Fishless Cycling Question

[GoGators]

Ive got a 29 gallon planted tank that is fishless cycling. The nitrites have been off chart for 8 days. Ammonia is at 0-.25 after 24 hours, PH is 7.8, nitrates are 5-10 ppm, temps at 80 degrees, nothing has changed in over a week, this is day 20 of the cycle. I've got 3 Anubis nana, 1 crypt, and a java fern. Eco complete with black gravel on top. 65 watt current USA with lunar led and a penguin 150 bio wheel.

My question is has the cycle stalled? Also there is a lot of brown algae on the glass. Should I remove it or leave it alone? I turned the light off for now but it's been on 10 hours a day. I use 1/2 RO & 1/2 tap because I have well water. API test kit and I'm using ace hardware ammonia

 

[Rediahs]

A major cause of stalled cycling is low pH. Do a pH test and if it's less than 6.5 or so, you'll probably want to devise a way to fix that (water change, crushed coral, or sodium bicarb probably).

But first, you may want to try just adding more ammonia... when you say it's at 0-0.25, do you mean it's a really pale yellow colour with a hint of green? Some people have misread zeroes on ammonia for simply very-low ammonia... there's no harm in adding more. You may find that the ammonia never goes below that pale-yellow point that doesn't quite look like a zero, and come to find that that's actually zero and you have just been looking at it funny expecting some brighter yellow colour.

It can be deceptive because the nitrite zero is very distinctive bright cyan blue, while the zero for ammonia isn't as bright yellow.

I would add more ammonia and see what happens, it can't really hurt. The purpose of letting it drop to zero is just so you can SEE if it drops to zero... there's no function in forcing it to zero before adding more, mid-way through the cycle, really.

 

[GoGators]

I'm pretty sure it's not going all the way to zero because it still has a hint of green to the color. The nitrite test turns dark purple in the bottom as soon as I add the drops. The PH has never dropped below 7.2, it's been stable at 7.8 for a few days. The nitrate test turns a brownish color like between the orange of 5 ppm and red of 10 ppm. All 4 tests are just staying the same.

 

[Dogson]

I'm at exactly the same stage as you, don't worry!
Your tank needs to be processing 4-5ppm of Ammonia in 12 hours or less. Nitrites are apparently alot slower to process than the ammonia is.
My tank is processing the ammonia in 12 hours but I was also topping up the ammonia every twelve hours too which is a no no!
Only add ammonia every 24 hours once it starts processing it within the 12 hours which should hopefully give the nitrite 12 hours relief from adding more ammonia thus helping it to start bring it down. some people have waited over a month for the nitrite spike to come down even though the ammonia is being processed within 12 hours.
Hope that made sense?

 

[GoGators]

Thanks for the help. My roommate who orginally bought the tank with an oscar is driving me crazy wanting to add new fish. The oscar recently passed away due to hole in the head, I do miss the little guy attacking me while doing maintance. That was one mean fish but cool. I had not ever had a tank until she brought this one home not having a clue how to care for it. I got involved trying to save the fish but it was too late as he already developed hole in the head. I fell in love with the hobby and I want to do it right this time. It was running for about 6 months with the oscar but he died about a month ago. If I knew then what I know now id still have a healthy oscar. It's going to be a community tank this time.

The tank was totally cleaned and has new everything except those little colorful swimming things. (bad attempt at humor) I don't want to murder anymore fish so I'm fishless cycling this time. Not to mention how bad I felt because of our stupidity. After seeing the work involved she gave the tank to me 2 weeks after buying it. It's very relaxing to me.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, very good advice up there from Chrissi and Dogson, especially perceptive of Chrissi as there's no harm, as she says, in adding some more ammonia in that kind of slight color doubt.

As far as your overall fishless cycle, we see many fishless cycles that don't end until between day 60 and day 70, so at only 20 days you are not necessarily very far along. Of course if varies quite a lot, which is a big part of the whole communication problem with it. Being off the chart in your "nitrite spike" for 8 days is not uncommon.

I'd up the temp to 84F/29C as your temp seems a little on the cool side for the optimal bacterial growing soup. I assume you've got some ferts in there for the plants and if so hopefully a little iron is going in as that's another thing the bacteria like a little of, although average tap water usually has enough.

Anyway, only real problem to deal with is patience. Perhaps you can interest your roommate in all the nice sciency charts of the nitrogen cycle that appear on wikipedia!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

Friday I cleaned the brown algae off the front and side glass and changed 30% of the water. The nitrite test took longer to change so it helped a little. 5 ppm of ammonia is still being processed in 24 hrs. PH was around 7.6-7.4. Nitrates didn't change. I bumped the temp up to 84. This is day 22 so I guess I'm not doing too bad considering I didn't use any mature media or substrate, I didn't seed at all.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum GoGators.
If you want to watch the nitrites, you could drop the ammonia dose down to 2 ppm and do a 90% water change to remove most of the nitrites. The water change would make it easier to see what is happening with nitrites and the smaller dose of ammonia would keep the nitrites from going off scale quite as quickly. After 8 days of nitrite spike, you might find that the nitrites are actually coming down and you just can't see them. The nitrate test can be a challenge to do right. I double all of the shaking instructions on that test because if you don't get adequate mixing the test will read a value lower than it should. This could be why you are not seeing a nitrate increase.

 

[GoGators]

The PH is slowly dropping so that means something good is happening right? It made me happy to see that, I took it as a good sign. The nitrate test turns brownish as soon as I put bottle 1 in. Then after shaking bottle 2 for a minute while beating it on my hand I add bottle 2 and it turns a orange or light brown color but not red yet.

Thanks for the advise. I'd rather keep the water changes to a minimum as I have to use 1/2 RO drinking water and half tap because I have well water that is hard with high nitrates.(20+PPM) We don't drink it and our dogs get bottled water. When mixed the nitrates end up around 5-10 ppm and the PH 7.8.

 

[fatheadminnow]

A dropping pH is not necessary a good sign.

You do not want the pH to drop lower than around 6.6.

If the pH drops that low, or any lower, it will cause the autotrophic bacteria in your filter to go dormant and not process any ammonia or nitrite.

The pH could be dropping because you did not mix the tap water with your RO water the same way before, or sometimes a high level of ammonia will cause the pH to drop.

I would do a larger water change like suggested above. That will bring your pH back up and it will give you a good indicator as to where you are at.

A pH of around 8.0-8.4 is optimal for the colonization of the beneficial bacteria in our filters, so having a pH of 7.8 is really good so you should try to maintain that if at all possible.

-FHM

 

[LionessN3cubs]

temps too low my friend...jack it up to 87 ish if not a bit higher as long as the fish in there can handle it?

 

[waterdrop]

Its fishless I believe and I tend to carry along the advice that 84F/29C is about optimal for fishless.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

Yes it's fishless but there are 6 plants so I don't want to go to high. Is it possible the plants are using the nitrates and that's why I'm not seeing them rise above 10?

 

[fatheadminnow]

Yes it's fishless but there are 6 plants so I don't want to go to high. Is it possible the plants are using the nitrates and that's why I'm not seeing them rise above 10?

Yes, plants use a lot of nitrates, and with a planted aquarium you will soon see that your nitrates are not that high at the end of each week when it is time to do a water change. (When you are completely cycled of course.)

My nitrate reading at the end of each week is not much more than 10 ppm from all the plants in my tank using all of the nitrates.

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

The plants won't be bothered by warm temperatures.

~~waterdrop~~