Fishless Cycling a 75-Gallon

[nero]

BECCA,
i disagree with people who are talking like "yes you want a huge ammonia spike" , yes you do, but not THAT huge. If you just keep adding it every day, your ammonia will go up to 50ppm, and then NEVER seem to come down, and it has been stated many times in these forums that large amounts of ammonia CAN inhibit the bacteria that breaks down nitrite. so keep the ammonia at 5ppm. if it is higher, do not add any more ammonia! just leave it till you see a drop, then add more. Otherwise you have a HUGE ammonia spike, then a relative HUGE nitrite spike, and the whole think just takes for EVER.
I also believed that because I had established media the whole thing would be quick. FOr your own sanity, stop believing that right now. It MAY, but I had lots and lots of established media, and mine took 3 weeks.
Good luck, but DO keep the ammonia at 5ppm, not adding it every day regardless.

 

[Becca]

Ok, I've raised the temp to about 88. Hopefully that will help. Also, I added some more ammonia, the levels are around 5 (I'm color blind, i thought it was about 8...but hubby looked and said it's closer to the 4 mark than the 8...my chart jumps from 4 to 8..)

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on my ammonia levels, unless it's under 5, I'll keep from adding any more ammonia. I mean...at the rate I'm adding it (4 tsp a day) I'm just basically replacing the water that evaporates with ammonia. Before you know it, I'll have a tank of nothing but ammonia!

As for patience, it's hard. I took a good hour this evening to adjust the backdroup, add some plastic plants and some more gravel from the established tank and just rearrange things a bit. At least I was able to interact with the tank some.

Someone asked why I didn't run the new filters in the established tank. The reason is because my established tank - a 30 tall (which is the width of only a 20 regular) could not fit the filter, unless I destroyed the top. And since I'd like to use the tank again, I didn't want to break anything.

As far as used filter media goes, the established tank has a BioWheel 170 - so I don't have anything to contribute (other than scrapings) to the established tank. And to make matters worse, my favorite LFS (which uses nothing but Aquaclear 500s on their smaller freshwater displays) is moving, so they're closed for another week. I did talk to my pal at the store and he offered up some used sponges when they reopen. If things haven't progressed a decent amount within the next week, I may take him up on that offer.

Maybe I'll start a Fish Website, or a section of my website dedicated to fish, where I can log my experiences so people can learn something, or just laugh at me.

 

[luxum]

i disagree with people who are talking like "yes you want a huge ammonia spike" , yes you do, but not THAT huge. If you just keep adding it every day, your ammonia will go up to 50ppm, and then NEVER seem to come down, and it has been stated many times in these forums that large amounts of ammonia CAN inhibit the bacteria that breaks down nitrite. so keep the ammonia at 5ppm. if it is higher, do not add any more ammonia! just leave it till you see a drop, then add more. Otherwise you have a HUGE ammonia spike, then a relative HUGE nitrite spike, and the whole think just takes for EVER.

I wanted to clarify this. It is possible to fishless cycle the way this poster describes, however it will not get you the huge colony that allows a full stocking in one go. If that is what you plan, you need to add 5ppm of ammonia every day. If you plan on only adding a small load to start you can cycle softer (and faster) but you will have to build up to your full fishload. This defeats one of the advantages of a fishless cycle, imo, but it's your tank and your call. I will add that i have successfully completed the 5ppm/day fishless cycle several times and it absolutely will complete if you follow the revised plan from the 2nd fishless cycle link in the beginner's section.

 

[gixer]

i totally agree with lixum.. stick with your original plan is my opinion..works for me.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on my ammonia levels, unless it's under 5, I'll keep from adding any more ammonia. I mean...at the rate I'm adding it (4 tsp a day) I'm just basically replacing the water that evaporates with ammonia. Before you know it, I'll have a tank of nothing but ammonia

dont worry...the ammonia soon turns to nitrite...much quicker than nitrite is processed into nitrate..
you wont end up with a tank full of ammonia..

stick with your plan and you will have a very well cycled tank and will be able to have a big fish load straight away.

 

[Becca]

THanks luxum and gixer. Hopefully it'll convert soon!!

 

[Becca]

Day 6

I was starting to get worried because as of last night, my ammonia levels were starting to go off my chart (above 8.0). In fact, I was seriously concerned that I needed to do a water change, or that I did something wrong.

So, I came home and did my usual water test...

and...YAY!

I have nitrites. OMG DO I HAVE NITRITES! I have enough to share, want some? My ammonia levels have sunk too, so I'm happy. My current water readings are:

Ammonia: 0.50
Nitrite: Above 10.0
Nitrate: About 40 (remember...some of these are from the water I used from my established tank.)

So, now (from my understanding) the long wait comes. Nitrites breaking down into Nitrates...

I've added 2 tsp of ammonia (that's half what I was normally adding) and I'll continue to do it until I see the nitrites go down and the nitrates spike.

 

[njnauticalnut]

Becca,

I am fishless cycling a 75 gallon. I did not add a lot of seed material so it is taking longer. I happen to have a lot of patience!

I got nitrites after 3 weeks, they spiked for only a few days before they began to decline and are now at .5ppm. My nitrates are in the 10-20ppm area. So the end of the cycle is getting nearer. I never did a water change while waiting for nitrites and added amonia daily. For a period of time my amonia levels were off the chart, but I knew the bacteria colony was growing and would be large when eventually it cycled. The amonia dropped to 0 after 5 days of nitrite showings and has remained there.

Glad to hear you got nitrites so quickly. As hard as it is, be patient. Someday this will be just a faint memory as you sit watching your tank full of cichlids!

Good luck with the nitrite spike then the decline....

 

[Angry_Platy]

Perhaps someone has allready mentioned this however I didn't see that they had....

DO NOT use normal household cleaner ammonia....what you need is pure ammonia that doesn't contain any surfactants....these surfactants are toxic to fish and cannot be removed from the tank once in there.....no matter how much cleaning you do to try and remove them....

Also. I have tried two methods of fishless cycling.....1. Adding the same amount of ammonis each day then halving it once nitrites were seen and 2. Keeping the ammonia at 5ppm making sure to check and add the righjt amount of ammonia each day.....I found method 2 to be the quickest and most failsafe as too much ammonia can actually kill off bacteria rather than feeding it (like we want in a fishless cycle)

It is simple...you should know the volume of your tank....the ammonia you buy should tell you what the ammonia concentration is in the bottle.....from then on it is simple maths to figure out how much ammonia to add to bring it to 5ppm everyday....as the cycle goes on the amount you need to add will increase as the bacteria start working. I made it easy on myself by creating a spreadsheet in Excel so I didn't have to do the calculations everyday (call me lazy but this is common sense as it also increases accuracy....I even went as far as to measure the volume in a standard drop of a test kit pipette so I knew how many drops to add)......

If you need a hand with the calculations let me know.....it seems simple to me but when I told the BF he looked at me like I was speaking Chinese (I have also done quite a bit of university Maths and Chemistry).....

HTH in some regards

 

[luxum]

DO NOT use normal household cleaner ammonia....what you need is pure ammonia that doesn't contain any surfactants....these surfactants are toxic to fish and cannot be removed from the tank once in there.....no matter how much cleaning you do to try and remove them....

Household ammonia is just fine provided it is "clear" or "pure" ammonia diluted only with water and containing no perfumes, dyes, or surfactants. Perfumes will be marked on the container, dyes will be obvious to the eye, and the presence of surfactants in the ammonia can be determined by shaking the bottle. Appropriate ammonia sources are common and cheap in the US. The percentage of ammonia is usually not marked on the bottle here, so you have to determine your dosage with trial and testing, basically.

Regarding bacteria being "killed" by high ammonia, i don't think that is strictly true, or the 5ppm per day method would never work and in fact it does work if you follow the guidelines faithfully. There is room for experimentation, and i did my last FC with a slightly different implementation than normal and it still worked, but for the first time you shold stick with the tried and true, imho.

 

[Becca]

Day 7
Water Readings:
Ammonia: 0 (Woo hoo!)
Nitrites: Greater than 10 (off the chart)
Nitrates: 40
ppm Total Hardness: 120
ppm Total Alkalinity/Buffering: 80 (steadily going downhill...)
PH: Between 7.6 and 8.0

I'll need to raise my alkalinity - especially since I have cichlids going in the tank. Any idea how I cna do that, or if it'll go up when I add fish or finish the cycle.

 

[luxum]

Don't worry about that right now, after you do your water changes to get rid of the nitrates at the end your buffers will be replenished from the tap water and then you can consult the cichlid experts to see if you need to do anything further to the chemistry. Right now there is a ton of accelerated biological activity going on in your tank that uses up the buffers and drops the Ph, but once the cycle is established and you go back to normal bio activity and weekly water changes everything should stabilize.

Gratz on no ammonia, whoo hoo! Now, nitrite seems to take forever to drop, so to save your sanity and $$$, only test every other day or you'll end up like me, run out of nitrite reagents lol.

 

[Becca]

Don't worry about that right now, after you do your water changes to get rid of the nitrates at the end your buffers will be replenished from the tap water and then you can consult the cichlid experts to see if you need to do anything further to the chemistry. Right now there is a ton of accelerated biological activity going on in your tank that uses up the buffers and drops the Ph, but once the cycle is established and you go back to normal bio activity and weekly water changes everything should stabilize.

Gratz on no ammonia, whoo hoo! Now, nitrite seems to take forever to drop, so to save your sanity and $$$, only test every other day or you'll end up like me, run out of nitrite reagents lol.

lol - thanks luxum! I think the Stress Zyme I put in the tank has worked wonders...check out today's readings:

Day 8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.5
Nitrate: 50

woo hoo...if I'm reading this right, that means I have cycled my tank. In just over a week. I added ammonia to the tank last night and it's completely converted down to 0. (I tested the water before I put ammonia in, it was 0, added ammonia then tested teh water - it was at 3.0ppm. Today, 24 hours later, I tested for ammonia again, and it's back at 0.)

Also, today is the first day that my nitrites are 0. Before I get too excited, I'm going to dump some ammonia (about 3-4 ppm) in my tank and make sure I don't have another huge nitrite/nitrate/ammonia spike this time tomorrow. If not, then I'm assuming my cycle has completed?

Edit: I just added 4 tsp of ammonia to the tank, stirred it up well, and sat for a few minutes. The test came back showing that there is 3.0ppm - so, we'll see how well it can be converted tomorrow.

 

[luxum]

Once that nitrite goes down to zero (actual zero, not just "pretty close to zero") the cycle is established, yes. To be on the safe side and ensure that the colony is stable, then consider the tank ready whenever it can reduce your maintenance dose to nitrates within 24 hours, for 3 days in a row, and you have reduced the nitrates to reasonable levels with as many water changes as needed.

 

[njnauticalnut]

Becca,

That is terrific how quickly your tank is cycling. I wonder why mine is taking so long. I assume that it is the fact that you seeded your tank much more so than I did thus the bacteria grew more quickly.

I just wanted to start fresh even with the bacteria!

Enjoy as you add your fishies soon.