Green Goddess's First Fishless Cycle (240 Ltr)

[waterdrop]

well, we can see if OM agrees with me but I view my little experiment as so utterly harmless as to be much more likely to be just useless than to be anything that could disturb the fishless cycle. We won't even necessarily -know- whether it helped any since there are so many other variables in -any- fishless cycle. Its just a one-time little undersized pinch of fishfood going in there but nothing done any differently as far as doing a normal household ammonia fishless cycle. The fishfood will decompose and add a tiny bit of ammonia somewhere down the line that will be used by the A-Bacs just like the ammonia they are getting from the dosing. We know that both ammonia FLCs and fishfood FLCs -work-, so its just another possible little speedup tweek.

I'm glad to see that OM and I are very much on the same page as far as our pessimism about it. The most interesting little musing in my own head is whether a minor flare-up of saprotrophs (who are decomposing the fishfood) might let off some biosignals the autotrophs would pick up on. If the two types of species have lived in proximity thousands or millions of years they might have some little bit of Rube Goldberg connection like this where the result would be that the autotrophs would say "hey, when we see that biomarker we know that some saprotrophs are munching down and there's going to be some nice ammonia coming out of it so we better gear up to take advantage of it." That sort of thing - there are tons of examples of this in microbiology.

WD

 

[OldMan47]

I must side with GreenGoddess on this one WD. There are times when I am so busy that I can't even do a water change on a 10 gallon and I wouldn't want to accidentally set off something that adds to her work, even though I suspect it would be perfectly safe to try it. .

 

[waterdrop]

Oh for heavens sake, ok then OM, I guess I made it sound significant enough that it might actually -do- something, lol. I do think though that you and I, as Dads, should indeed have sympathy for GG, as you say, since he's a dad too, if I recall...!

 

[greengoddess]

Hi OM & WD,

Even though I'm a newbie, I can't really see what harm a few particles of fish food would do to the cycle

So, let's do it. I'll add a small pinch this weekend and see what happens.

I must also confess that my 24 hour set point for testing/adding NO3 has been all over the place for the last couple of weeks due to my ridiculous working schedule. I went from doing the initial testing at 6pm to doing it at 10pm for one reason or another. Now I'm having to do it at 6:45 am because I have been working 6pm-6am shifts. I must try and get into some sort of regular routine, especially before the final stage of the cycle.

My trouble is that I am a human whirlwind. I am so busy that I literally have to plan simple tasks like putting petrol in the car days in advance to able to fit it into my workload (I'm serious). Life in the fast lane indeed

 

[waterdrop]

Wait, he didn't confirm he's a Dad~!

 

[greengoddess]

Wait, he didn't confirm he's a Dad~!

Sorry, yep... I'm a daddy!

 

[greengoddess]

I've checked the water today and the nitrite level is through the roof. I'm not sure what the reaidng is because my test kit only goes up to 3.3. The sample quickly turns dark purple and then slowly gets more and more pale which is an indication that the test kit is unable to measure such a high reading. There is also some sort of sediment floating on the surface of the water. There is quite a lot of it and the filter obviously won't remove it because it's floating on the top. I am just wondering if it's worthwhile doing another full water change to bring down the high nitrite and nitrate levels (and get rid of the sediment) before I add a pinch of fish food to the syetm. Any thoughts?

 

[waterdrop]

Makes sense to me.. water change time! Make a note of the floating sediment in your aquarium notebook. It may be interesting after the fishless cycle is over, the first time you clean the filter to ask yourself whether any of your filter media is breaking down (its unlikely, but there are rare cases of media thats a bad makeup or too old or something.. I'm thinking mostly of fine mechanicals like floss pads and such.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[greengoddess]

OK, thanks WD. I don't think it will be the filter media that's breaking down. It's all brand new. Nevertheless, I will check. The floating sediment is a horrible brown colour. I put three artificial plants in the tank a few weeks ago. One of them is the same colour as the sediment so that's the only possible cause I can think of. I'll do the water change later today.

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, you have to watch those sorts of decorations like a hawk. WD

 

[greengoddess]

Full water change has now been completed and it went very well. I waited for most of the water to drain and then I wiped away all the sediment that had clung to the glass. There was lots of it but I still haven't a clue where it came from. The artificial plants are not the culprit. I checked the filter and the thin white wool pad that is the first media in line was absolutely filthy. I didn't want to clean it or change it in case it is harbouring helpful bacteria but I'd be interested in your opinion as to what to do with it. Should I give it a rinse in some used tank water?

Everything else is OK. Dechlorinator has been added, pH is 7.5 after adding bicarb, the temperature is steady and the water is clear. I also topped it up with a dose of ammonia and I've even added a small pinch of pulverised fish food as we agreed.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, you've asked a question that is a very hard call during fishless cycling. Theoretically (and certainly after your tank is running with fish and is cycled) it should be ok to rinse or even replace your "fine mechanical" (floss, floss pad etc.) media without harm to your biofilter because the bulk of biofilter functionality should be in the main biomedia (sponges, ceramic gravels etc.) BUT.. we usually have a rule that we just try really, really hard not to disturb -any- of the media during a fishless cycle if we can help it, going on the theory that every little biofilm of fledgling colony outposts can contribute and help things to move along. So usually we turn the decision based on whether its felt there is real clogging going on since that could lower the efficiency of colony growth in different ways, primarily by not letting ammonia and oxygen be distributed to all bacterial cells as well.

Can't think of any ideas to explain your mysterious brown crud that you thought was from a plastic plant.. hope you figure it out at some point!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[greengoddess]

Oh well, in that case I think I'll leave it as it is for now. I suppose the main issue is keeping the bacteria population strong and maintaining their growth and development. So until the filtration system starts to clog up I think I'll leave the media alone. I did take out the messy wooly pad to examine it but I put it straight back in. I hope I haven't disturbed anything I shouldn't have

 

[waterdrop]

Nah, I'm sure you're fine with that.

 

[greengoddess]

I was determined to be very patient waiting for this fishless cycle to complete. After 50 days my patience is now starting to wane.

Do you think it will be much longer before I see the nitrite level dropping?

The tank has also been at a steady 26.5 degrees celcius for the last few weeks. My heater is set to full power but it doesn't seem to be able to manage to get the temperature much higher than that. Perhaps the less than ideal temperature is slowing the process down a little.