Cycle Diary... Finished @ Day 127!

[martinking]

OK sorry I haven't updated it in a while, that's because nothing has really changed!

Basically now im ending up with small amounts of nitrite after the 12 hours or processing. No ammonia is present, any ideas guys?

Days 61 to 67 Updated!

 

[waterdrop]

Its simply amazing to me how stable your pH has been throughout this whole thing, even when there are obviously lots of nitrates building up and everything! It almost makes me wonder if your water has really high hardness in various ways. Perhaps its so hard that that is somehow a bit difficult for the bacteria.. seems far-fetched but makes me wonder.

Of course, on the other hand, you are just getting so, so close now. And that's happening right as you get between days 60 and 70, where I've seen a lot of other slow, stubborn fishless cycles finally reach the end. And often those have the same pattern as yours where either the nitrite(NO2) (most commonly) or sometimes, more rarely, the ammonia, decide to "just hang on" seemingly forever, not wanting to quite process in 12 hours. Its always been my feeling that when you get these late hanger-oners, it possibly helps to be doing gravel-clean-water-changes each weekend (just like you'll be doing once you have fish of course) because so much nitrate(NO3) is being produced by the big 5ppm doses of ammonia doing in daily by this point. Always, of course, remembering to re-charge with ammonia after each water change.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[martinking]

Hiya WD,

Well actually I have been adding bicarb to raise the pH over the past few days. But I think I will do a quick water change tonight and i'll see how I get on!

Cheers

 

[waterdrop]

That explains it!

 

[martinking]

well I didn't get a chance to do a partial change last night unfortunately!

Ill give it a shot tonight!

 

[martinking]

Hiya All,

Well I did a big Water Change on Day 69 90% + a recharge of 3ppm ammonia.

The nitrates have dropped greatly but the Nitrite still isnt clearing by the 12 hour Mark, if it makes any difference it is clearing by the 14-16 Hour mark.

Really annoying me now, it really feels like im right on the last few days and its just testing me!

Any advice? would adding more mature media help or would it just disturb everything? Is there anything I can do?

Thanks!

Martin

 

[waterdrop]

I forget, how fully are you planning to stock? You basically have two options way out here at 70 days. You could decide if you're only partially stocking to just go ahead with the big water change and stock the fish and watch it closely to see if you need extra water changes. Hopefully the stocking being under what 5ppm would provide for would mean that when the colonies dropped back down to match the fish load, you'd not see any mini-cycles.

The other option is to out-stubborn the stubborn bacteria. I've seen a lot of tough fishless cycles that ended somewhere around 65 to 70 days and when they end its usually sudden. So you may indeed be very close to being there if you can find it in yourself to wait it out. I'd hate to say that and them still be stubborn a week later, argh! So hard to predict!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[martinking]

Hey Waterdrop,

well I think it is going to be a pretty full stock, i'm going for:

6 x Red Phantom Tetra
6 x Black Phantom Tetra
6 x Diamond Tetra
2 x Bristlenose Plec's
2 x German Blue Rams being added later.

My tank is 90litre's and I have very good filtration, provided by a Fluval 205 canister, what do you think I should do?

I am definitely stubborn enough to out stubborn them! I've got to day 72 easy enough!

Thanks for all of your help!

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, even without the GBRs that's a pretty nice chunk of initial stocking so my choice would be to be darn sure the filter is always dropping both ammonia and nitrite to absolute zero at 12 hours after 5ppm ammonia add, no traces!

We just had somebody in another thread who had just started their "qualifying week" and wanted to do the big water change and get fish and then, while they were in their "qualifying week", the nitrite(NO2) suddenly showed 5ppm of nitrite at the 12 hour test! Shortly after that the nitrite went to zero but it showed that the N-Bac colony was not quite what they though it was!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[martinking]

Do you suggest putting less in at first and them steadily increasing? Should I just put 2 different types of tetra's in instead of 3, so just 12 tetra's and 2 plec's? Or maybe 4 of each instead of 6?

I was always told to keep tetra's in groups of 6, but I dont really know whether it applies to same family fish? What do you think?

 

[waterdrop]

Oh no, I didn't mean to imply you should necessarily do less initial stocking. To tell the truth I tend to think that the "finding" of the fish you want often has a big effect on initial stocking. Often if you are picking them up at various LFSs then you'll go and find that while some look good and you decide to get the whole batch of them, others might look sickly or too small and frail or too "leftover" from others picking the best or whatever and so you return with fewer than you planned. This all varies tremendously by individual. I have confidence that your fishlessly cycled filter could handle lots and yes, getting full shoals should be a -good- thing! You also never quite know how the survival will play out. They might all be healthy on you and you won't lose a single one, or you could get a sickly batch, no fault of your own and lose a number of them despite your good environment.. you just never know and sometimes it takes a while to fill out your stocking to its most stable long-term fullness.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[martinking]

Great advice, thanks mate.

I really never thought about the finding of fish being an issue but I can imagine how that is going to be difficult! Lets hope I have some good luck!

 

[waterdrop]

Of course the selection can get better if you have them shipped to you, but of course you don't get to see them first. I believe there are some pretty good sources that ship in the UK as I've watched many threads here where UK folks did that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[martinking]

Yes that was definitely a possibility, because then I can get them all from the same place and I don't have to muck around with multiple orders! Its a plan I think!

 

[martinking]

Well I have updated the front page with Days 72-76, still no movement on the Nitrites clearing in 12 hours.

They are currently taking between 13-15 hours to clear to 0.

Is there anything I can do or am I just needing to plan the waiting game again?

Cheers