Hi again
My Juwel internal filter has two main sponges, a blue one which the manufacturer say is the biological one, and a green one which is advertised as being for nitrate removal (I've really just picked up on this). It's seems like it's just a sponge, so I assumed was just somewhere else inside the filter for bacteria to live. I don't use the black 'carbon' one.
Could there be anything inpregnated into the green sponge, like a zeolite type substance (I don't actually mean zeolite, I just use it as an example), which could slow only the Nitrite processing bacteria?
The reason I ask is that whilst I know the 2nd phase takes a long time, I'm on day 68 of my fishless cycle and I've been getting 0 ppm Ammonia readings at the 12 hour mark for 27 days. I'm only just starting to see 0 ppm at 24 hours for Nitrite, the 12 hour reading has been 0.5 for 3 weeks then dropped to 0.25 two days ago. All other factors are ok, with Ph 8.2 (because of Bicarb of soda, it's 7.0 from the tap) and temp 29 deg C.
I'm not getting impatient, just a bit puzzled. The other thing that effects my thinking here is that when I bought a new gravel vac 3 weeks ago, I did a 50% water change (Nitrates were at 80ppm) and had great fun sucking loads of gravel up and really deep cleaning all the gravel. The ammonia readings were not effected by this, but the Nitrite readings really stopped any progress at this point, until now when I get the impression they've sort of 'recovered'. This makes me think that all my nitrite gobbling bacteria live in the gravel and not the filter, which sort of reinforces my view that the green filter is killing bacteria (only the Nitrite kind). If this is the case then this part of the cycle is really inefficient and so should I chuck the green filter and replace with another blue one?
Your opinions would be gratefully received.
Neil
My Juwel internal filter has two main sponges, a blue one which the manufacturer say is the biological one, and a green one which is advertised as being for nitrate removal (I've really just picked up on this). It's seems like it's just a sponge, so I assumed was just somewhere else inside the filter for bacteria to live. I don't use the black 'carbon' one.
Could there be anything inpregnated into the green sponge, like a zeolite type substance (I don't actually mean zeolite, I just use it as an example), which could slow only the Nitrite processing bacteria?
The reason I ask is that whilst I know the 2nd phase takes a long time, I'm on day 68 of my fishless cycle and I've been getting 0 ppm Ammonia readings at the 12 hour mark for 27 days. I'm only just starting to see 0 ppm at 24 hours for Nitrite, the 12 hour reading has been 0.5 for 3 weeks then dropped to 0.25 two days ago. All other factors are ok, with Ph 8.2 (because of Bicarb of soda, it's 7.0 from the tap) and temp 29 deg C.
I'm not getting impatient, just a bit puzzled. The other thing that effects my thinking here is that when I bought a new gravel vac 3 weeks ago, I did a 50% water change (Nitrates were at 80ppm) and had great fun sucking loads of gravel up and really deep cleaning all the gravel. The ammonia readings were not effected by this, but the Nitrite readings really stopped any progress at this point, until now when I get the impression they've sort of 'recovered'. This makes me think that all my nitrite gobbling bacteria live in the gravel and not the filter, which sort of reinforces my view that the green filter is killing bacteria (only the Nitrite kind). If this is the case then this part of the cycle is really inefficient and so should I chuck the green filter and replace with another blue one?
Your opinions would be gratefully received.
Neil
