Fishless Cycling...

[robyngunston]

Hi there!

I have been trying to do this for months but I think I may have finally got it close.
I seeded my tank with some gravel from an established tank at my lfs.....this seemed to help things along. (My ammonia was dropping before I did this but extremely slowly...so I replaced 90% of the water with treated water and seeded the tank again - I had been waiting about 3 months and nothing was happening other than an extremely slow drop of ammonia) since then... my ammonia started to drop quicker....the ammonia is now taking around 2 days to drop from 4 to 0...and seems to be stuck at this? As it has been like this for about four weeks now....the nitrite went up but not off the comparison charts as I was told? It went to a purple colour but by the time the ammonia was near 0 it had dropped to 0 again? The Nitrates at present are reading off my comparison charts?
Could the reason for the nitrite stabilising so quickly be that both bacteria were carried in the gravel from the lfs? He did say the tanks have been established for more than 25 years?

 

[BiffMalawi]

Someone please correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like you are done. You are cycled.

 

[robyngunston]

Someone please correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like you are done. You are cycled.

Hi there!

I thought you had to wait until your ammonia was dropping from 4 to 0 in 12 hours?

 

[scubadoo]

In theory you should be processing the ammonia in less than 12 hours.

One issue which can inhibit the development of your bacteria is if at some stage you added too much ammonia. You could do a 50% water change and then add your ammonia as usual for a few days and see if this had any effect.

One possibility is also that your filter media cannot sustain enough bacteria to treat the ammonia quickly enough. Do you have enough effective media in your filter?

 

[robyngunston]

In theory you should be processing the ammonia in less than 12 hours.

One issue which can inhibit the development of your bacteria is if at some stage you added too much ammonia. You could do a 50% water change and then add your ammonia as usual for a few days and see if this had any effect.

One possibility is also that your filter media cannot sustain enough bacteria to treat the ammonia quickly enough. Do you have enough effective media in your filter?

What do you mean by effective media in the filter?
I have a Rena Filstar.....which just has a black sponge inside it?

 

[Egmel]

It went to a purple colour but by the time the ammonia was near 0 it had dropped to 0 again?

Just to double check as I've had issues with this, if you're using the API nitrIte kit, the 'oops there's too much NitrIte for me to handle' colour is very close to the 0ppm colour. If at any point during the test the water turns purple you still have nitrites. It sounds unlikely because you have high NitrAtes which suggests you nitrItes are being processed but just wanted to check

If your tank can process 4ppm of ammonia to 0ppm (ammonia and nitrIte) in 24 hrs then you are fully cycled

What do you mean by effective media in the filter?
I have a Rena Filstar.....which just has a black sponge inside it?

effective media = space for bacteria to live, can be ceramic 'bits' or sponge.

If you have the external Rena Filstar XP1 this should be plenty big enough for your 12G tank. Does the black sponge fill the entire 'media space'?

 

[robyngunston]

It went to a purple colour but by the time the ammonia was near 0 it had dropped to 0 again?

Just to double check as I've had issues with this, if you're using the API nitrIte kit, the 'oops there's too much NitrIte for me to handle' colour is very close to the 0ppm colour. If at any point during the test the water turns purple you still have nitrites. It sounds unlikely because you have high NitrAtes which suggests you nitrItes are being processed but just wanted to check

If your tank can process 4ppm of ammonia to 0ppm (ammonia and nitrIte) in 24 hrs then you are fully cycled

What do you mean by effective media in the filter?
I have a Rena Filstar.....which just has a black sponge inside it?

effective media = space for bacteria to live, can be ceramic 'bits' or sponge.

If you have the external Rena Filstar XP1 this should be plenty big enough for your 12G tank. Does the black sponge fill the entire 'media space'?

Hello there, thanks for the info

Nope the Nitrates are definately 0.....a very light blue colour. But then again you never know with these dam test kits?
I have the second internal filter (out of the four pictures) in the link below...but I don't have an airstone as pictured...

http/www.aquatics-online.co.uk/Z016026.asp

from what I understand this is sufficient for my size tank? It came standard with the Rena Aquarama 60 tank?

 

[Cheffi]

It went to a purple colour but by the time the ammonia was near 0 it had dropped to 0 again?

Just to double check as I've had issues with this, if you're using the API nitrIte kit, the 'oops there's too much NitrIte for me to handle' colour is very close to the 0ppm colour. If at any point during the test the water turns purple you still have nitrites. It sounds unlikely because you have high NitrAtes which suggests you nitrItes are being processed but just wanted to check

If your tank can process 4ppm of ammonia to 0ppm (ammonia and nitrIte) in 24 hrs then you are fully cycled

What do you mean by effective media in the filter?
I have a Rena Filstar.....which just has a black sponge inside it?

effective media = space for bacteria to live, can be ceramic 'bits' or sponge.

If you have the external Rena Filstar XP1 this should be plenty big enough for your 12G tank. Does the black sponge fill the entire 'media space'?

Hello there, thanks for the info

Nope the Nitrates are definately 0.....a very light blue colour. But then again you never know with these dam test kits?
I have the second internal filter (out of the four pictures) in the link below...but I don't have an airstone as pictured...

http/www.aquatics-online.co.uk/Z016026.asp

from what I understand this is sufficient for my size tank? It came standard with the Rena Aquarama 60 tank?

The nitrAte colour chart is oranges the nitrItes zero is light blue.

 

[robyngunston]

The nitrAte colour chart is oranges the nitrItes zero is light blue.
[/quote]

Sorry I meant Nitritres.
The Nitrates colour is a dark orange/red colour

It went to a purple colour but by the time the ammonia was near 0 it had dropped to 0 again?

Just to double check as I've had issues with this, if you're using the API nitrIte kit, the 'oops there's too much NitrIte for me to handle' colour is very close to the 0ppm colour. If at any point during the test the water turns purple you still have nitrites. It sounds unlikely because you have high NitrAtes which suggests you nitrItes are being processed but just wanted to check

I was looking at the test kit last night....and the 0 colour for nitrite is light blue whereas the highest amount is a dark pink colour?? Do you have a different testkit?

 

[Egmel]

I was looking at the test kit last night....and the 0 colour for nitrite is light blue whereas the highest amount is a dark pink colour?? Do you have a different testkit?

Yup same as mine, however when you have high nitrites (eg. 10ppm) the test goes purple then fades to a pale greeny blue colour, it can't cope with such high levels. I found this out by doing all sorts of tests with the kit, the easiest way to verify this isn't the case is to do a test on your tap water (should be nice and pale blue from start to finish) then add some tank water (with a pipette or something similar) if you have any nitrates then the test will turn purple, if it stays the nice blue colour then you're fine.

 

[robyngunston]

I was looking at the test kit last night....and the 0 colour for nitrite is light blue whereas the highest amount is a dark pink colour?? Do you have a different testkit?

Yup same as mine, however when you have high nitrites (eg. 10ppm) the test goes purple then fades to a pale greeny blue colour, it can't cope with such high levels. I found this out by doing all sorts of tests with the kit, the easiest way to verify this isn't the case is to do a test on your tap water (should be nice and pale blue from start to finish) then add some tank water (with a pipette or something similar) if you have any nitrates then the test will turn purple, if it stays the nice blue colour then you're fine.

Wow.....that is really dangerous as you could think your water is okay?
Okay so let me get this straight....I should fill the test tube to the line with normal tap water add 5 drops and wait 5 minutes once it has turned a nice pale blue colour....I then add some of the tank water, correct? How much should I add? I will be using a syringe?

 

[scubadoo]

What I found to be the easiest way to determine if I was getting a false reading was to half fill the tube with tank water and then fill up to the line with tap water. Add the 5 drops an do the test as normal.

If you were off the chart, by halfing the concentration you are likely now to be on the chart.

If you were at say 0.1, then using the API kit you should now get a 0 (pale blue) reading. One downfall of the API nitrite test is that there's quite a big jump from 0 to 0.25. Other tests will give a reading of 0.1.

A reading of about 0.1 on the kit comes up as a watery blue/indigo colour which can be mistaken for off the chart - doing the 50-50 mix should verify this for you.

 

[Egmel]

Okay so let me get this straight....I should fill the test tube to the line with normal tap water add 5 drops and wait 5 minutes once it has turned a nice pale blue colour....I then add some of the tank water, correct? How much should I add? I will be using a syringe?

Yup, just a few mls, say another 1/2 cm in the tube. This was what I had to do to prove to my Bf that I wasn't crazy and that we did still have high nitrites.

Alternatively you can do what scubadoo suggests, measure half tank water and half tap water (or 1/4 tank to 3/4 tap) and then do the test, to get your actual ppm you just multiply the result by 2 (or 4). This is what I did when I wanted to see how much nitrite I had, it came out to be about 10ppm!

 

[robyngunston]

What I found to be the easiest way to determine if I was getting a false reading was to half fill the tube with tank water and then fill up to the line with tap water. Add the 5 drops an do the test as normal.

If you were off the chart, by halfing the concentration you are likely now to be on the chart.

If you were at say 0.1, then using the API kit you should now get a 0 (pale blue) reading. One downfall of the API nitrite test is that there's quite a big jump from 0 to 0.25. Other tests will give a reading of 0.1.

A reading of about 0.1 on the kit comes up as a watery blue/indigo colour which can be mistaken for off the chart - doing the 50-50 mix should verify this for you.

Hi Scubadoo....

Yes I have done that a few times just to check and it always comes up as a light blue.

Okay so let me get this straight....I should fill the test tube to the line with normal tap water add 5 drops and wait 5 minutes once it has turned a nice pale blue colour....I then add some of the tank water, correct? How much should I add? I will be using a syringe?

Yup, just a few mls, say another 1/2 cm in the tube. This was what I had to do to prove to my Bf that I wasn't crazy and that we did still have high nitrites.

Alternatively you can do what scubadoo suggests, measure half tank water and half tap water (or 1/4 tank to 3/4 tap) and then do the test, to get your actual ppm you just multiply the result by 2 (or 4). This is what I did when I wanted to see how much nitrite I had, it came out to be about 10ppm!

Yeah sometimes I think I'm going a bit crazy too.
I have tried scubadoo's method and I shall try that again tonight. I shall use both methods to see if I get any nitrite reading as if it's still a light blue colour I suppose I can then assume there are none.
I find the 50/50 method works well for measuring high ammonia readings as well.
Thanks for the advice!

 

[scubadoo]

Hi Scubadoo....

Yes I have done that a few times just to check and it always comes up as a light blue.

That tells me that you have very low nitrite readings - ie not quite 0 but lower than the 0.25 that the API test kit will allow you to test for.