Fishless Cycle So Far

[kharma2815]

DAY11 PART 2:

Re-tested when I got in from work. Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite of the charts, Nitrate 50ppm, Ph 8.5 (I think, that scales, not too easy to read). Added enough ammonia to bring up to 4.6ppm.

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 15:

Processing 5ppm ammonia in 10-12 hours. Nitrite still off the chart. Nitrate and Ph stable.

 

[waterdrop]

DAY 15:

Processing 5ppm ammonia in 10-12 hours. Nitrite still off the chart. Nitrate and Ph stable.

for me? Day 47 Processing 4ppm ammonia in 2 hours, nitrite spike stays high for days.

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 15:

Processing 5ppm ammonia in 10-12 hours. Nitrite still off the chart. Nitrate and Ph stable.

for me? Day 47 Processing 4ppm ammonia in 2 hours, nitrite spike stays high for days.

I think I would go insane if my nitrite took that long to cycle!!!

 

[backtotropical]

Day 47 Processing 4ppm ammonia in 2 hours, nitrite spike stays high for days.

That doesn't sound right, Waterdrop. It sounds like something is inhibiting your Nitrospira growth, but i'm afraid i don't have many suggestions as to what it might be. Have you tried water changes to bring nitrite down to a measurable level? You could also try cutting back on ammonia just now to say, 2ppm. This would help to avoid big build ups of nitrite meantime.

I've started a thread about this in 'Scientific Section' coincidentally, but no replies so far. Maybe worth keeping an eye on it?

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/Scientif...148/Nitrospira/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/Scientif...148/Nitrospira/[/URL]

Kharma, sounds like you are getting there. Stick at it!

Cheers

BTT

 

[waterdrop]

Day 47 Processing 4ppm ammonia in 2 hours, nitrite spike stays high for days.

That doesn't sound right, Waterdrop. It sounds like something is inhibiting your Nitrospira growth, but i'm afraid i don't have many suggestions as to what it might be. Have you tried water changes to bring nitrite down to a measurable level? You could also try cutting back on ammonia just now to say, 2ppm. This would help to avoid big build ups of nitrite meantime.

I've started a thread about this in 'Scientific Section' coincidentally, but no replies so far. Maybe worth keeping an eye on it?

<a href="http/www.fishforums.net/content/Scientif...148/Nitrospira/" target="_blank">http/www.fishforums.net/content/Scientif...148/Nitrospira/</a>

Kharma, sounds like you are getting there. Stick at it!

Cheers

BTT

Yes, feels really weird to me but it may just be impatience! My first phase, getting the AOBs to work, took about 20 days. So from what people here say, the NOB phase could take 40 days. That's 60 days altogether and I've only been 48, hey!

Seriously, though, I've been going back and forth on a couple of theories:
1) I have extremely soft water, betw 0 and 1 KH, so I've had to do some full water changes when pH dropped to 6.0 and then recharge to 4ppm ammonia. I eventually started adding modest amounts of baking soda and brought the KH up to as high as 5, which has been very effective at holding my pH back up at 7.5, very near my tap value of 7.6 (I feel this slowed down my first phase possibly)
2) I decided to fishless cycle with no substrate and no plants. Its just a bare tank, brand new everything and plain ammonia added. "oldman47" has a theory that cycling with live plants is a good "introducer" of some of the initial bacteria (after all, biofilm forms on plants, right?) I think its a great theory and wouldn't it be an interesting experiment to compare speed of fishless cycling with and without live plants!! (anyway this also might be my slowdown)
3) I decided to initially try cycling at 88F, our tank is on the tall side at 17" depth or so. I'm running two big airstones, but only in the day as they are too noisy at night. One theory is that my oxygen is lower than the bacteria like at night. Also, others have said 88F might be counter-productive. I've since dropped to 84F out of this worry.
4) I'm actually getting a lot of Nitrate production, I just can't get my Nitrite spike to go to zero. My 4ppm of ammonia drops to zero within 2 hours, so I had been recharging to 4ppm morning and night, so maybe I'm just always flooding in new Nitrites. Still, if the NOB population is big enough it should be able to drop it to zero within 10 hours, right?
5) (Hey, I can't quit!) One more worry! It seems agreed that pH of 6.0 is too low, time to water change and get it back up. But another thing that bothers me is that some sources say that pH 7.5 to 8.6 is preferred for bacterial growth. I can only barely get to the bottom of that with my tap water. Maybe NOB growth doesn't like my lower pH?

I know this will be one of my few chances to study the concept and details of fishless cycling first hand so I'm actually really enjoying all this (my son is not.) Anyway I should probably start another thread, we'll see.

Hey BTT! this should give you some fun to chew on!! Maybe we'll even interest RDD or Bignose, or,or...
Thanks in advance, ~~waterdrop~~

 

[waterdrop]

BTT (et alia),

I was trying to think of how to say that last message more simply. I guess the thing that makes it interesting as a problem is that this fishless cycling has been particularly slow. It took 20 days to get the ammonia dropping. Now it has been 30 days without the nitrite dropping. The 5 items in that message are guesses about what can make fishless cycling slow. I've found myself wondering whether peope with hard water and high pH might really get faster cycling on average.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[pirate monkey]

Kharma,

glad to see your cycling is going well! can't wait to see some pics when it's done!



Hey waterdrop,

just read your posts here about your drawn out cycling... You must have the patience of a saint!

In answer to your question about hard water and high pH, I live in a hard water area (can't remember exact numbers) and tap water has pH 8. My new tank is being delivered on friday and I will begin cycling, I plan to post a diary on here, so maybe you'll find that useful?

I do plan to use some mature media from my community tank to help kickstart so that will have obvious benefits. Did you use any mature media? I wonder if you could add some(more) mature media if that might help things move along?

I also noticed that you said you are cycling with a bare tank - no substrate. I've read some previous posts of yours about cycling with plants, and the pros and cons of that, but I wonder if cycling with no substrate has an effect also - as it is another medium for the AOB and NOB to populate.

Just some thoughts that popped into my head...

HTH

 

[pastabake]

No cycle should take much longer than 20 days if it does then you've done something wrong. (see this post (you'll have to search for it as I'm too dumb to get the link to work) Why Water Changes During Cycling Are GoodI I've followed it and it worked perfectly - I now have a tank full of happy fry.
Giving your plants a good head start before the introduction of fish isn't such a bad idea. Though from the comments about algae maybe I'll do my next fishless cycle in the dark and add plants afterwards with a few ottocinclus to keep down any algae while they establish.

I'm actually getting a lot of Nitrate production, I just can't get my Nitrite spike to go to zero. My 4ppm of ammonia drops to zero within 2 hours, so I had been recharging to 4ppm morning and night, so maybe I'm just always flooding in new Nitrites. Still, if the NOB population is big enough it should be able to drop it to zero within 10 hours, right?

That would be a heck of a lot of fish waste 8ppm - It could very well be that your high nitrite levels are actually inhibiting the right kind of bacterial growth or as you suggest that you're simply flooding the system with nitrites. I'd slow down on the addition of ammonia to perhaps +1ppm morning and night along with doing a few water changes and see how that goes.

 

[waterdrop]

Hey, thanks guys for the thoughts. I have in fact in most recent days switched down from 4ppm to 2ppm for my ammonia recharges. NO2 was only 0.75 yesterday rather than the usual 5+ and of course the small NOB population has been producing some NO3 all along so the signs are still getting better.

Yes, I did have at least one thing wrong. I have very soft water, leaving pH unbuffered. In my early days of fishless cycling it I didn't realize that pH going down to 6 would stall the process. Maybe took a while to learn this as most UKers have hard water so its not mentioned as much on this forum. Once I did my first big water change at 19 day mark, my AOB population kicked in and stage one was done at 21 days. During stage 2 (now 31 days or so) I paid more attention to bringing up KH so that pH would stay up, which I think is a necessary prerequisite to growth. I do think its curious to have an AOB population that can knock down 4ppm to zero in 2 hours(!) but then after 30 days or so the NOB population must be taking days to do it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 18:

Ammonia back to 0ppm after 3 days (added far too much last time), Nitrite still off the chart. Thinking of doing a water change this evening to try and get the nitrites down to a readable level. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Bought ammonia back up to approx 3ppm.

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 23:

Tank processing 4ppm ammonia in approx. 12 hours. Still no change in nitrite levels however, even after water change. Any idea where I've gone wrong?

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Kharma,

Try a bigger water change to bring down nitrite to a level which is quantifiable with your test kit. This will better allow you to measure if there is any change. It could be getting processed reasonably quickly and you'd have no idea if its way off the chart. See what i mean?

Also, have you checked the pH lately?

Cheers

BTT

 

[kharma2815]

Hi Kharma,

Try a bigger water change to bring down nitrite to a level which is quantifiable with your test kit. This will better allow you to measure if there is any change. It could be getting processed reasonably quickly and you'd have no idea if its way off the chart. See what i mean?

Also, have you checked the pH lately?

Cheers

BTT

Thanks for the advice. Have just checked everything again and ammonia is still reading 0 and nitrite is still off the charts after another 40% water change done last night. Have also checked Ph and it's at 9! Could this be what's causing the nitrite to take so long to come down and if so, what can I do about it? I know the water comes out of my tap at 7Ph.

 

[kharma2815]

DAY 25:

Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite still off the chart, Nitrate 30ppm, Ph 9. Water turned very cloudy overnight for some reason.

Removed all plants from tank 2 days ago because they were dying but it doesn't seem to have made a difference.