Fish-less Cycling My New Tank

[pandacichlid]

good luck
you got some good advice from people

 

[Ravi007]

OK, your tank is 120 litres, and ammonia should be raised to approx 5ppm (parts per million), so

120 Litres = 120,000ml

120,000ml / 1,000,000 x 5 = 0.6ml (desired ammonia level)

I think boots ammonia is 9.5% ammonia, so

0.6ml / 9.5 x 100 = 6.3ml (amount of ammonia solution to add to tank)

Hope this helps you.

Thats great help!Thanks a lot! Ill keep everyone posted.
I noticed green and brown algae growing the other day to my delight, so i tested straight away for nitrates, and there present!Still got a nitrite spike though, this should come down soon right? Also, I have the lights on during the day, but is there any point if no fishes are there?Does it help in any way with the cycling?

 

[backtotropical]

Light will not help the cycle in any way. I would say keep it off or you are breeding algae unnecessarily.

 

[rdd1952]

Brown algae is common during cycling and from all I have read, it is due to lack of light which is totally opposite of other algae. I don't know that it really matters one way or another whether you have the lights on or not. The brown algae will clear once you finish the cycle, do the big water change, add fish and start buring the lighs more.

 

[Ravi007]

Right well the algaes all growing, my nitrates are high and my ammonia is getting processed from 3/4ppm back to 0 in 6 hours or less and I dose ammonia twice a day to make sure no bacteria dies off. Im surprised at how fast its processed tho!My nitrites have been stuck at 2ppm for nearly two weeks now, and theres no sign of them coming down but I am getting nitrates so its definitely getting processed sumwhere. But I dont get why the spike just stays at a high and no sign of it going down?If the bacteria is processing the nitrites, shouldnt it be muliplying so the spike starts to go down??

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Ravi,

THe second leg of the cycle can take a while to get started unfortunately. It usually takes ages to come down at all, and then comes down pretty quickly once it starts. Lazy bacteria, so to speak.

Your nitrite is being processed (otherwise nitrite levels would be rising with all that ammonia being processed). This means you are into the final stages of the cycle and i guess your nitrite is about to come down any time soon.

I know it's frustrating!! Chin up.

 

[Ravi007]

Wooo this is really freaky, but a couple hours after I posted my reply, the nitrites have vanished!Such a good feeling, cant really describe it!cant wait to get some fish in there, but wanna add a couple of plants first.When I do the 80-90% water change, should it all be done at once?Like in one go?Because ive heard stories that if that happens, and sudden temp drop etc, bacteria could die?I dont really have a good way of heating up water here,other than leaving it out in buckets.

 

[Leitch]

eeek never thought of that. I will b watching this thread closley for a good answer to that.

 

[backtotropical]

I'm not sure how much of a temperature fluctuation it takes to kill the bacteria, but you could try mixing the cold water with warm water to keep temperature fluctuations to a minimum.

RDD1952 is the authority on this i believe. Any advice RDD1952??

 

[Ravi007]

it would be best to mix in hot water with the cold before putting it in, but i havent really worked out a good method to do this. I could use boiled water, but ive heard this could could have some 'nasties' in it like metals etc, and likewise hot tap water, which has been sitting in a water cylinder for years on end!!and i dont have a spare aquarium heater either

 

[Dark Wolf]

Unless it's really really cold water that you will be adding, i can't see it killing off the bacteria, bacteria can survive to pretty low temperatures. If you are that worried you could always take the heater out of your tank, and then put the water and the heater into some form of other large container (if you have one), and then let it heat the water in that before putting it back into the tank. The filter media shouldn't dry out in the time it takes to heat it upor if it's warm and sunny tomorrow, just fill a few buckets of water, and let it stand out in the sun, that should heat it up quite nicely