammonia 0.25, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-20 (redosed ammonia to 2)
7/18/11 - ammonia 1.5, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-20
7/19/11 - ammonia 1, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-20, PH 7.4-7.5
7/20/11 - ammonia 0.5, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-20

Thank you.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Have you checked the expiration date on the test kit?

It's possible that you just don't have many of the bacteria you are trying to cultivate in your water. Do you know anyone with a tank, or could you ask a LFS for some mature media to put into your filter?

Keep with it! It may take a while, but once you have cultivated a strong colony, it will be that much stronger in the long run.

 

[librarygirl]

Have you checked the expiration date on the test kit?

It's possible that you just don't have many of the bacteria you are trying to cultivate in your water. Do you know anyone with a tank, or could you ask a LFS for some mature media to put into your filter?

Keep with it! It may take a while, but once you have cultivated a strong colony, it will be that much stronger in the long run.

Yes, the test was manufactured in October of 2010, so it should be good. I did add a very small amount of gravel and a rock from an established tank but clearly it wasn't enough to get things going. That was the only source I know of and I can't get any more from them. I asked a store and they said no (I even offered to pay) but I haven't asked everywhere. I'm still trying to find a decent LFS here (most of the ones I've gone into are questionable) and I don't want to take just anything from anywhere and risk adding diseases to my tank.

So I should just be more patient I'm just worried because I tried cycling another tank, tried for 6 weeks total, but with and without fish and never had nitrites. I dismantled that tank and everything in it and bought a whole new, different setup. But now after 3 weeks and still no nitrites I'm worried something is just wrong with my water maybe? I hope not, but I'm getting paranoid at this point.

Thank you for replying.

 

[Stephan]

How can the ammonia be disappearing other than by the bacteria converting to nitrites?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

The tank is acting in a very "contaminated" situation. The ammonia can gas off - ammonia in its "natural" state is a gas - that's what you smell when opening the bottle of ammonia. The ammonia can also be absorbed by the media material itself, or into the substrate, etc. (or adsorbed by carbon in the filter). There are other processes at work in the tank. Generally, when the ammonia does this once, dosing it again will lead to nitrites when the ammonia drops a second time. In my first fishless cycle, the ammonia dropped sooner than the appearance of nitrites. It happens sometimes.


Unfortunately librarygirl, you seem to have a VERY low amount of bacteria initially in your tap water. The numbers will double about every 24 hours. This is an exponential growth rate (it is very slow compared to most other bacteria actually) but still exponential. The issue though is that the growth in an exponential situation starts off VERY slowly, and then can increase rapidly. You must be starting VERY low on that graph based on your tap water. Its not a bad thing normally to have very little bacteria in your water, but in this case, the bacteria you want doesn't happen to be very prevalent in your tap water. It will happen eventually...

 

[Miles_hot]

Stick with it - ours took a daft amount of time (and still is!). Eagle - are your sure it's every 24h? I thought it was more in the days??

Miles

 

[librarygirl]

The tank is acting in a very "contaminated" situation. The ammonia can gas off - ammonia in its "natural" state is a gas - that's what you smell when opening the bottle of ammonia. The ammonia can also be absorbed by the media material itself, or into the substrate, etc. (or adsorbed by carbon in the filter). There are other processes at work in the tank. Generally, when the ammonia does this once, dosing it again will lead to nitrites when the ammonia drops a second time. In my first fishless cycle, the ammonia dropped sooner than the appearance of nitrites. It happens sometimes.


Unfortunately librarygirl, you seem to have a VERY low amount of bacteria initially in your tap water. The numbers will double about every 24 hours. This is an exponential growth rate (it is very slow compared to most other bacteria actually) but still exponential. The issue though is that the growth in an exponential situation starts off VERY slowly, and then can increase rapidly. You must be starting VERY low on that graph based on your tap water. Its not a bad thing normally to have very little bacteria in your water, but in this case, the bacteria you want doesn't happen to be very prevalent in your tap water. It will happen eventually...

Thank you! My water was rated best in water quality in America so I'm assuming that means it has little bacteria in it lol That could be the issue. Would it be wise to try different water, such as spring water, or should I wait a bit more time and see if nitrites show up? How long is a reasonable amount of time to wait?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Congrats! And at the same time, I'm sorry.


I think that your best bet would be to start seeking out more fishkeepers in your area. Is there a aquarium society nearby? Check here. If you go to a monthly meeting, you probably could contact someone there for some media...


In the meantime, I would just keep cycling and waiting. Sorry I don't have any better advice than this.


Miles,

Yes, the 24 hours is a rough estimate. I believe it is actually a little less, UNDER IDEAL CONDITIONS. Obviously, these aren't ideal conditions all the time, but that's why we turn the heater up to 84F and pH to 8.0-8.4. It gets it a little closer to ideal.

 

[waterdrop]

Unfortunately no, you don't want to change to a different water source such as spring water. An important part of what you're doing when you prepare a new tropical tank is to create an environment that can rely on your own home tap water as the main "safety mechanism" for you to use when things go wrong. You want your own tap water to be the "baseline" water chemistry of the tank.

I think there is a reasonable chance that you have touched on a factor that may be a key in your original post. It may indeed be the case that you are stuggling to grow these particular two autotrophic species in water where the GH and KH are so low (and which result in a low pH) that you would be one of the ones to benefit from doing a bit of doctoring of the water.

Since we don't have fish to worry about (with fish you never want to make quick changes to the underlying water hardness as the systems in their bodies are limited in how much and how quickly they can adjust to this) we can go ahead and make a rapid change in KH and benefit both from raising that and from the resulting secondary effect of it then raising the pH toward the 8.0 to 8.4 optimal area.

My usual recommendation is to start with about 2 teaspoons per 50L (you can use the google search line to make needed volume conversions or there are sites that help with this sort of stuff) of common kitchen baking soda (in the US it is better to be sure it's simple baking soda (like Arm&Hammer) rather than baking powder which might have other ingredients) and then take a check of your pH after maybe 15 or 20 minutes of circulation settling. If you pick up a GH/KH (or just KH) kit (it's not really necessary but it can be fun for learning) you have a tool that is dramatically better for seeing what is going on. The idea is to tweak your pH up into that 8 range without overdoing it (although it's true it will stop naturally and you can't over-do the pH raising, you don't really want the extra salt in the tank just on principle.) Two teaspoons is a pretty middling dosing and you may easily find you want to do a bit more than that after you watched the measurements.

The reason the KH kit shows you more (over time this is) is because as the nitrate(NO3) slowly builds over the course of the fishless cycle (with the little 7% or so of it that will be nitric acid) the carbonate content of the water will only be able to neutralize so much of the acid and the KH will slowly but steadily drop (at least this is what you would see especially if you -hadn't- dosed baking soda) whereas the resulting pH measurement would hold quite steady but then suddenly take more of a dive. If you are measuring KH you can actually watch it march down and as it gets below 4 you know the pH is soon going to crash.

Note that a lot of what I'm describing above is more easily seen in later stages of fishless cycling (but it helps you understand the ideas.) For you, it will probably just be a continuation of boredom but hopefully your pH will be up in that 8.0 to 8.4 range and the tiny colonies of Nitrosomonas that are battling it out with other bacteria for space on your filter media will be better able to produce their biofilm structures and have more moments when the cells can divide (they only divide during their growth phase when conditions are right.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[librarygirl]

Thank you for the suggestions waterdrop. I can try the baking soda, I guess it won't hurt any, but from what I've read my PH shouldn't be too low to stall the cycle. Although yes my tap water is fairly soft. I do already have a GH/KH kit; I'm going to test my tank's GH/KH for the heck of it to see if it's different from the tap.

Since this is my second attempt at cycling a tank and I'm still failing, I'm wondering if something else is going on. I've changed everything from last time (tank, filters, decor, etc), the only thing I haven't tried is changing my water. Do you think trying spring water would be beneficial?

I'm starting to think this is hopeless

[edit]: I tested the tank, KH is the same at 2, GH is higher at 5. Not sure if this means anything one way or the other, but there it is. I know some tanks just take longer to cycle, maybe 3 weeks isn't too long considering that it can take longer. I'm just worried because I had another tank that wouldn't cycle after 6 weeks both with and without fish. It's possible something got in the old tank (I had some issues with weird foam and bad odor) and/or the filter was sub-par, although people use these tanks so they must cycle. But now I have new filter systems and a whole new tank setup. The only thing I haven't tried changing is the water itself. Again, I'm at a loss and think I should just give up.

 

[Miles_hot]

LG - stick with it Our cycle has been a long journey (day 77 and counting) and it took a long time to get the ammonia dropping to zero (52 days). Some Mature Media would help but I'm guessing that you've been down that road (keep trying though it can come at any time!)

Chin up

Miles

 

[waterdrop]

Good morning LG, Yes, you are correct, the pH of 7.4 or so won't "stall" the progress (that happens more dramatically at a pH of 6.2, with what often feels like a total stop at 6.0) BUT, it can still contribute to a much greater length of time for the fishless cycle in my experience. Many of the cases I've monitored with chemistry like you describe have taken upward of 100 days for the fishless cycle to complete (although probably somewhat more have managed to end closer to 70 days.) (You describe getting frustrated at 6 weeks, which would be less than 50 days, so I just wanted to help you imagine the time frame.)

It's great that you have switched out your equipment for larger filtration and higher flow - this should help make a significant difference. Still, the basic principles don't change - the source water may have only a few stray cells of the correct species (bottled water will only make the situation worse by the way) and you will need millions or billions of them before strong test results are seen. An important thing to help your resolve though is to remember that it's basically impossible for it -not- to happen - eventually time is on your side because more or less every non-chlorinated (non-treated) body of natural water has and will grow these bacteria and you will be creating just the right conditions to help things along. Right now I think that raising the KH and pH are your most important missing priority.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[librarygirl]

Good morning LG, Yes, you are correct, the pH of 7.4 or so won't "stall" the progress (that happens more dramatically at a pH of 6.2, with what often feels like a total stop at 6.0) BUT, it can still contribute to a much greater length of time for the fishless cycle in my experience. Many of the cases I've monitored with chemistry like you describe have taken upward of 100 days for the fishless cycle to complete (although probably somewhat more have managed to end closer to 70 days.) (You describe getting frustrated at 6 weeks, which would be less than 50 days, so I just wanted to help you imagine the time frame.)

It's great that you have switched out your equipment for larger filtration and higher flow - this should help make a significant difference. Still, the basic principles don't change - the source water may have only a few stray cells of the correct species (bottled water will only make the situation worse by the way) and you will need millions or billions of them before strong test results are seen. An important thing to help your resolve though is to remember that it's basically impossible for it -not- to happen - eventually time is on your side because more or less every non-chlorinated (non-treated) body of natural water has and will grow these bacteria and you will be creating just the right conditions to help things along. Right now I think that raising the KH and pH are your most important missing priority.

~~waterdrop~~

Thank you waterdrop! I appreciate your explanations, it does make sense, and I know you are well-experienced in this area. I'll try the baking soda as you suggested and wait a bit more and see if anything changes.

 

[librarygirl]

LG - stick with it Our cycle has been a long journey (day 77 and counting) and it took a long time to get the ammonia dropping to zero (52 days). Some Mature Media would help but I'm guessing that you've been down that road (keep trying though it can come at any time!)

Chin up

Miles

Thank you for the encouragement, it does help a lot. At least I have seen some ammonia drop (not sure if it's just absorption as someone else said or if it's actual conversion) so at least that's something, I'm just sick of seeing that blue nitrite tube lol Thanks again and good luck with your cycle!

 

[waterdrop]

I and a number of others in the US have had very low KH, GH and lowish pH and have had long and difficult fishless cycles in the past. For a while I thought all of the UK people were lucky, seeming to have enough minerals that usually cycling went better and often having plants do a little better from that same thing. But eventually I noticed a number of UK folks having trouble with very soft water and it made the statistics feel a little more normal again.

During my first long fishless cycle I certainly had time for plenty of doubts about the whole business of fishless cycling. I sometimes wondered if the whole thing was some weird hoax. The social pressure from extended family and friends was horrific - it's amazing the people that will give you a hard time about a tank without fish, even people that are then not interested in the fish once they're in there, lol.

The real jolt though was that first day when the API nitrite test went back to sky blue after being dark purple for weeks and weeks. I'll never forget it. Wow, the whole thing was for real! And now I understood it! Eventually, the next big shock was watching the fish the first month or two. I'd had basements full of tanks and years of experience knowing when fish felt good and when they didn't and I couldn't remember ever seeing fish that happy from day one. They were just prancing about, showing off their best colors and fairly bursting in this new environment - I realized this was just the nicest water I'd ever had to offer to new fish and it felt strange and wonderful to have done it with "a process."

We've had some real marathons getting people through long first cycles and we've had our share of those long ones give up but we've also our share, more I think, that have felt the taste of victory. Anyway, all of us feel for ya.

~~waterdrop~~