Fishless Cycle, How Much Longer ?

[OldMan47]

A really good tough tank occupant that won't be harmed at all is a few drops of ammonia NameUser. If the betta is already in the tank, don't add any more fish. More fish will make things worse, not better.

 

[JustKia]

But please don't add the ammonia with the betta in there

 

[waterdrop]

agree with OM47, ammonia is a plenty tough molecule...

There is no such thing as a tough gill structure. They are pretty much all permanently damaged by ammonia exposures higher than the ammonia they give off during during respiration, when they naturally give off both CO2 and ammonia.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mic8310]

you are talking to your tank? why?

Doesn't everyone?

 

[Schmill]

Only because I can't see any mention of it above at all, it would be worth you checking your PH levels, just in case it is to high or to low and effecting the cycle? (Can't hurt and adds reassurance that all is going well)

 

[alan3513]

Now on the 31st day of cycling and the 12th day since both ammonia and Nitrite were dropping to 0 in 24 hours, Thought it would be a short while until they were both dropping to 0 in 12 hours, unfortunately Ammonia is but the Nitrite instead of processing quicker is now (last two days)after 24 hours either at 0.25 or 0.50 not 0 as previously, PH is less the 7.6. Anything wrong, Any ideas, thanks in advance, Alan

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i wouldn't be overly concerned, you've still got a good amount of nitrite being processed so youve not lost all your bacteria or anything like that.

we have a tendance to think of ccling as a linear process, that the bacteria will steadily multiply in a roughly even curve but that's really not the case, it comes in fits and starts and you often have a blip of a few days or even a week or so with no signs of movement whatsoever.

pH is fine so no worries there.

if you like you can try doing a big water change then tpping back up with ammonia, it sometimes kick starts things. however really what you need now is patience, this is without a doubt the most frusrating part of cycling, remember it takes roughly twice as long to get your NBacs population in order as it did to get the ABacs so for example if it took 2 weeks for the ammonia to be processed in 12 hrs, it'll take a further 4 weeks to get the NBacs there so 6 weeks in total. It's not an exact science of curse but it's a good rough indication of how long it should take.

 

[alan3513]

Thanks Miss Wiggle, Think i'll do as you suggested and just be more patient as i've came this far, Just thought something might have been wrong since Nitrite seemed to be going backwards, Cheers, Alan

 

[mic8310]

just curious, if the nitrites arent completely leaving would it still be ok to add hardy fish as they will produce the ammonia for the nitrite? what would happen if you add fish with a bit of nitrite in the tank? I ask because surely there would be no difference if you added fish now the cycle was 'almost' complete than if you did a fish-in cycle?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's very iffy but it can work out. basically when we say to add 5ppm of ammonia that's as much as a very very very heavy load of fish would produce in a day, it gives you a nice cushion for when you do add fish.

if you were to just add 1ppm of ammonia to your tank at this stage then you'd almost definately find it was processed to 0,0 within 12 hrs, so theoretically you could add fish that would just produce 1ppm of ammonia safely.

however finding out exactly how much ammonia your tank can process safely and exactly how much ammonia the fish you want will produce is tricky if not impossible, so you really can't predict with any certainty weather it would be fine or not.

yes it theoretically could be fine, but if it isnt then you've effectively un done all your hard work as you would be fish-in cycling from that point.

for further reading hop over to the scientific section and look for a topic called 'when is a cycle finished?'