Kate's Fishless Cycle
- Thread starter KateT
- Start date
BIG BAD BARRY
Fishaholic
As long as your testing and know what your ammonia level is then it doesnt matter whether you top-up or not.
Agree with Gvilleguy, great to see your ammonia getting processed quickly.
I would suggest taking the wood out of the tank for now for a few of reasons.
One of the positive points of fishless cycling is that you dont need to do water changes till the very end. Sometimes, you may do one or two kick start a stalled cycle or if the ph level starts to fall and you need to raise the buffering capacity due to the build up nitric acid. I have heard of water changes stalling cycles as well but that could be down to many variables such as dechlorinator not being added to the new water etc.
If you can, get a suitable pot/container to soak it in boiling water for a day or two and then in cool water until it is ready to go in the tank. You dont need to keep boiling it for days on end.
Hopefully, your ph will stay stable then and you wont need to add any bicarb. You will probably have to remove it otherwise at the end anyway to get rid of any residual bicarb that it may have accumulated.
Agree with Gvilleguy, great to see your ammonia getting processed quickly.
I would suggest taking the wood out of the tank for now for a few of reasons.
One of the positive points of fishless cycling is that you dont need to do water changes till the very end. Sometimes, you may do one or two kick start a stalled cycle or if the ph level starts to fall and you need to raise the buffering capacity due to the build up nitric acid. I have heard of water changes stalling cycles as well but that could be down to many variables such as dechlorinator not being added to the new water etc.
If you can, get a suitable pot/container to soak it in boiling water for a day or two and then in cool water until it is ready to go in the tank. You dont need to keep boiling it for days on end.
Hopefully, your ph will stay stable then and you wont need to add any bicarb. You will probably have to remove it otherwise at the end anyway to get rid of any residual bicarb that it may have accumulated.
KateT
Fish Fanatic
Day 16 24h test: Ammonia down to 1ppm - looks like we have progress 
Have been updating the first post every day, but didn't want to bump the thread each time for fear of annoying everyone. Will only do so when there are developments such as this
Have been updating the first post every day, but didn't want to bump the thread each time for fear of annoying everyone. Will only do so when there are developments such as this
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Yes, it's very good to be seeing some early ammonia drops (we have a couple of guys out there that really wish that would happen to them!) Also, when the initial ammonia drops take place over more days that can give your N-Bacs enough time to process the nitrite into nitrate, thus leaving you seeing "no nitrites yet." But rather than bad, it might mean that you have a bit more initial N-Bacs than many people do and that your overall fishless cycling time may be shorter.
~~waterdrop~~
~~waterdrop~~
KateT
Fish Fanatic
Yes, I'm hoping theres 'something in the water' which allows a fast cycle. I have a 17l Betta tank that cycled in less than two weeks. I've actually just started cycling it again as I lost my Betta a while back, but having the bigger tank has now given me the bug again. Will be interesting to see how time scales differ between the 17l and the 96l
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Every time I think I'm seeing a trend toward particularly large or small tanks being somehow different in the time they take to fishless cycle, I'm usually proven wrong. I really don't think tank size is ultimately a differentiating factor that rises out of all the other "noise" caused by various differences.
WD
WD
KateT
Fish Fanatic
How low do I need to let the Ammonia drop before I re-dose?
KateT
Fish Fanatic
Yeah, that's what I was waiting for, and is also what I went by when cycling my betta tank, but then I've read on here on people's logs of them redosing when ammonia is 1 or 2ppm so I got a bit confused!
My ammonia from the tap (have added tap parameters to original post) is .25ppm. Is this a problem?
0.25ppm ammonia from your tap water supply will not cause any problems just remember to include this in your calculations when dosing.
Keith.
KateT
Fish Fanatic
First 0ppm ammonia reading tonight, and nitrites have jumped up to 2ppm
KateT
Fish Fanatic
I redosed the ammonia last night and checked it a couple of hours later before I went to bed and it was somewhere between 3 and 4ppm. I checked this morning out of curiosity and it was 1ppm - that's good, right? 
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
That's excellent! WD
Tizer
Team TetraTEC
If you have 0.25ppm in your tap supply you should really be talking to your supplier, do you like drinking wee? because thats pretty much what ammonia is, i would be more worried about your health.
The only time i would ever expect a partial reading of ammonia in a tap supply would be over xmas when water treatment and processing plants tend to be very light on staff.
The only time i would ever expect a partial reading of ammonia in a tap supply would be over xmas when water treatment and processing plants tend to be very light on staff.
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