Justfrozen's Fishless Cycle Log

[JustFrozen]

Is this the part where I want to keep the dosage of ammonia low, since nitrite is skyrocketing?

 

[OldMan47]

If you are in the nitrite spike, which it seems you are, it would be better to only dose up to about 2 ppm for now.

 

[JustFrozen]

Man, this part of the cycle is boring

Every night going into it thinking "it's gunna be over 5 again" and then seconds later seeing the drops turn purple right away "yup it's over 5 again". I've got to try to be patient again.

I don't see the point of testing ammonia until I see the nitrite dropping, but I will do the occasional test for pH to make sure things don't slow down. Seeing how this phase is supposed to take longer than the first, it appears that this is going to be awhile still. I knew it would probably be December when I start seeing fish, but it seems way longer when seemingly nothing is going on (of course that's not true but still, there is very little interaction)

 

[waterdrop]

The point of continuing to test ammonia is to confirm that its really dropped to zero if you're going to add another 2-3ppm. Sometimes something goes wrong and the steady daily pattern of it always dropping to zero doesn't happen, in which case you'd be adding extra nitrogen into the system that you didn't need.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JustFrozen]

Day 31
Nitrite = 5+
pH = 7.2

I'll test ammonia tomorrow if i remember to dose 3ppm tonight. I'm starting to get wary of the pH. I'm considering just doing a water change the next time I have to refill the tank from evaporation.

I'm thinking of the following for a stocking. The tank is long 25 gallon, minus a few for eventual gravel and the fact I always seem to leave a few inches on the top of the tank.

6 * harlequin rasbora
4 * xray tetra
3 * peppered cory

Then, if i'm not already stocked too much, maybe get a school of neons eventually.

 

[waterdrop]

I'm starting to be of the opinion that I'd almost rather just go ahead and add some baking soda to a fishless cycle such that I ease it up to a pH of 8.0 to 8.4 if possible, regardless of whether its actually dropping down in the stall out zone of 6 to 6.2. I just don't see any downside since it goes out with the water at the big water change before getting fish anyway. JF, you could experiment with seeing if you could get it to slowly go upward and not overshoot 8.4 (it'd be pretty hard or impossible to do that anyway I think.) The amount that raises KH -without- raising pH is about 1 teaspoon per 50L, so that would be your starting point and you could experiment with raising it just a bit more.. bit by bit. Also, a splash of plant nutrient liquid that has iron in it is also a nice addition to the recipe

 

[JustFrozen]

Day 37
Nitrite = 5+
pH = 6.8 i see u pH

Notes: added 2ppm

I'm not the most organized person. I've been forgetting to pick up some baking soda. Seeing pH below 7 has me worried now though.

This brings up something I've been wondering. Is a water change at this point too detrimental to the cycle? The pH would improve but I'd lose the same percentage in Nitrite. Is it like ammonia where as long as they have some they will survive and grow, or do you want to keep it spiked?

I suppose though if you unnaturally reduced the nitrite, you may prematurely hit qualifying week

 

[OldMan47]

As long as you have any nitrites, the bacteria will continue to grow to consume it. A water change to adjust the pH is really a first choice rather than use the baking soda.

 

[JustFrozen]

Day 40
Ammonia = 0.0
Nitrite = 5+
pH = 7.8

This is the day after a 75% water change. It looks like it did the trick, my pH was raised quite a bit from 6.6, so hopefully that will help the cycle continue as well as it can.

I just wanted to point out that I was way off in thinking that a large water change could give a false indication that the cycle is near completion. I did not expect the nitrite reading I got: still way off the charts. Wow, that really is a lot of nitrite in the water. 5 gallons of it was mixed with 20 gallons of clean water and it's still off the charts. With the little bucket I have, I can only manage about 3-4 gallons at a time, so it's a bit of a pain to do such a large change, but I can see now how useful a large water change is for cycling when you have alkaline tap water.

As usual, thanks for the advice!

Anyone care to guess what day the drops will stop turning purple right away?

 

[waterdrop]

Well, you're getting on up thre now so the spike should be nearing its end before -too- long.

 

[JustFrozen]

WD, are you really an optimist or are you just trying to make me feel better?

I noticed the suggestion for using good docs to layout a cycle log, so I took the time to translate my recordings to there. Here's the link. http/spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArR5BZIZlJWKdGc2U3hTdDI4ZmNDN1VHbGMyZ01MbWc&hl=en

There's a nice graph of the progress, although there are lots of gaps I had to fill in, and some of the numbers are interpolated. I also put the cap really low to 8, so keep in mind that any value of 8 just basically means really high or probably off the chart, except of course pH.

I'm at 47 days now. It might just be me wishing for a change but the drops seems lighter when they turn purple. Is that even possible? I'm guessing its just my mind trying to convince me that I'm finally getting more results.

edit: i realize now it was just false hope

 

[JustFrozen]

Day 54
Nitrite = 5+
pH = 7.3

Well, nitrite has been off the chart for over a month now, even with the recent large water change. I'm quickly nearing the 2 month point for the cycle. My plans right now are to do another water change soon to keep the pH up and do a sanity check on the nitrate.

I'm also going to assume I'm doing this properly enough (other than missing the ammonia dosing all the time), so please let me know if I'm not. I'd hate to delay the cycle due to my stupidity as I wouldn't mind spending Christmas with some new friends

 

[OldMan47]

If you are already draining 75% to bring the pH back up, go ahead and remove another bucket of water so that you can break through more than a 90% change. Rather than end up at 3 parts new to 1 part old water, you can end at 9 parts new to 1 part old water. The last bit of water that you remove really makes a big difference on the ratio of nitrites remaining. It might even bring the nitrites down where you can read them for a day or two.

 

[waterdrop]

Your fishless cycle progress still looks pretty normal to me for one of those 70 day or so finishes that we see pretty often. In many of them the nitrite spike seems to just hang there seemingly forever.. then all of a sudden one day you get a huge drop in nitrite and you have a hard time believing it so you repeat the test but its real. In your case I probably wouldn't hesitate to sprinkle in some baking soda (talking like a teaspoon or less here and just see what it does eventually to the pH) to season the soup, I just sometimes feel there's little harm in playing around with this since it will all go out with the big water change. The thing I find interesting with the baking soda is that its not just tweaking up the pH, the calcium in it may also be more bioavailable to the bacterial cell and is something it uses in cell building.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

What calcium WD? It is NaHCO3.