Danny's Cycle...

[arobinson1984]

Waterdrop, I dont think that he cant get the levels down to zero, the nitrite levels are currently at zero now after Danny has fully changed all the gravel, 100% water change and reintroduced the fish. I think I'd just be just wary that the cycle may not have finished yet as you would expect both ammonia and nitrite levels to be currently at zero after such a drastic change. Danny just keep an eye on ammonia / nitrite levels. I would only do a water change if they rise up above 0.25ppm, no need to do daily changes if your results stay at zero.

Also, when you were gravel vaccing before, were you moving everything off the bottom of the tank? I'm sure it must have been something in the gravel causing the high nitrites because as soon as you completed that first initial gravel vac your nitrite levels plummeted from 2ppm to 0.50/1ppm and after changing gravel are now at zero.

Keep up the good work

Andy

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

Yeah I am keeping an eye on the Ammonia and Nitrite levels...

Testing every hour... Well I will be going to bed soon, but will check first thing in the morning after the last test tonight.

When I did the first Gravel clean, I got as deep as the gravel went... and done this across the tanks floor...

I don't think I cleaned the gravel as well as maybe I could have when first purchased as I didn't have a sieve... Could that have caused high Nitrite levels?

I'm am glad to provide my fish with nice water, well for the time being if they do decided to rise over night... (obviously I hope not)

Thank you for your help so far

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

*Updated*

This is the last test of tonight...

The results are proving stable... but what do I know.

I just hope there are no dramatic increases over night.

Will test the water again as soon as I wake up tomorrow morning.

Night for now all

 

[doggiebag]

Doggiebag - Are you giving the gravel a good regular deep clean?

Andy

HI Andy

Yes it gets cleaned every 3 days, no food at all gets dropped as he gets pellets one by one and they get eaten.. Have been doing 50% changes daily since tank set-up (28 days ago), wasn't trying to cycle yet as betta has had finrot (had it when I got him) so was just trying to keep it all clean, even changed filter (20 days ago) as I had used a lot of meds and thought best to start new, then small ammonia readings turned to zero and I got a nitrite spike of 1.0 every 4-5 days lasting one day then back to zero for a few days and ammonia would return in tiny amounts, then got the big spike 5 days ago and had zero ammonia since then, nitrates settle to 20 in tanks, (using api liquid tests) may have risen a teeny bit now, looks between 20 and 40. Tap water readings ammonia=trace (not anywhere near 0.25 though), nitrite=0, nitrate=10, Ph 7.6 settling to 8.0 in tanks. , Sorry Danny,not trying to hijack honest, just answering question, will slink back off now lol


BTW Danny, I am watching your results carefully now, maybe it all lies in the gravel and I'll have to do the same as you.

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

Hey all.

I have done the first test of today.

Results are up on the first post

 

[doggiebag]

looking hopeful........keeping it al crossed for you lol

I followed your lead and removed everything from my tank and cleaned the gravel like it was the first time lol It was actually pretty yuk considering, not waste but sediment and stuff. I have put it all back and could see tiny particles from the gravel in the water, so added a few drops of accu-clear so the filter can get rid of them and see if this all helps.....nitrites now testing 0, lets see if it sticks lol

My other tank has been cycling for 59 days, finally reading 0 nitrties but the ammonia seemed stuck at .25, so the past few days I upped the warter change amount from 25% TO 65% and after 3 days of this I got my first 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites this morning.....have not done a waterchange and its scary to see if it stays okay or rockets later on lol

this cycling is hard but really rewarding when you see some progress.........it's amazing how excited I can get over a 0 reading rofl

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

I just hope that I can keep them low!

I have just performed a 50% water change so hopefully that will bring the levels back down to 0ppm!
Every time I turn the filter back on it spurts out quite viciously... is this normal?
I leave the filter in the water at the bottom when water changing... I hope there isn't any problems with the filter!

I think my problem was me overfeeding, not cleaning the gravel well and also I didn't wash the gravel well enough when I put it in the first time...

cycling for 59 days! sod that!

But yes I agree with you when you get the readings you want to see...
Shame I have had to do a fish-in cycle, but glad my Guppies seem to be happy enough!

I didn't even know what Nitrite was before I started to keep fish

 

[doggiebag]

me neither ! lol I have learnt so much over the past weeks, Im a real bore at parties now lol Hubby asks me to stop talking about fish, nitrites etc

Im hanging here with you seeing if your stay at 0 too, exciting stuff lol Im expecting my betta tank to start rising later on, at least I got it to a real 0 today with the gravel scrub. I never thought my minnow tank would ever cycle, it seemed upping the water change amount helped boost it again, will see if it stays low now, bet it doesn't then I'll be frustrated again.

These fish flippin take over your life don't they, Im even going for a bigger tank as a Xmas pressie this year,how sad lol Mind you, this one will be fishless cycled, never going through all this again.

Well, Im testing my betta tank about 2pm so will see if those pesky nitrites come back in full force or a dribble lol Will be watching yours too see how it goes too,

AS for the minnows, well Im trying to stay calm and expect ammonia tomorrow, after 59 days Im not convinced yet lol

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

Yeah I think I'm FINALLY starting to know what to do now... all my mates take the mick but oh well

Well I don't know about staying at 0ppm lol... its raised since last night but hopefully the water change will take it right back down, if not I won't be very happy!

Yep I have hardly any spare time now caring for these little guppies haha, I already have another tank sitting beside this one... just need to raise cash to get a new filter for it... and then the cycle will begin haha.
But with the cloning technique I hope to speed that up!

My next test is going to be around 11am.

See what the water change has done, if anything...

I wish you luck!

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

*updated*

 

[waterdrop]

It sounds like this is starting to settle down now into a normal case. Sounds like a fish-in cycle where the extent of deep-gravel-cleaning and water changing needed was just not fully understood yet. Perhaps there was something about the gravel dust of the red&white gravel (right? or is that your other tank?) that wasn't rinsed as much as it probably should have been that contributed directly or somehow indirectly to the nitrite levels (although I doubt it as I usually think nitrite is much more likely to just be the result of excess debris waste converted to ammonia by heterotrophs and turned into nitrite by autotrophs and there just not being enough N-Bacs yet since its still in its fish-in cycle.)

OK, so one can expect a fish-in cycle to take very roughly a month. How far are we into that since the 2 guppies got put into the water? That should remind us how long the new pattern of increased gravel cleans will need to be kept up. Now that the more intense debris has been removed from the gravel, perhaps it will be easier to maintain the normal fish-in cycling goal of keeping the nitrite rhythm between zero and 0.25ppm.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

It sounds like this is starting to settle down now into a normal case. Sounds like a fish-in cycle where the extent of deep-gravel-cleaning and water changing needed was just not fully understood yet. Perhaps there was something about the gravel dust of the red&white gravel (right? or is that your other tank?) that wasn't rinsed as much as it probably should have been that contributed directly or somehow indirectly to the nitrite levels (although I doubt it as I usually think nitrite is much more likely to just be the result of excess debris waste converted to ammonia by heterotrophs and turned into nitrite by autotrophs and there just not being enough N-Bacs yet since its still in its fish-in cycle.)

OK, so one can expect a fish-in cycle to take very roughly a month. How far are we into that since the 2 guppies got put into the water? That should remind us how long the new pattern of increased gravel cleans will need to be kept up. Now that the more intense debris has been removed from the gravel, perhaps it will be easier to maintain the normal fish-in cycling goal of keeping the nitrite rhythm between zero and 0.25ppm.

~~waterdrop~~

Hey Waterdrop

I really hope it settles down to be honest with you, I have had quite a rough experience I think and just cannot wait to get on top of things
Yeah I had the red & white gravel in my current tank, which i cleaned out totally. But I kinda feel that I overfed the fish in causing the build up of debris and because I did not clean the gravel well and efficient enough caused many problems in my tank.

I feel that maybe I am getting somewhere with doing the gravel change...

The fish have been in the tank for a week and four days now...
I have performed two 50% water changes today as I woke up to the Nitrite coming in at 0.25ppm

I can't tell what the reading is coming in at now to be honest... it seems to look in between both 0ppm and 0.25ppm?

Do you feel that I should do a thorough gravel clean every day...? and water change every hour or so to maintain low levels of Nitrites...?

Thank you for support during this stressful period of fish keeping

 

[jmkgreen]

Your efforts are impressive, just be careful not to interfere too much. The gravel will play host to a certain percentage of good as well as bad bacteria. You clean away the bad, you will inevitably clean away some of the good. Perhaps limit yourself to just cleaning away the surface where any uneaten food is present.

Changing the water daily should suffice unless you're dealing with larger (life-threatening) spikes. You must allow the water enough nitrites to feed the filter bacteria remember.

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

Your efforts are impressive, just be careful not to interfere too much. The gravel will play host to a certain percentage of good as well as bad bacteria. You clean away the bad, you will inevitably clean away some of the good. Perhaps limit yourself to just cleaning away the surface where any uneaten food is present.

Changing the water daily should suffice unless you're dealing with larger (life-threatening) spikes. You must allow the water enough nitrites to feed the filter bacteria remember.

Right,

So you suggest that I stop doing water changes every hour and let the water maybe settle for a bit?

Yeah I will just do surface cleaning from now then to save some of the bacteria... unless obviously I do get a larger spike.

It seems to be sitting stable between 0ppm and 0.25ppm now anyway, so hopefully It will be complete soon!

 

[arobinson1984]

Your efforts are impressive, just be careful not to interfere too much. The gravel will play host to a certain percentage of good as well as bad bacteria. You clean away the bad, you will inevitably clean away some of the good. Perhaps limit yourself to just cleaning away the surface where any uneaten food is present.

Changing the water daily should suffice unless you're dealing with larger (life-threatening) spikes. You must allow the water enough nitrites to feed the filter bacteria remember.

You have stated something along these lines in several different posts.

To feed the bacteria, you only need trace amounts of ammonia/nitrite. Amounts so small that they aren't even detectable by a standard water test kit. In a fish-in cycle situation you should always aim to get your levels down to zero and keep them as close as if possible.

Also by cleaning the gravel and disturbing any potential beneficial bacteria you are going to force the filter to create extra beneficial bacteria to deal with the bio load, this is a good thing! It is much better to have the beneficial bacteria growing on the filter media than on the substrate. If your filter only has 90% of the beneficial bacteria and your substrate has 10% for example then everytime you perform a gravel vac you would experience a spike

Andy

Edit: Danny, just do the gravel cleans and water changes if the levels go higher than 0.25ppm, Zero is ideal but 0.25ppm will do, any higher and you would be putting your fish in a health risk situation (infact ANY amount of ammonia/nitrite, even 0.25ppm will put the fish at risk but at that level the risk is minimal)