Justfrozen's Fishless Cycle Log

[JustFrozen]

I missed my testing yesterday. I just did my nitrite test a short while ago. The drops slowly turned a very light shade of purple and blue, almost like half of it stayed blue and the rest got a slight twist of hue. It was very different than the deep purple I usually instantly get, so I added the rest of the drops and set the timer. This is what I got after about 6 minutes

Based on comparison to the chart alone, I'd say it's 1.5 (from judging at 5 mins with a good angle in good lighting - it's a bit harder to judge in the picture). Does the drops turning color immediately mean that it's still high off the chart though? Maybe I've been falsely judging it to be past 5 for awhile?

 

[joshybjoshy]

I missed my testing yesterday. I just did my nitrite test a short while ago. The drops slowly turned a very light shade of purple and blue, almost like half of it stayed blue and the rest got a slight twist of hue. It was very different than the deep purple I usually instantly get, so I added the rest of the drops and set the timer. This is what I got after about 6 minutes

Based on comparison to the chart alone, I'd say it's 1.5 (from judging at 5 mins with a good angle in good lighting - it's a bit harder to judge in the picture). Does the drops turning color immediately mean that it's still high off the chart though? Maybe I've been falsely judging it to be past 5 for awhile?

this is the api test kit right?

i did my second nitrate test tonight and it is hard tell between 5 and 1 ppm i think im going to invest in another liquid test kit something like tetra where its yellow or red makes it a bit easier to read results

also i found this on the site

NOTE FOR API TEST KIT USERS: When you add the drops, if they immediately turn purple in the bottom of the tube, your nitrites are off the chart high. You do not need to shake the tube and wait 5 minutes. If you do, the color will turn green as the nitrites are so high that there isn't a color to measure them with.

I would say you are down to 1ppm

 

[OldMan47]

I would read your present sample as a 1 ppm sample Justfrozen. I try not to try to judge colors between the chart's colors because the chart often represents a single point in a large spectrum of colors that might be present. There is no way to say the test is accurate enough to be interpolating readings based on subjective guesses of the intervening range of colors. Just read the test to the closest color and write that number down. You do not care how light or dark a color is but what the hue is.

 

[JustFrozen]

today is the first day the drops didnt turn purplish right away. i thought maybe it would even stay blue, but it's been about 2 mins and it's already purple. it's a light purple though. i'm getting close! i need to go refresh myself on the next step.

edit: it's 0.5

 

[OldMan47]

The next step is quite simple to understand JustFrozen. You need to see both the ammonia and nitrites at zero within about 12 hours after dosing.

 

[JustFrozen]

i'm to switch to 12 hr dosing right away? should i not ramp back up to 5ppm dosing and then switch to 12 hr when they both hit zero again with 24 hrs?

 

[OldMan47]

Don't switch to 12 hour dosing, just move to 12 hour testing. The dosing stays at 24 hours and you move the additions back to getting 4 or 5 ppm right after a dose.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree

 

[JustFrozen]

Day 71 12hr
Ammonia = 8+
Notes: i obviously screwed up the ammonia dosage amount again. i forgot at the beginning I settled on a lower number of ml for 5ppm
Day 71 24hr
Ammonia = 8.0
Notes: it looks in between 8 and 4 now but if i had to pick one of the two it would be 8.

Ok, here's my plan: I'm going to test tomorrow morning and if it's not already below 5, I'm going to do a 25% water change then re-test. Also, I'm not going to dose again until it hits zero. That way I can dose a new amount and then test again to be sure I can mark 5ppm correctly again.

 

[JustFrozen]

I finally got my substrate in! You probably don't recall but I had a thread a month or two ago trying to decide on a substrate to use. I decided in the end to just go with my original choice: white sand. I went with the advice that I shouldn't second guess my original vision, plus I most definitely want some cory cats and I'm sure they are going to love it. WD, I remember you mentioning in another thread a short while back that you wanted to get your hands on some of the fine caribsea sand to see how soft it is - well I'll still leave you to trying it out, but if we're talking about the same stuff here - the super naturals line - let me tell you it is extremely soft (for sand). i would say it feels more like flour than sand. it also looks great. i'm very glad i decided against regular sand.

hopefully it doesn't ruin my HOB though. i've actually had it turned off for hours now so I can be sure the sand settles first. I cleaned the sand first for a long time though, and it wasn't very cloudy once added to the tank.

Here's a couple before and after pics - after meaning immediately after adding the sand. I'll get a pic sometime later of it completely settled. Also, keep in mind I have no light source yet (currently using a flashlight for the pics so you can actually see it)

Before

After

edit: against the black background, the tank looks pretty clear, but when viewed from the side along the length of the tank, it's very cloudy - can't even see through the other end. i'll have to wait until tomorrow to turn the filter on and re-up on ammonia... either that or put the filter in my other tank for the time being

edit2: it's the next morning now. it only cleared up about halfway. i know it had improved as i could see through the other end but it was still very very cloudy. i decided to do a 90% water change to speed up the process so i can get the filter running again soon. i had to be extra careful when putting the water back in but it cleared the tank up dramatically. it's almost completely clear now. i'm still worried about the filter though so i got another idea of using my old HOB that is just sitting in storage to clear up the rest of it. the media that used to be inside of it is still in my filter, and i dont want to remove it, so i just put a sponge in there to hopefully filter the sand. hopefully it will be completely clear within a few hours

 

[JustFrozen]

Well the tank was clear within a few hours of that water change. A few days have passed, and I haven't kept the best care because I've been injured but I'm trying to not let it fall apart.

Still, promising stats tonight.

Day 76 12hr
Ammonia = 1.0
Day 76 24hr
Ammonia = 0.5
Nitrite = 0
pH = 7.8

I'm pleased the nitrite is staying at zero, although I'm sure it's not dealing with nearly as much as it was earlier. I'm afraid the tank's ability to process ammonia had decreased a lot by the time I ended the nitrite spike phase. I was not consistent enough with the dosing. It shouldn't take too long to get it back in shape though. I think I may be within a week of starting qualifying week

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there JF, a number of interesting things to read from you - really interesting about how soft the particular sand is, that's good information! I like your idea to run your older HOB on the cloudiness, good thinking! Sounds like things are cleared up pretty well now and I agree, your fishless cycling numbers are coming in towards the end quite nicely now. It sounds like you're moving to try for a 5ppm dosing that's pretty consistent now I assume. Looks like a nice long tank, so should give a nice long swim for the species that like that. WD

 

[JustFrozen]

Well, it's been awhile without anything new to report. For the last week I've been seeing low levels of ammonia at 24hr, so I'm still working on that. I haven't written down the occasional pH and nitrite test that I've done the past week, but there's no alarms there.

I really think I skipped too many ammonia doses during the nitrite spike phase. It's been weeks since that phase and my filter is still struggling to clear 5ppm. I'm past 3 months now, but I don't mind as long as I learn my lesson. I hope that this thread will be helpful to others, even if it's to see what not to do

 

[waterdrop]

Hi JF,

Anything past the nitrite spike period is what I like to think of as the third phase. Its characterized by nitrite finally beginning to drop to zero ppm 24 hours after ammonia was dosed. At first usually nitrite is still 5+ at 12 hours and zero at 24 hours but gradually the 12 hour test shows less and less nitrite. Often during the 3rd phase ammonia will seem to have a bit of a setback and will show some amount at 12 hours but will be zero by 24 hours. OK, I know you know all this but just wanted to be clear on how I think about the 3rd phase.

During the third phase its my feeling that you can get kind of a dual benefit sometimes by performing large gravel-clean-water-changes on some of the weekends. This will be a good learning tool to perfect the details of how you will perform your weekly water changes once you have fish. It also should have the beneficial effect of removing most of the nitrate(NO3) buildup. Besides nitrate being the cause of pH drop, nitrate can also independently have an inhibiting effect on N-Bac growth, according to Hovanec, so getting it out of there shouldn't hurt the fishless cycle. We should also always remember that there are lots of other things we don't measure that begin building up from the time the tank is started and it could be that the "kickstart" effect we sometimes see from a large water change during fishless cycling could be due to clearing some combination of these other unknown organics or whatever in the tank. Your more recent log entries are getting harder to interpret due to lack of data.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JustFrozen]

I did the water change as advised. 75% last Saturday. I'm sorry my data has been so little detailed lately, but in a way I've been more consistent with attending to the tank, because it's been weeks since I missed dosing.

Seriously, ever since nitrite stopped spiking and dropped to zero, I've had a test result of about 1 ppm every night (at around the same time at night). Except for tonight, which was clearly 0.25. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end