Fishless Cycle So Far

[kharma2815]

Equipment:

Juwel Rekord 120 (101cm x 46cm x 31cm) Approx. 144 litres
Juwel all-inclusive filter system (filter, pump and heater)
8kg standard aquarium gravel, no other plants or decorations as yet

Filled tank with approx. 135 litres de-chlorinated water.

Starting parameters:

Temp: 20C
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm
PH: 7+

DAY 1:
Added enough ammonia to bring level up to 7ppm. Turned heater up to 32C. Added 5ml Filter Start. Added filter media from cycled, mature cold water tank.

DAY 2:
Water cloudy. Temperature 32C. Ammonia 7ppm. Not tested for anything else.

DAY 3:
Water mostly clear. Temperature holding steady. Ammonia 7ppm. Nitrite 1.6ppm.

DAY 5:
Water still clear. Ammonia between 4.6ppm and 7ppm (I think, the scale is a little hard to read). Nitrite 1.6ppm.

 

[doresy]

Hi
Day 3 with nitrite showing already......oh the joy of having matured media to start things off

Looking good. Might want to add some plants?

Ammonia should drop over the next few days. Let it get down to about 1 ppm then bring it up to about 4-5 ppm. Your nitrite should then start to climb steeply.

Good luck

Nice clear post BTW.

 

[kharma2815]

Nice clear post BTW.

Thanks, I know how tough these sorts of things can be to figure out so I'm trying to make it as plain as possible.

And thanks for the advice as well, hopefully this tank will cycle a lot quicker than the one that finished last week (8 loooong weeks).

I was planning on getting silk plants as opposed to real for 2 reasons. Firstly, there's the maintenance aspect - with 3 tanks, 4 cats, 3 dogs and 2 elderly parents to look after, as well as working full time - sometimes doing 10 days without a day off - I really need the tank to be as low maintenance as possible, to start off with anyway. Secondly, every time I try and put plants in the boys tank they just rip them up, scatter the parts all over the tank, play with the floating pieces and then eat whatever's left!

 

[backtotropical]

Ammonia should drop over the next few days. Let it get down to about 1 ppm then bring it up to about 4-5 ppm. Your nitrite should then start to climb steeply.

Agreed. 7ppm is a bit higher than you need for a fishless cycle and will only cause the cycle to take longer for no real benefit. 4 - 5ppm is ideal.

Sounds like you're doing good so far. Stick at it.

Cheers

BTT

 

[kharma2815]

Ammonia should drop over the next few days. Let it get down to about 1 ppm then bring it up to about 4-5 ppm. Your nitrite should then start to climb steeply.

Agreed. 7ppm is a bit higher than you need for a fishless cycle and will only cause the cycle to take longer for no real benefit. 4 - 5ppm is ideal.

Sounds like you're doing good so far. Stick at it.

Cheers

BTT

I was actually aiming for 4-5ppm but obviously failed to measure it properly and got a bit heavy handed with the ammonia bottle

 

[kharma2815]

BUMP

 

[backtotropical]

BUMP

Any updates then, Kharma?

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 7:

No change in ammonia or nitrite. Will test again tomorrow, if still no change in ammonia will do 50% water change to try and remove some of the excess from when I obviously put too much in to start with.

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 8:

No change in ammonia readings, so performed approx. 50% water change with de-chlorinated water at roughly the same temp. Also added another 5ml of Filter Start (probably won't help but at least it won't hurt). Left tank for 10 minutes then checked levels. Ammonia now at 4.6ppm with nitrite still at 1.6ppm. Not a huge difference but at least a step in the right direction. Also turned temp down slightly to 30C as I read somewhere that temp's above this can actually deter the bacteria from multiplying.

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 10:

Added 10 plants and two bags of small pebble sized gravel. Ammonia hovering around 4.6ppm still but not quite as definite as 2 days ago.

 

[waterdrop]

Excellent! You are "fine tuning" with all the little things I think are now good additions to fishless cycling:
1) like BTT said, getting ammonia lower than 7ppm. 4-6ppm seems the sweet spot. There is some evidence in the scientific literature that at 8ppm a different species that you don't want will be encouraged to grow, slowing your progress down.
2) ending up on 30C/86F temp (I currently thing low to mid 80's F with plenty of surface agitation/aeration is the sweet spot for temp/oxygen)
3) Getting some live plants in there (oldman47 I think had a theory that those wet plants going in may bring along some of the good bacteria to help speed up the start..)
4) having a pH that doesn't fall to 6 or below

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kharma2815]

Excellent! You are "fine tuning" with all the little things I think are now good additions to fishless cycling:
1) like BTT said, getting ammonia lower than 7ppm. 4-6ppm seems the sweet spot. There is some evidence in the scientific literature that at 8ppm a different species that you don't want will be encouraged to grow, slowing your progress down.
2) ending up on 30C/86F temp (I currently thing low to mid 80's F with plenty of surface agitation/aeration is the sweet spot for temp/oxygen)
3) Getting some live plants in there (oldman47 I think had a theory that those wet plants going in may bring along some of the good bacteria to help speed up the start..)
4) having a pH that doesn't fall to 6 or below

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks for the encouragement, it really helps to know that I'm on the right track even if it does seem to be taking forever.

 

[kharma2815]

DAY11:

Finally some progress. Ammonia between 1.2ppm and 0.6ppm, Nitrite off the chart and Nitrate 50ppm. Added 10 drops of ammonia, left for 10 minutes and retested. No change in readings. Leaving for work in a few minutes so no time to add more ammonia and retest now but will do so this evening when I get in.

Wonder if it was the addition of the plants yesterday that finally seemed to kcik start things into action or it was just time for it to start working? *shrugs* Guess I'll never know for sure.

 

[backtotropical]

3) Getting some live plants in there (oldman47 I think had a theory that those wet plants going in may bring along some of the good bacteria to help speed up the start..)

Very interesting. Plants will cause a drop in ammonia as they use it as food, but this is not done by way of introducing beneficial bacteria into the tank. Although it may look as though the plants help the bacteria because ammonia starts to drop off, actually the opposite is true. The plants utilise the ammonia in a different way and it can actually deprive the bacteria of their food and hinder their growth.

Tanks can actually be set up with lots and lots of plants and no filter and fish added straight away, as the plants will deal with the ammonia and no filter is required.

In my opinion, plants are better left out until fishless cycling is complete, as they can portray the effcts of the cycle taking place, when in actual fact, it may not be at all.

How many plants do you have, Kharma? It sounds like the plants haven't adversely affected your cycle as your nitrite is off the chart. This is a good indicator that ammonia oxidising bacteria are present.

Also, keep testing your pH to make sure it doesn't fall too low, as this would stall your cycle.

Cheers

BTT

 

[waterdrop]

3) Getting some live plants in there (oldman47 I think had a theory that those wet plants going in may bring along some of the good bacteria to help speed up the start..)

Very interesting. Plants will cause a drop in ammonia as they use it as food, but this is not done by way of introducing beneficial bacteria into the tank. Although it may look as though the plants help the bacteria because ammonia starts to drop off, actually the opposite is true. The plants utilise the ammonia in a different way and it can actually deprive the bacteria of their food and hinder their growth.

Tanks can actually be set up with lots and lots of plants and no filter and fish added straight away, as the plants will deal with the ammonia and no filter is required.

In my opinion, plants are better left out until fishless cycling is complete, as they can portray the effcts of the cycle taking place, when in actual fact, it may not be at all.

How many plants do you have, Kharma? It sounds like the plants haven't adversely affected your cycle as your nitrite is off the chart. This is a good indicator that ammonia oxidising bacteria are present.

Also, keep testing your pH to make sure it doesn't fall too low, as this would stall your cycle.

Cheers

BTT

lol, well I wasn't really thinking about kharma when I wrote this. I was probably biased, sitting there with my empty tank bubbling away, wishing those NOBs would multiply. Here's how I arrived at the comment:
1) A TFF member commented at some point that fishless cycling often creates lots of stringy brown algae by the end of the process, so why not avoid the cleaning of this by leaving gravel and plants out during fishless cycling? Sounded good to me so I started my with just a bare tank, ammonia, airstones and filter.
2) Later oldman47 made a comment (wish I had the quote).. something to the effect that he thought live plants might be a good introducer of a small amount of the good bacteria (given that these bacteria know nothing about filters and attach themselves to any fixed object that gets enough flow to bring ammonia past.)
3) It occurred to me that rdd1952 had always mentioned that he liked to put the substrate and plants in at the beginning of the fishless cycle process and that's what he had done on most/all of his 5 times used to write the TFF fishless article.
4) (the biased part) I was sitting there with my NO2 spike still not going down on day 42 of fishless, thinking, gee, wonder if plants might have helped (sort of like getting some mature media helps, but in a smaller amount..)

I know it doesn't fit the party line we espouse, and I understand all about plants taking up ammonia, making it harder to interpret reading movements, but you can see the little glimmer of a thought that passed through my mind

[theoretically we rely on the assumption that enough starter bacteria of the two species we seek are available simply in any tap or well water we use or in the air, correct? And I believe there have even been discussions that some of these starter bacteria are resistant to the effects of chlorine/chloramines, so this is, I think, where we normally assume they are coming from, right?]

~~waterdrop~~