Cycling My Tank :0

[waterdrop]

Yes, water is lost every week to evaporation. An extremely important concept for beginners is to make it a habit (used -after- fishless cycling, when they have fish) to always do regular gravel-clean-water-changes that refill the tank to the desired level. "Topping up" must never be considered a substitute for water changes, as water changes are just too important! Water changes take OUT all sorts of trace things that build up in a tank, things we can't even measure. The fresh incoming water brings IN some much needed minerals and things that are desirable, resetting some of the water parameters. When good water changing habits are understood and well-established, there's nothing wrong with an intermittant top-up or two between water changes.

In my tank, I tend to just reach in the back edge of the tank with my thumbs and slide the two suction cups holding my filter output spraybar downward a fraction of an inch to quiet the water flow sounds as the water level gradually drops during the week from evaporation.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[coco*butter]

Thanks waterdrop, I knew about that. I was just wondering if "topping up" my tank will affect my fishless cycle?

 

[waterdrop]

No it will not harm your cycle although you should take into account that it could make you think the bacteria are doing more than they are of course.

~~wd~~

 

[coco*butter]

Day 8
24 hour check
Amonnia= 0.25ppm
N02= 0.25ppm {Nitrite}
N03= 20-40ppm {Nitrate}


1 hour later:
Ammonia= 0ppm
Add Ammonia 7ml 4:30 pm

 

[coco*butter]

I been testing more frecently to see how fast the Ammonia drops.
Day 9

20 hour test:
Ammonia= 0ppm
N02= 0.25ppm {Nitrate}
N03= 40ppm {Nitrite}
Added 7ml Ammonia 3:30 pm

 

[waterdrop]

Hi coco,

One other thing that becomes helpful when posting your results is to let us know what "Day" of the fishless cycle you consider yourself to be on. This is the number of days since the first day you added ammonia and began doing daily logging of things. Doing it as a "Day" rather than a "Date" makes it easiest on the "commentators" thus increasing the likelihood you'll get some good comments! (we're notoriously lazy I guess, lol)

What we're typically doing when we look at a person's fishless cycling stats is to attempt to compute a mental graph in our heads where the horizontal axis is days and ammonia, nitrite, pH and nitrate are all plotted on the vertical axis. Then we're watching where the "mountains" form if one were to draw such a set of plot lines on the graph.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[coco*butter]

Alright will do so, it true you never who might help ya.
I think this is day 10 will verfid later.

Day 10
19 hour check
Amonnia= 0ppm
N02= 0.50ppm {Nitrite}
N03= 40ppm {Nitrate}
Add Ammonia 7ml 11:30 am

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, that's great! Some people haven't even been able to see their first drop to zero after two weeks whereas on days 9 and 10 you're already seeing ammonia drop from 5ppm to 0ppm in 19 or 20 hours and your nitrite is heading in the right direction (upward from 0.25 to 0.50 the next time) which means before long it will "spike." Looking very good.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[coco*butter]

Dunno what happen to the N03 but it went down. Will see what happen tomorrow.

Day 11
18 hour check
Amonnia= 0ppm
N02= 0.-0.25ppm {Nitrite}
N03= 20-40ppm {Nitrate}
Add Ammonia 7ml 11:00 am

 

[waterdrop]

You've now moved to the head of the nursery on your reporting format gold forehead star...

Don't ever worry about nitrate(NO3), its more often wacky than not and we tend to be completely unscientific and "use" it when it reports something we like and "ignore" it when it doesn't. Its a test the chemists admit is quite difficult to reliably do in an inexpensive liquid test. Its most important use comes later anyway, during long term tank maintenance.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[coco*butter]

You've now moved to the head of the nursery on your reporting format gold forehead star...

Don't ever worry about nitrate(NO3), its more often wacky than not and we tend to be completely unscientific and "use" it when it reports something we like and "ignore" it when it doesn't. Its a test the chemists admit is quite difficult to reliably do in an inexpensive liquid test. Its most important use comes later anyway, during long term tank maintenance.

~~waterdrop~~

Opps again I meant the N02 it went down, instead of keep going up.
Sorry

 

[coco*butter]

I See a pattern now and I dont like it cause it seem the Ammonia goes down at 22 hours and it keep getting earlier and earlier in the day. I started at 5:30m pm and now am down at 8:30 am. I dont think am going to be able to check it earlier than 6:30 am and add the ammonia.

Day 11
22 hour check
Amonnia= 0ppm
N02= 0.-0.25ppm {Nitrite}
N03= 20-40ppm {Nitrate}
Add Ammonia 7ml 9:00 am

 

[waterdrop]

Not sure why you feel you have to check at different times?? The normal pattern is to just establish a "24hour mark" like 8pm and set that as the time you'll always add ammonia if needed. Then you check a 8am and 8pm and those are your 12 and 24 hour tests, day after day in your logbook. If ammonia dropped to zero at any time in the preceeding 24 hours, then ammonia is recharged to 5ppm at 8pm. Of course the actual time you'd choose would be whichever two times you'd be home, which might not be 8 of course. Make sense?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[coco*butter]

Ah ok! I though after it drop to zero since it need to feed. It seem to drop at 22 hours

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, wondered if that's what you were thinking. If you recharge to 5ppm right after it drops to zero then you are pumping even more ammonia in the overall process than is needed. It won't matter at all if the ammonia level sits a zero for some part of the 24 hours, the bacteria won't starve.

~~waterdrop~~