Fishless Cycle Log

[OldMan47]

I am not looking at the nitrogen as a catalyst as much as looking at the ammonia as a fertilizer. With all that nitrogen, who needs more? I guess what I am seeing is the nitrogen is being dosed twice with your nitrate fert and the ammonia each adding some. I was wondering if the double dose was affecting what the end product looks like since ferts are usually nitrates which of course would look just like any other nitrates to our test equipment. I only dose nitrogen in tanks that have low fish populations. When there are plenty of fish, they provide the nitrogen for the plants.

Your liquid K is the same as the dry that I use. Your phosphorus as P2O5 is not the same as my PO4 but should provide a nice dose of P. The only real problem that I have with liquid dosing is how fast the cost adds up when you make someone else mix it with water and ship it in bottles instead of just moving the powder to your door in a baggie and I get the mix water from my RO in order to ensure that I know what is in the mix. I don't need something in my tap to affect the ferts that I am about to put into the tank. I bought my dry ferts from RexGrigg.com but there are lots of places that sell similar packages of dry chemicals.

 

[waterdrop]

You guys got me searching for one of the other places for buying dry fert supplies that's been recommended to me by some of the planted folks here on TFF and I have to laugh at myself because I just did a bunch of searches, found it, went to save it among my documents and found I had already saved it before!

Here's the link:

DryFertPost

This is just to give you another ref. I've looked at the rexgrigg site a number of times before and it looks good too! You didn't happen to get a regulator from him did you OM?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Got a nice regulator off the internet but not at Grigg's site. Mine came with a built in solenoid and needle valve all in one package. It is not one of the Milwaukee kits that gets sold so often and then has troubles. Mine was designed as an integrated unit for use with plants so it all works together. All I needed to add was a bottle and the tubing and diffuser, the rest was a single device that I just plugged in to my light timer. The CO2 comes on with the lights, when its needed.

 

[Diesel Trout]

Updated days 88 and 89.

Holding steady these past few days, with no change. The pH has stabilized at 7.8, ammonia is still at zero after 24 hours and Nitrite is a solid 5.0. All this after nearly 13 weeks. Yippee.

 

[waterdrop]

Well OM, all I can say is I indeed -do- wish we could be there to take a direct look as I just don't know why this nitrite spike is hanging so long. Hang in there DT!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Diesel Trout]

Updated days 90 and 91.

No change. Stats are staying the same at 0 ammonia, 5 nitrites and 7.8 pH.

Out of curiosity (and an extra ripe foam element from my small aquarium) I opened up the Fluval to see what lurked inside. Full of gooey goodness. I yanked one of the carbons and replaced it with the aforementioned foam element rather than discarding it (too good to waste!).

Other observations from the abyss: one of my swords has decided to pull the plug. The stems have basically rotted away. The other larger sword looks okay, despite being mostly covered in brown and green algae. Mr. Snail has mostly been hanging out at the top of the tank these last few days. I flicked him to the bottom and he made a b-line for the top again. Strange.

Could these two events be due to high levels of nitrite and nitrates? Should I do another water change?

 

[OldMan47]

Snails need good water too. They have the advantage, some of them, of being able to use atmospheric air and thus will even crawl right out of the water if it gets too bad. With your ammonia dosing, I am sure you have a very unhappy snail on your hands.

 

[Diesel Trout]

Snails need good water too. They have the advantage, some of them, of being able to use atmospheric air and thus will even crawl right out of the water if it gets too bad. With your ammonia dosing, I am sure you have a very unhappy snail on your hands.

Snail came free with the plants. Should I hold off on the ammonia dosing for a day to get the nitrites down?

 

[OldMan47]

A hitchhiker snail is not something I would worry too much about if I was having trouble establishing a cycle like you are. If you are worried that nitrites are too high, do a big water change and then dose the ammonia back up. Sometimes a big water change has been known to get things moving when they have stalled. Don't ask me why because I really don't understand it but I have seen it work.

 

[Diesel Trout]

A hitchhiker snail is not something I would worry too much about if I was having trouble establishing a cycle like you are. If you are worried that nitrites are too high, do a big water change and then dose the ammonia back up. Sometimes a big water change has been known to get things moving when they have stalled. Don't ask me why because I really don't understand it but I have seen it work.

Since this cycle is causing me problems I was using the snail as a possible indicator (like the spontaneously rotting sword stalks). If I don't throw these things out there I won't get any (potential) answers.

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, agree, "kickstart" water changes with ammonia recharge are one of the only things we've got as an action to take to feel like you're doing something in that latter stages. Another thing that can help psychologically is the observation that most of us still feel pretty strongly that if you can outlast all the unexplained problems, dosing ammonia to a tank seems to inevitably result in these two species eventually happening, they've never been known to hold out forever!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Diesel Trout]

Well I did a fairly large water change on day 92 (about 2/3) and got rid of the mushy sword. Nitrite readings later in the day were at 0.25.

Today (day 93) the ammonia and nitrites were both at zero after 24 hours. I hope I do not see another NO2 spike!

 

[Diesel Trout]

Well days 94 and 95 have both been at double zero for ammonia and nitrite after 24 hours. Beginning to feel positive again.

Interesting observation: while in my nitrite spike the green algae was fairly subdued and many ornaments were getting covered in a brown scale. Since the water change and the diminished nitrites the green algae had made a come back. I'm not sure which one was more annoying.

 

[waterdrop]

Brown diatoms are definately easier to get off than green spot algae (GSA) which can get quite tough on glass and is the usual reason for a fishkeeper to buy his first razor blade on a stick .

I recently got some BBA (black brush algae) and realized its probably because my CO2 level necessarily swings wildly back and forth because I change 50% water weekly and don't have pressurized CO2.

Welcome to the world of playing god to a microenvironment. Its hard to get it all done during happy hour, especially with one hand occupied holding a glass.

Glad to hear those nasty little fellas have befriended you for a couple of days, lets hope they keep it up.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Diesel Trout]

Day 99! On the cusp of triple digits!

At least I can report that there have been no additional surprises since the nitrite spike. Ammonia is processing but we are still not at double zeros in the morning. I checked on day 97 and it was at 0.25 ammonia and 2.0 for nitrites. Another week? Here's hoping before it gets too cold outside!