Ammonia

[TR7 Nut]

Newbie question. Got my 180l tank 3 weeks ago , set up with gravel, rocks, plants, filter,airstone, and heater on and filled within a week, intend to do a fishless cycle, however as we have a holiday due I did not start the cycle as would not be there to monitor it.
I have an API kit and out of curiosity have tested weekly, Amm, Nitrate, Nitrite not showing in 3 weeks until today (only things I have added are API rooting tablets a week ago) Now ammonia is 4ppm, re-tested, still 4ppm. Nitrate now 5ppm. Where has this ammonia come from? Plants? have some rotting leaves, dont want to pull them off just yet as not firmly rooted. Or Snails? squashed a few baby ones and left in tank. Ph has jumped today from 7.6 to 7.8.
I am presuming this is nothing to worry about yet as no fish in tank.

 

[jdyer]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong...
Whilst plants take up Nitrate (and some ammonia and nitrite) when they're growing, they will give up those compounds when they rot.

Given you're planning to fishless cycle, it's not a bad thing for you, since it might give the process a little bit of a kickstart (will need to remove
them before adding fish though).

 

[OldMan47]

jdyer is correct. Rotting plant material will add to your ammonia. Snails are also a small biological load and dead snails can be a large load so they may be contributing. It looks like you are getting a fishless cycle started without manually adding ammonia. You are using decaying organic matter instead. Any green and rapidly growing plants will help absorb ammonia and also will use some nitrates. Some types of plants will "melt" when you transplant them before they start growing nice new leaves. It does not harm them to remove the leaves but to be honest, I think you are getting a small head start by having them in the tank decaying and providing your ammonia to start your cycle going.

 

[TR7 Nut]

Just an update for you peeps out there, my fishless cycle continued very well, with ammonia dropping daily, Nitrites climbing, then we had a weeks holiday at around the time the Nitrites must have peaked, I had left some food in the tank to provide ammonia, when we came back the Amm was 0, NITrites was 0, Nitrates was sky high, the tank was an absolute mess, brown algae everywhere, and the food, which I hung in the tank in the ends of tights had long white trails coming from it, wrapping all round the plants and rocks. Plus snails everywhere.
It looked impossible to clean, and I was not happy with the gravel, which was too white originally so I turned it all off, put the filter pads (Jewel Internal) in a bucket of the tank water, put the heater in, and dropped in the pump and airstone to keep a flow going. Hoping this would stop bacteria die off.
I then drained the tank completlye, chucked the gravel, washed the rocks and broken urn, and gave the plants a good wash with a little bleach, same with tank, and rinsed copiously. I then re-gravelled with a darker colour, filled/de chlorinated and added plants/rocks, etc, I boiled some tap water to get the temp up to 26 before slightly squeezing filters in the original tank water, then replaced in tank along with heater, airstone, pumphead.
I then brought ammonia back up to 4ppm and monitored for around 10 days, Amm dropped daily, Nitrites showed in very small amounts and cleared daily, Nitrates slowly climbed to around 40ppm, I therefore assumed I was cycled. That was 2 weeks ago, Did a big water change then I added 4 Corydayus Guapore/4 Pintail Platy and all looks OK, they seem happy enough. Have monitored daily and no probs other than PH a bit high, it shows max on API standard Ph test and min on API High PH test.
I will get more fish this weekend, 2 Leopard Catfish, a few more Platys, and maybe some Barbs or Rasboras. I presume it is ok to mix my corys?

 

[OldMan47]

Sounds like you have gotten through the cycle and now are starting to stock the tank to suit yourself. Congratulations. I might have approached the filthy tank differently but we each do things our own way. There are many things that will work. Its the hardest thing for me to remember when giving advice, this is more an art than a science.

 

[TR7 Nut]

Sounds like you have gotten through the cycle and now are starting to stock the tank to suit yourself. Congratulations. I might have approached the filthy tank differently but we each do things our own way. There are many things that will work. Its the hardest thing for me to remember when giving advice, this is more an art than a science.

Oldman, I am curious to how you would have cleaned the tank, care to elaborate?

 

[OldMan47]

Simply remove the build up from the decayed food, rinse everything well with dechlorinated water and set back up. Removing and discarding gravel means making a step backward whereas cleaning it lightly would do no harm to your cycle. Washing the plants with bleach again means throwing away any good stuff that might have been on them. I can see from what you did that you were thinking in terms of antiseptic clean but a fish tank is not an antiseptic environment. We intentionally culture a bacterial environment to remove the ammonia and nitrites. A light cleaning with no disinfecting would have been my basic aim. It might not have been perfect but I am guessing it would have been less time to get the end result.
Back to what I said, or at least intended to say, in my last post this is an art that is based on some general principles but is no way a science. Each of us will approach a thing differently and what works for you, works for you. There is no right answer, only one that you are comfortable with.

 

[TR7 Nut]

Oldman, the reason for the gravel change was that I had bought an unmarked bagful from a local LFS, which he had assured me was ok for tropicals and corys, when i set up the tank I used this, turned out it was crushed coral, so too sharp, also was too bright for my liking, and would change the PH (as mentioned on this forum). so a good reason to be drastic.