Fishless Cycling

[ska41]

My tank too experienced problems at the end of the fishless cycle when I reduced the temp over a period of 3 days from 32 to 25 to get ready for fish. The ammonia processing slowed WAY down and it started a mini cycle that I'm still waiting through. It has taken my tank 10 days to get back to where it was - nearing the end of the cycle. I definitely want to be fishy friendly and do a fishless cycle, but it's taken 9 weeks to get this far, a very sloooooow cycling, and it was annoying to have a problem when I dropped the temp! Almost there, almost there...........

 

[blue_soda025]

This is a bit odd. Today, nitrites have went down (greater than 0.5 ppm, but less than 1.0 ppm). I checked nitrates and they seem to have also decreased by a lot. They were down to around 50 ppm?! Before, they were off the charts, greater than 110 ppm. I don't see where it could've gone.

 

[rdd1952]

Unless your tank is heavily planted, I don't know of any way for nitrates to decrease without a water change unless you have some type of nitrate removing material in your filter. And I'm not really sure how well those things work.

 

[blue_soda025]

Hm.. There are only two live plants in my tank right now. An amazon sword and elodea. I haven't done any water changes, but I did top off the water, not that that would've made much of a difference.
Nitrites are down to 0.2 ppm today. I thought that would mean the cycle is almost done, but ammonia isn't being processed as fast as I would expect. It took about 3 days for 2.5 ppm to drop to 0.25 ppm.

 

[Lord Zogat]

Well rdd1952, I don't know what to do. Its been over 5 weeks since I started the fishless cycle with my bridged 10 gallon and 20 gallon. It took 25 days to drop from 6ppm - 1ppm. No readings for Nitrites or nitrates. Ph was slowly increasing.

Rusting slate was removed after 3 weeks and replaced with plastic counterpart.

Once the levels dropped to 1ppm and stayed there for 5 days, it was suggested I bring the levels back up to 4ppm. They have been dropping slowly only a tiny bit faster, has been almost 14 days since I raised it back to 4ppm, and now its only at 2ppm.

Still no sign of Nitrates or Nitrites at all.

If I test regular tap water in the same test tube it shows no ammonia.

I don't get it. My filters have been in for over a month, should I change them out as recommended after a month or is that only with fish in play?

Items in the tank are regular fish ornaments, boiled beach rocks, plastic formed slate and plastic plants. A bubbler in each tank and temp up to 90 degrees the entire time. I used plastic fiber enforced hose to draw water from 10 gallon to 20 gallon. I don;t know what would be hampering this process.

This is the dechlorinator.

 

[rdd1952]

I am at a lose as to why your tank isn't cycling and where the ammonia is going. Ammonia is disappearing but not being transformed into nitrite so something else must be removing it. I don't think changing the filter will really do any good but it might.

On thing that was mentioned in another thread a while back is where the first bacteria comes from. It isn't present in the water so it has to get in the tank through the air or off something that goes in the tank (plants, your hand, rocks, etc.). Until the beginning bacteria gets there, obviously, there aren't any bacteria to begin multiplying. I experienced that on one tank I cycled. It had gone 18 days and nothing had happened.

The best option would be to try to find someone that has an established tank that could give you some filter media so that you have starter bacteria. I think there is a thread floating around somewhere about people who will give you filter media. You would probably need to find someone close to you so that you could either pick it up or so that it would get to you in a only a day through the mail.

 

[Lord Zogat]

I am at a lose as to why your tank isn't cycling and where the ammonia is going. Ammonia is disappearing but not being transformed into nitrite so something else must be removing it. I don't think changing the filter will really do any good but it might.

On thing that was mentioned in another thread a while back is where the first bacteria comes from. It isn't present in the water so it has to get in the tank through the air or off something that goes in the tank (plants, your hand, rocks, etc.). Until the beginning bacteria gets there, obviously, there aren't any bacteria to begin multiplying. I experienced that on one tank I cycled. It had gone 18 days and nothing had happened.

The best option would be to try to find someone that has an established tank that could give you some filter media so that you have starter bacteria. I think there is a thread floating around somewhere about people who will give you filter media. You would probably need to find someone close to you so that you could either pick it up or so that it would get to you in a only a day through the mail.

Does ammonia evaporate off like chlorine eventually will?

Ok I'll check with the LFS or a friend to borrow some gravel. What do you think about just sticking the media right into what I have set up now, or do I have to start all over from scratch?

I guess it couldn't hurt to throw some media in to see how they cope with the current situation and see if it stars to process??

My mother almost found herself a trip straight to the moon when she threw an off handed comment the other day. "Thats a lovely tank of water you have there" POW

 

[rdd1952]

Gravel may help some but I don't think there is a lot of bacteria in the gravel simply because there isn't any water flow through it (except in tanks with under-gravel filters which are almost never used any more). If you can get a few pieces of the media (doesn't have to be a lot) from someones filter, that would work best. Even an old filter that theyare changing out so you can cut off a strip or 2 and put in your filter. I don't think you will need to start over, you should be able to just add it to your filter.

 

[blue_soda025]

Nitrites have dropped to zero today, but there's still around 0.5 ppm ammonia. The thing I'm worried about is how slowly the ammonia is processed. Would it be a better idea to wait til it reaches zero and buy fish, but not fully stock my tank or wait until ammonia is processed faster (if it ever does)?

 

[Lord Zogat]

Gravel may help some but I don't think there is a lot of bacteria in the gravel simply because there isn't any water flow through it (except in tanks with under-gravel filters which are almost never used any more). If you can get a few pieces of the media (doesn't have to be a lot) from someones filter, that would work best. Even an old filter that theyare changing out so you can cut off a strip or 2 and put in your filter. I don't think you will need to start over, you should be able to just add it to your filter.

Ok picked up a large handful of gravel from the LFS. I used brand new J-Cloths cut down to size and sewed them shut on two sides to make pocket bags. I put the gravel in that and then sliped it into the filter where it could fit.

I also changed out both cardon pads in the filters as its been over a month and they were starting to look nasty, never touched the bio media as the filter states never to remove it, just rinse clean it if necessary.

If this doesn't help I can ask him for some filter media, he is just as interested in the situation as I am as he had herd of fishless cycle but never used it.

 

[blue_soda025]

Now the ammonia doesn't seem to be going anywhere at all. It's still at 0.5 ppm today. This is rather puzzling. Perhaps it's the pH that's affecting it? It came out to be 6.2 or maybe lower.. the colour of the liquid didn't change at all.

 

[nogsnellin]

Hello again everyone. I was on here aweek or 2 ago having seemingly failed with my fishless cycle that I'd started on 20th July over 7 weeks ago. As my cycle looked to have stopped I did a big water change and put in 2 dalmation mollies on 28th August. To date they seem to be fine and I even had 15 fry on 6th Sept. though only 5 remain.
My point is although I have had Ammonia readings of up to 2ppm and today appear to be down to 0.5ppm I have not had any nitrite readings since 15th August!
I am also getting a constant low 6ph reading. and my nitrates are solid at 5.0
I am going to stick with these 2 mollies(+fry) for a couple more weeks and hope My nitrites rise and fall.
Any thoughts from anyone much appreciated as typically nothing ever seems to go to plan for me!!

 

[Egmel]

Hello again everyone. I was on here aweek or 2 ago having seemingly failed with my fishless cycle that I'd started on 20th July over 7 weeks ago. As my cycle looked to have stopped I did a big water change and put in 2 dalmation mollies on 28th August. To date they seem to be fine and I even had 15 fry on 6th Sept. though only 5 remain.
My point is although I have had Ammonia readings of up to 2ppm and today appear to be down to 0.5ppm I have not had any nitrite readings since 15th August!
I am also getting a constant low 6ph reading. and my nitrates are solid at 5.0
I am going to stick with these 2 mollies(+fry) for a couple more weeks and hope My nitrites rise and fall.
Any thoughts from anyone much appreciated as typically nothing ever seems to go to plan for me!!

Which test kit are you using? The API NitrIte kit is interesting to say the least, it only measures up to 5ppm and then 'breaks' showing a greeny blue colour that looks like the 0ppm colour. If your test goes purple at any pint then you have nitrites, and probably quite high ones!

The low pH could be stalling your cycle, I've been graphing mine and noticed that when the pH drops below 6.4ish the ammonia processing bacteria stall. What pH is your tap water? If it's higher then I would suggest doing frequent water changes to bring the pH back up.

IIRC Mollies are brackish fish and require slightly salted water to be truly happy. They also like a higher pH I think. I'd suggest searching in the live bearers forum for more info.

 

[jimz]

Just thought I'd say that this has been a very informative thread. I've read a number of them on fishless cycling and noticed different methods which caused confusion in my mind. This one clearly showed the two main ones, add and add vrs add and wait. I'm just 3 days into my first fishless cycle of a new 75 gallon tank. First I ran an AC110 for 3 weeks on my established 29. Also stuffed some extra floss and bio media into my Emperor filter on the 29 for a while to put it into the new Eheim canister filter of the new tank. Lastly I put several cups of gravel from that tank into a bag and tossed that in too. I switched the AC110 over to the new tank, fired up the new Eheim and added about an ounce of clear ammonia to bring my reading up to about 5PPM. Next day added another dose of the ammonia. On the third morning I hesitated at adding more and that night, 72 hours into it I tested and found my Nitrates already rising as well as Nitrates showing up!! Gave it another shot of ammonia and will test again tonight which will make 4 days but it appears as though the jumpstart worked and I'm well on my way. Thanks for the excellent thread with tons of info. Just hope I don't stumble somewhere along the way here.

 

[Lord Zogat]

Heading into week 6 of fishless cycle, ammonia is back down to 1ppm, but no sign of nitrites or nitrates???

Added some gravel to filters, still appeared to drop just as slowly.