Cycling Query

[alan3513]

In the process of doing the 'Add and wait' fishless cycle pinned on here by rdd1952. I initially added enough ammonia to bring it up to 6ppm but within 4 1/2 days it was down to 1ppm with nitrite about 5ppm. I added more ammonia to bring it up to around 4ppm then tested it 2 days later (today), the ammonia was down to 0 and the nitrites were 5+ (not off scale as water only turned dark blue not purple when drops were added). I also checked the nitrates for the first time and they were 5ppm. I again added enough ammonia to bring it back up to 4ppm. Is this normal as it seems to be cyling pretty fast ?. If you think it's a bit fast, could it be because - when i though i was doing a fishless cycle for two weeks only adding Nutrafin Cycle ( before being advised properly here on an earlier post) it kicked started the process, making it slightly quicker, thanks in advance for any advice, Alan

 

[toshapetriji]

Well it seems a little fast but hey maybe you have some real bacteria in that Nutrafin Cycle. Keep adding the ammonia as per the instructions and keep us posted on how it is progressing.

 

[doresy]

Crikey, if that bottle of Nutrafin Cycle has any (live) bacteria in it then it's more scarce than a 'four leafed clover'

My present cycle (day 10) I'm seeing off 4ppm of ammonia in 8 hours with nitrite creeping up to 5 or 6 ppm but I started of with a nice vintage piece of matured media/noodles

 

[alan3513]

Just checked water stats again today (24 hours later). Ammonia was back down to 0, Nitrite turned purple,instead of the dark blue of yesterday, as soon as i put drops in (Take it it's off the scale) and Nitrate was 5. Added 4.5 mls of Ammonia to bring it back up to 4ppm. Will check again tomorrow.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, the blue-to-purple thing when the test drops hit the water is often a sign of even more "off the scale" than when its just purple. All of it means "nitrite spike" or second phase of the fishless cycle, basically. The nutrafin cycle stuff has ammonia in it I believe, so I''d expect you are actually in your 3rd week of fishless cycling probably, which would make sense for spike phase. You may also have a good pH and good level of carbonate hardness in your tap water which can help a fishless cycle proceed quickly. Do you know your pH level?

You generally don't want to add more ammonia until you are back on your 24-hour mark of each day and then only if ammonia dropped completely to zero within the previous period. The bacteria won't be bothered at all if there's a zero ammonia reading in there for close to a day so its not a worry and helps keep the overall process from going too high. Also, now that you're clearly in the second phase, its ok to only raise ammonia to 2ppm or 3ppm when you do your Adds, because that will help NO2 and NO3 to not be so high, way up above 5. Once the N-Bacs become a large enough colony to be processing your nitrite down to zero in 24 hours, you can begin easing your Add level back up to 5ppm. You always want 5ppm for the finish because it produces the best level of robustness for the initial stocking.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[alan3513]

Hi waterdrop, Thanks for the advice about putting in less ammonia for the next stage. Also are you saying that i'm now clearly in the second phase and that adding the nutrafin cycle earlier in the process (when i initially thought i was doing it right)has slightly speeded up the cycling ?, since i've only been adding the ammonia for eight days. My tap water is 7.2 and tank water today was about 7.4 (hard to be exact with colour) thanks again, Alan

 

[waterdrop]

No, I can't be too clear about your situation as I'm only working from a few datapoints compared to the hundreds of bits we get from some threads. For instance you probably don't have daily measurements of ammonia, nitrite and pH for those 2 weeks while the nutrafin cycle was going in instead of ammonia, right? So my guess (based on comments in some other threads in the past) that perhaps the nutrafin cycle supplied some irregular amounts of ammonia, sort of like fish food would, is just that, a guess.

The fact that your ammonia is dropping to zero in 24 hours and that nitrite is measuring at the top of its test though, is a pretty good indicator that you are at the beginning or so of the second phase, the nitrite spike phase. Since that can sometimes be the longer phase, and indeed, sometimes there is a very long time at the end waiting for nitrites to drop to zero within 12 hours after the ammonia was added, its too soon to say whether your cycle is a fast one or not.

But it sounds like you are doing things properly and that the process is moving along!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[alan3513]

Cheers waterdrop, thanks again for the advice, Alan