Fishless Cycling

[bangit]

Hi, im on day 16 and im still not seeing any nitrite. its less than 0.3 mg/l and has been for over a week now. My ammonia level is still high, 4 mg/l or so.

Ive done a 30 % water change, 2 days ago, no change, its taking forever and im not happy lol!!!! Tank temp is in the 80s, ph 7.5 ish, slightly acidic.

Advice would be great as im getting impatient!

thanks

 

[rdd1952]

Has the ammonia been at 4 ppm from the start? If so, I would suggest a major water change of 75 to 90 percent. I'm not sure why it hasn't gone anywhere. I'm assuming you did use dechlorinator, not that I think that is the issue as chlorine would have dissipated over a day or so. You say the temp is in the 80s, I would go to the upper 80s to low 90s. The warmer the better for bacteria growth.

 

[bangit]

yep 100% used dechlorinater, and on the water change.

Will perform a massive water change tomorrow to get the level down. Ammonia has been up there from the start.

Temp is about 83/84 degrees.

Im having concerns about these juwel pumps/filters, they arent very powerful and dont seem to pull the water directly through the filter media, considering a change to an ehiem that i used to have.

 

[nicnak]

well i didnt buy more fish but moved my tetras and have just started a fishless cycle... only problem i have is i sometimes cant tell the difference in the colour charts

Will let you know how i get on

 

[twistedlink]

You know there is an equation you can use for the ppm.

Avagadros constant states each mol of element/molecule/compound contains exactly 6.14x10^23 particles (ppm's, or in this case pptttt trillion trillion trillion etc etc)

1 litre of water is exactly 1 mol.

so if you have an 180 litre tank, it is 6.14x10^23x180 particles inside it, if we then divide this number by 1 million (In effect making this number a 1% part)

Then x by 5-6 and you get the particles you need.

Then you find out the % it is of avagadros constant, and then you find the mol amount from that

Once you find out the mol amount, find the relative molecular mass for ammonia, and find out how much weight ammonia is at that mol amount, and thats how much you have to add


One confusing bit is the division of the 1 million part

If i have 1 million molecules, and i want 10 ppm, then if i divide by 1 million, i get 1 ppm, x by 10, i get 10ppm

Easy, it works with bigger, smaller and numbers that dont end in simple 000000


Most of you are probably thinking "this isnt the easy way"

But meh...I've been doing them kind of calculations for years now so all it takes is 40 seconds.

If anyone wishes me to work out for them on a new tank (with no fish) i guarantee my maths will work the same as the bucket method, if it doesnt, simply water change, and i was wrong (though i shouldnt be...the maths makes sense...)

 

[rdd1952]

Or you can click the Aquarium Calculator button on the top right of the screen (new since I wrote the thread) and key in your tank size. The problem is most people don't know the strength of their ammonia although 9.5% seems to be the norm. As a general rule though, I think any math will almost always come out to roughly 1 ml per 5 gallon of water will give you very close to 5 ppm of ammonia.

 

[nicnak]

I put 5m into a 96l tank,which i think is about 25 us gallons and it went to the end of my colour chart so i did a water change and it brought it down to a better level so next time i think i will add 4m

 

[nicnak]

Well im on my 4th day of fishless cycling and today i had a nitrite reading of 0.25 so at least something is happening as i did a week trying to cycle with fish and not even any ammonia showed

 

[bangit]

Finally my ammonia munching bacteria seem to have developed, ammonia is being converted v quickly into nitrite, my nitrites have spiked, off the colour chart.
This started happening wednesday/thursday of last week. Im wondering how much ammonia i need to add daily to keep the bacteria fed? I dont want to push my nitrites upto stupidly daft levels so it takes ages for them to come down. i put 1ml into the tank and tested half hour later, it was about 1.5mg/l.

tank size: 96litres

also, how long do you think it will takes for my nitrites to start coming down?

cheers

 

[rdd1952]

Add enough to raise it up to about 2 ppm once a day. That will keep the bacteria you have in good shape and will keep the nitrite from climbing so high. Once the nitrite drops, you can add about 4 ppm again and see how long it takes that to process back to 0 on both.

 

[bangit]

Quick question, do air stones make a big difference in the speed of the cycle?

Im about a week into my nitrite spike, and will have been cycling for a month on monday so am getting a little p*"£$sed off with the whole process! anythin to speed it up!

 

[SarahB]

mine has taken 4 weeks to cycle , im leaving extra few days extra , but i found it sped up when i made my filter make air bubbles .

im rubbish at explaining but my filter has an extra bit that you have a tube pointing across the water and one above with a little cork like thing in . i turned the heat up , and turned filter on full (removing cork plug thing out of top tube )

, blowing air bubbles everywhere and i think that has speeded it up to finish so quick . i was getting a little impatient too lol

 

[bangit]

Nice 1, ive cycled a tank before using air stones at a lower temp than im currently at and it only took 16 days. Gunna buy some air pumpage tomorrow i think lol!!!

How long did your nitrites stay high for?

 

[SarahB]

erm about 2 of the 4 weeks , in fact the nitrites were finished processing in last few days .

and i couldnt believe how quickly they disappeared

 

[nicnak]

I have been cycling for 2 weeks now and the ammonia is processing in at least 24 hours.
For 2 days now the nitrate test has been going purple as soon as it hits the water,i presume this means off the scale,and it ends up a weird greeny purple colour.But today when i tested the water the ammonia is about .50.I will just carry on bringing it up to 3 or 4 but a bit perplexed as to why the ammonia hasnt fully gone this morning.