Fishless Cycling Experts - Help Appreciated!

[keithbrown53]

H all,

I've been fishless cycling (or have been trying to), for nearly 2 months.

Very small 9 gallon tank. New media. API Master Test Kit.

26/10/2010 Added 15 drops ammonia. Tested ammonia. Reading about 4.
29/10/2010 Ammonia 4.
03/11/2010 Ammonia 4.
07/11/2010 Ammonia 4.
08/11/2010 Added 40ml of nutrafin cycle.
09/11/2010 Added 20ml of nutrafin cycle.
10/11/2010 Added 20ml of nutrafin cycle.
12/11/2010 Ammonia 4.
17/11/2010 Ammonia 2.
20/11/2010 Ammonia 2.
22/11/2010 Ammonia .5, Nitrate 10, Nitrite 0.
23/11/2010 Added 10 drops ammonia
24/11/2010 Ammonia 8, Nitrate 5, Nitrite 0, Ph 7.6 - 7.8.
26/11/2010 Ammonia 8, Nitrate 10, Nitrite 0
26/11/2010 Small water change to bring ammonia down
26/11/2010 Ammonia 4.
27/11/2010 Ammonia .5, Nitrate 40, Nitrite 0.
28/11/2010 Ammonia 1, Nitrate 10, Nitrite 0.
30/11/2010 Ammonia .5, Nitrate 20, Nitrite 0.
01/12/2010 Added 5 drops ammonia
01/12/2010 Ammonia 2.
17/12/2010 Ammonia 1, Nitrate 40-80, Nitrite 0.

As you can see, I have nitrate readings, but no nitrite.

My understanding of the process, is that I should see Nitrite, then nitrate, so I'm somewhat puzzled.

I'm also puzzled as to why I saw a big drop in ammonia on 26&27/11, but that things have slowed down so much afterwards.

Admittedly, I'm not dosing with ammonia regularly, but this is because I'm always getting readings so see no point in overdosing with ammonia. As there are always ammonia readings, the bacteria (if there are any!) must have something there to process, so they can't be dying off through "starvation", can they?

Comments welcome. I obviously don't understand the process well enough, or I'm doing something wrong....is there any reason a small tank like this one would be harder to cycle than a bigger tank?

Regards,

Keith.

 

[KittyKat]

What happened between 1st and 17th December? What size is the aquarium? What is the pH and hardness? What were the nitrite reading before the 22nd November?

Do try dosing ammonia every day to 5ppm (probably need to add only a couple of drops per day).. it is a bit difficult to see the cause with gaps in the readings and dosing.. can you get an LFS to test the water for you and write down the results?

 

[keithbrown53]

What happened between 1st and 17th December? What size is the aquarium? What is the pH and hardness? What were the nitrite reading before the 22nd November?

Do try dosing ammonia every day to 5ppm (probably need to add only a couple of drops per day).. it is a bit difficult to see the cause with gaps in the readings and dosing.. can you get an LFS to test the water for you and write down the results?

Nothing happened between the 1st and 17th....I lost interest in the process, due to the apparent lack of progress. However, I'm now back on board.

It's 9 gallons / 35 litres. I've only measured Ph the once, detailed in the results. I only started measuring nitrae and nitrite after 22nd November.

I don't really have a fish shop in range. It's a bit of an expedition, and as I have a liquid test kit, I'd hope it's providing accurate results.

So, I should dose to 5ppm of ammonia, as soon as I see it dropping below that level? And test daily?

 

[KittyKat]

Yes, do that and post your readings on here every day. I will be watching to make sure you don't skip

 

[Aqua Tom]

<Comments welcome. I obviously don't understand the process well enough, or I'm doing something wrong....is there any reason a small tank like this one would be harder to cycle than a bigger tank?

Regards,

Keith.>

Small tanks will always be a bit harder to cycle than a bigger one due to the fact that it is hard to keep stable water conditions in a small tank. A big tank has more water so is more forgiving of mistakes, & we all make those.

 

[keithbrown53]

Yes, do that and post your readings on here every day. I will be watching to make sure you don't skip

OK, will do. Thanks for your comments.

Is it very odd that I have nitrate, but no nitrites? I thought I'd see nitrites first?

 

[KittyKat]

Tap water has nitrate, it is not unusual for there to be some.

 

[keithbrown53]

Tap water has nitrate, it is not unusual for there to be some.

Latest readings:
17/12/2010 Ammonia 1, Nitrate 40-80, Nitrite 0.
18/12/2010 Added 2 drops ammonia
19/12/2010 Ammonia 2, Nitrate 40, Nitrite 0
19/12/2010 Added 3 drops ammonia

Will test again tomorrow. Assuming I get to 4ppm of ammonia in the next day or so, do I just leave it at 4ppm on subsequent days until I see it drop, and then re-dose to 4ppm?

 

[KittyKat]

Your aim is to get a drop from 5ppm to 0ppm in 24 hours. To record this, you must have 5ppm every day.

Sorry, a few more questions I have thought of:
1. Are there plants in the tank?
2. Did you do the waterchange with dechlorinated water?

I have plotted your readings and this might be a potentially correct conclusion:
* The Nutrafin stalled the cycle for some reason.
(* By 23 November your tank might have been cycled (no readings available for nitrite so impossible to tell).)
* On 24 November, you overdose ammonia and potentially stall or crash the cycle.
* Throughout the whole process you do not regularly dose with ammonia so you could potentially be starving the bacteria on a regular basis, thus killing them off whenever you get close to finishing the cycle.
=> The bacteria which convert nitrite to nitrate may already be in the filter which is why you have 0ppm nitrite, but you are lacking the bacteria which convert ammonia to nitrite.

or, your test kit might just not work.

At any rate, the only way to really figure out what is going on is to test everything daily before adding ammonia and test ammonia after adding ammonia or start from scratch and do the same.

 

[keithbrown53]

Your aim is to get a drop from 5ppm to 0ppm in 24 hours. To record this, you must have 5ppm every day.

Sorry, a few more questions I have thought of:
1. Are there plants in the tank?
2. Did you do the waterchange with dechlorinated water?

I have plotted your readings and this might be a potentially correct conclusion:
* The Nutrafin stalled the cycle for some reason.
(* By 23 November your tank might have been cycled (no readings available for nitrite so impossible to tell).)
* On 24 November, you overdose ammonia and potentially stall or crash the cycle.
* Throughout the whole process you do not regularly dose with ammonia so you could potentially be starving the bacteria on a regular basis, thus killing them off whenever you get close to finishing the cycle.
=> The bacteria which convert nitrite to nitrate may already be in the filter which is why you have 0ppm nitrite, but you are lacking the bacteria which convert ammonia to nitrite.

or, your test kit might just not work.

At any rate, the only way to really figure out what is going on is to test everything daily before adding ammonia and test ammonia after adding ammonia or start from scratch and do the same.

Thanks for taking the time to go through all that.

No real plants, just plastic ones.

Yes, my waterchange was with de-clorinated water.

Do you think I'd be best starting again, obviously taking daily measurements of ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and ph?

Or should I keep the water in the tank as is, and progress from this point?

 

[KittyKat]

If you have the patience, then start from scratch.. it will take a lot of effort and at least another 4 weeks (which would suck).

If you just want to get it over and done with, stick to this one.. worst case is that you could try silent cycling if this one does not complete in the next couple of weeks.

I will be happy to give my advice regardless of what you go for.

 

[keithbrown53]

If you have the patience, then start from scratch.. it will take a lot of effort and at least another 4 weeks (which would suck).

If you just want to get it over and done with, stick to this one.. worst case is that you could try silent cycling if this one does not complete in the next couple of weeks.

I will be happy to give my advice regardless of what you go for.

I'll keep going with this one, and will post regularly with updates.

Thank you.

 

[kporteo]

I fishless cycled my tank and never got a nitrite spike, although i did get readings of 0.25 - 0.5ppm of nitrite occasionally, according to Waterdrop this can sometimes occur, so you never know, you may be getting the same occuring in your tank.

K

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, K's fishless cycle was an example of the nitrite spikes not being clear and KK (several posts up) has outlined some of the reasons that might explain seeing those sorts of results in your case.

Being quite methodical with the process can help a fishless cycle but not necessarily in the way you think - its not the cycle itself so much as the measuring of it so that we can better see what's going on.

It helps to choose a regular "add-hour" (a particular evening or morning hour out of the 24 hours of a day) which will be your "24-hour point." Normally you will run your tests at this hour and record them in both your aquarium notebook log and in your fishless cycling log here. Then, if ammonia reached true zero ppm (or some trace close to that) anytime in the previous 24 hours, you will top up the dose to 4ppm (or whatever level you are currently using (we sometimes vary it a bit by what stage of the fishless cycle you are in.) Later in phase 2 (the nitrite spike stage when nitrite goes as high or higher than the test can measure) and in phase 3 (after the nitrite spike) we often like to also do "12-hour tests" but we never dose at the 12H test, even if ammonia is zero, because we don't want to put too much overall nitrogen into the system.

The only really useful numbers in fishless cycling are the "trends" over several days and if we make our measuring and dosing be as regular as we can manage, it will become easier to interpret these "trends."

~~waterdrop~~

 

[keithbrown53]

Hi All

Here are my latest readings:

17/12/2010 Ammonia 1, Nitrate 40-80, Nitrite 0.
18/12/2010 Added 2 drops ammonia
19/12/2010 Ammonia 2, Nitrate 40, Nitrite 0
19/12/2010 Added 3 drops ammonia
19/12/2010 Ammonia 4, Ph 7.6
20/12/2010 Ammonia 0.5, Nitrate 40, Nitrite 0
20/12/2010 Added 5 drops ammonia
20/12/2010 Ammonia 4

An ammonia drop last night / today, from 4 to .5 !

So, something appears to be happening.....

Thanks again for all the help.

Cheers,

Keith.