fishless cycle problem

[Fishboy17]

Ok I have been doing a fishless cycle. I am on my 3rd week or so. And someone told me to keep the ammonia at 4 ppm each day or so until nitrite spike etc. I couldn't ever get it to 4ppm so I kept adding little more each day and well the color of my ammonia is off the chart now (it's blue, highest it goes is green on my test chart) and still no nitrite spike. What should I do.

 

[rdd1952]

I don't understand why you don't have any nitrite after 3 weeks. Did you use dechlorinator when you filled the tank? Are you adding any other chemicals to the water other than dechlorinator? Some of them can severly slow the cycling process since they "remove" ammonia. Tha could be the reason you couldn't get the level up to 4 ppm.

There are several methods of doing a fishless cycle. I prefer the method where you add enough on day one to raise it to 5 or 6 ppm and then just wait till it drops to near zero. At that point you should have a fair amount of nitrite. From then on, you add enough ammonia every day to raise the level up to 1 to 2 ppm. The nitrite will go off the chart. When it finally drops back to zero (will almost happen over night - off chart purple one night and light blue meaning zero the next morning), you are finished. Just do a large water change to get rid of the nitrates which will also be off the chart and you are ready for your fish.

 

[spanishguy111]

I don't understand why you don't have any nitrite after 3 weeks. Did you use dechlorinator when you filled the tank? Are you adding any other chemicals to the water other than dechlorinator? Some of them can severly slow the cycling process since they "remove" ammonia. Tha could be the reason you couldn't get the level up to 4 ppm.

There are several methods of doing a fishless cycle. I prefer the method where you add enough on day one to raise it to 5 or 6 ppm and then just wait till it drops to near zero. At that point you should have a fair amount of nitrite. From then on, you add enough ammonia every day to raise the level up to 1 to 2 ppm. The nitrite will go off the chart. When it finally drops back to zero (will almost happen over night - off chart purple one night and light blue meaning zero the next morning), you are finished. Just do a large water change to get rid of the nitrates which will also be off the chart and you are ready for your fish.

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Thats cuzz it'll never go to 4ppm again. You mis understood, or were told by a doink. You add FIVE ppm (four works fine too though) of ammonia the first day, measure how much it took to make 5ppm (so say 1tsp for example though its likely to be much lower) then add the identical amount DAILY. you dont ever get the 5ppm again. if you could it'd mean your ammonia oxydizing bacteria wasnt colonizing. this should be bloody common sense. Do you add exponentially more fish every day? No. Think about it.

Also, no offense to the guy I just quoted here- but IGNORE HIM HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT and the way he's explained it will confuse you more. Dump ALL your water out. This will not hurt your biofilter. Fill it with all new water, try to remember how much ammonia you added the FIRST day, and keep adding ONLY THAT AMOUNT daily until you cycle. I know what Im talking about. Trust me. Or you can not trust me and not solve your problem

 

[modernhamlet]

Thats cuzz it'll never go to 4ppm again. You mis understood, or were told by a doink. You add FIVE ppm (four works fine too though) of ammonia the first day, measure how much it took to make 5ppm (so say 1tsp for example though its likely to be much lower) then add the identical amount DAILY. you dont ever get the 5ppm again. if you could it'd mean your ammonia oxydizing bacteria wasnt colonizing. this should be bloody common sense. Do you add exponentially more fish every day? No. Think about it.

Also, no offense to the guy I just quoted here- but IGNORE HIM HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT and the way he's explained it will confuse you more. Dump ALL your water out. This will not hurt your biofilter. Fill it with all new water, try to remember how much ammonia you added the FIRST day, and keep adding ONLY THAT AMOUNT daily until you cycle. I know what Im talking about. Trust me. Or you can not trust me and not solve your problem

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Wrong yet again.

Fishboy, look at the previous posts of myself and rdd and compare them to spanishguy.

Listen to rdd. He's right.

 

[spanishguy111]

Thats cuzz it'll never go to 4ppm again. You mis understood, or were told by a doink. You add FIVE ppm (four works fine too though) of ammonia the first day, measure how much it took to make 5ppm (so say 1tsp for example though its likely to be much lower) then add the identical amount DAILY. you dont ever get the 5ppm again. if you could it'd mean your ammonia oxydizing bacteria wasnt colonizing. this should be bloody common sense. Do you add exponentially more fish every day? No. Think about it.

Also, no offense to the guy I just quoted here- but IGNORE HIM HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT and the way he's explained it will confuse you more. Dump ALL your water out. This will not hurt your biofilter. Fill it with all new water, try to remember how much ammonia you added the FIRST day, and keep adding ONLY THAT AMOUNT daily until you cycle. I know what Im talking about. Trust me. Or you can not trust me and not solve your problem

[snapback]909848[/snapback]​

Wrong yet again.

Fishboy, look at the previous posts of myself and rdd and compare them to spanishguy.

Listen to rdd. He's right.

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Dude RDD suggests adding 6ppm of ammonia. Once. Unless he's doing it daily the tank wont cycle. 6ppm of ammonia make 4ppm of nitrates. How you could cycle a tank with such a small amount of stuff I dont know. And if you're saying its going to be off the chart nitrates then you ARE adding 6ppm daily. You contradict yourself.

You suggest adding ammonia ONCE which will make almost no nitrate

but

you say at the end of the cycle nitrate will be off the chart- meaning youd HAVE to have added ammonia several times...

I'm not WRONG dude. I've been at this a good deal longer than you I'm sure.

Then again- do you wanna trust a Canadian, or a Merkin from friggin Massachussets...

 

[Synirr]

Dude RDD suggests adding 6ppm of ammonia. Once. Unless he's doing it daily the tank wont cycle.

Wrong. As long as there is enough ammonia in the tank to convert to nitrite, the tank will cycle. Since rdd1952 said you do add more ammonia after the initial 6ppm, but not until there is a nitrite spike, the method does work because the bacteria is continually being provided with ammonia.

Then again- do you wanna trust a Canadian, or a Merkin from friggin Massachussets...

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Personally, I'd trust the one who's being less of a royal arse. Both methods that have been suggested work, one just uses less ammonia.

Anyway, I just spoke to Fishboy17 over Yahoo messenger, and it would appear that his test strips simply got wet and were giving false readings. Problem solved.

 

[rdd1952]

I have successfully cycled 5 tanks using the method I mentioned. I stand by my method. Thanks to modernhamlet and Synirr for backing me up on this.

 

[pseud]

Just want to say that spanishguy is very wrong. If you add ammonia everyday your ammonia levels will be through the roof. You only add ammonia to your tank again to bump it back up to 5ppm. (or whichever levels you prefer. I used 3 i think)

 

[Tolak]

I have used rdd's method, I would go with that. You want to keep a constant level of 4-6 ppm ammonia, if you add it daily at the start, before the nitrosoma bacteria begin converting it to nitrites, you risk adding too much, causing a lengthened cycle. Always test before you add more, you will prevent this.

I have heard that open bottles of ammonia lose strength due to the ammonia gassing off, so there is some validity to adding ammonia daily. Once again, test before you add. If it is down to 2 ppm, add half the amount you originally added to bring it up to the desired 4-6 ppm.

The idea is to keep a constant level of ammonia until the nitrosomas & nitrobacters are converting 4-6 ppm to nitrates daily. The bacteria are just little creatures that eat ammonia & nitrites. If there are no bacteria to eat the ammonia, their food just sits there, no reason to add more food. Once they start to chow down, you have to add more food, in the form of ammonia.

As it was stated before, use a dechlorinator that just neutrilizes chlorine & chloramine. You don't want to affect the ammonia or nitrites in any way.

Tolak

 

[yvez9]

rdd knows what he's talking about
spanishboy here is just a royal pain in the ...

what's wrong with canadians anyway?

 

[spanishguy111]

rdd knows what he's talking about
spanishboy here is just a royal pain in the ...

what's wrong with canadians anyway?

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No theres something wrong with AMERICANS. Canadians are much cooler.

 

[flips]

rdd knows what he's talking about
spanishboy here is just a royal pain in the ...

what's wrong with canadians anyway?

[snapback]910208[/snapback]​

No theres something wrong with AMERICANS. Canadians are much cooler.

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YAY CANADIANS

 

[Fishboy17]

As it was stated before, use a dechlorinator that just neutrilizes chlorine & chloramine. You don't want to affect the ammonia or nitrites in any way.

Tolak

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the stuff im using is called stress coat, says it removes chlorine and neutralizes chloramines. this will work right

 

[yvez9]

rdd knows what he's talking about
spanishboy here is just a royal pain in the ...

what's wrong with canadians anyway?

[snapback]910208[/snapback]​

No theres something wrong with AMERICANS. Canadians are much cooler.

[snapback]910320[/snapback]​

Oh Cool

 

[ncjharris]

Children..........

Play nice.