Kporteo's Fishless Cycles.....taaaake 3!

[kporteo]

Before i restarted completely this time, I had 6 weeks of no ammonia drop whatsoever!! So something in the tank mustve had antibaterial properties and ive managed to get rid of them in the clean out 2 weeks ago.
K

 

[anon02]

I`ve often wondered if anti bacterial handwash or that gel stuff can cause a setback

 

[fluttermoth]

I`ve often wondered if anti bacterial handwash or that gel stuff can cause a setback

You'd have to be tipping it into the tank for it to signtificantly disrupt a cycle! I have OCD and use vast amounts of anti bacterial hand gel and have never had a problem; I do rinse my hands well before going near my tanks though

 

[kporteo]

For those of you who can't remember/don't know....

When we first set the tank up in August, we attached the backing decor with household antifungal silicone, after an hour we realised we'd maybe made a problem and removed the decor, cleaned the glass with a glass scraper and i hacked chunks out of the decor backs where the silicone was. We presumed we had removed all the silicone, reattached the decor with aquarium silicone, rinsed the gravel and added the ammonia, Kleen Off was the brand we used and water. The water was murky for a day or so from gravel dust but that all cleared.
Roll on 6 weeks later, a 95% water change and lots of posts on here....we gave up!!

We hacked the backing off, chucked the gravel, bought new filter inserts, cleaned the whole tank with boiling water then pure ammonia and started again!!

2 weeks on here I am, with a cycling tank!! So, the variables that could have caused the problem, original silicone, gravel, dodgy ammonia!

 

[kporteo]

Tested my tank this morning, and have the following readings

Ammonia 0ppm, have added ammonia to return this to 4ppm
Nitrite 0ppm (verrrry slight purple colour)
Nitrate 80ppm

The Abacs are taking 48 hours to break 4ppm to 0ppm, and yesterday i had a Nitrite reading of 0.25ppm.

Could someone confirm what I should be doing now Im getting nitrate readings?

K

 

[waterdrop]

Going by what you said a few posts back, we're about at 2 weeks for this round of fishless cycling, so the results you're describing sound reasonable: Your ammonia is definately dropping but hasn't quite made it to the point of dropping 4ppm to zero ppm within 24 hours, you are beginning to see low levels of nitrite but its not spiking yet. Both of those things indicate the nearing of the end of what I call Phase One (pre-nitrite-spike) and sometimes they do indeed take up to 2 or 3 weeks. I hate that every darn aspect of your fishless cycling seems so slow because its great how you've researched and embraced the methodology. I hope it moves along reasonably this time around!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kporteo]

Quick update, Ive had 3 days now of my tank processing 4ppm of ammonia to 0ppm in 24 hrs, tried testing at 12 hrs last night but still had around 0.75ppm in, so not at the 12 hr mark....yet. Nitrite is at 0.25ppm, so no spike, but im getting there....woohoo!!

K

 

[waterdrop]

If the conditions are good enough for the A-Bacs to be doing that well then they should be ok for the N-Bacs to do well also but of course the N-Bacs will eventually need to be more than twice as great in number, so they will usually fall behind and we see the nitrite spike in evidence of this. There's a lot of variation though in the different timings between A-Bac colony growth and N-Bac, or at least it seems that way to me from watching lots of our beginner cases. Sometimes the N-Bacs seem closer in step with the A-Bacs and therefor process more of the nitrite more quickly (leaving smaller initial traces of nitrite and a longer delay before we see the spike that is the mis-match.) In those cases sometimes we can detect more of the nitrogen making it all the way through and raising nitrate levels a bit, but then again, sometimes that testing is so on-again, off-again that its hard to tell about that part. Overall, its just a good sign when either type of test is following the patterns, so hopefully this time around the filter is finally going to get its two colonies. WD

 

[Skins]

looks like your doing really well. Keep up the good work

 

[kporteo]

Got my first 12hr ammonia 4ppm-0ppm today!!!
Nitrite is reading at 0.25ppm some days, 0.125ppm others, so fingers crossed now im breaking down ammonia quicker i should get me spike, and hopefully, seen as ive definately got some Nbacs my spike shouldnt last tooooo long.

Fishies in time for Xmas??

K

 

[waterdrop]

Sounds good once again! It definately just hangs around with those tiny amounts near the end and then all of a sudden drops to solid zeros. WD

 

[kporteo]

Do you always get a spike in Nitrite??? I'm getting readings of around .15 when tested in the evening, but usually its zero on the morning test. So it is producing then clearing a small amount of nitrite in 12 hours, also adding 5ml of ammonia every morning and thats gone by the evening test.

K

 

[anon02]

Do you always get a spike in Nitrite??? I'm getting readings of around .15 when tested in the evening, but usually its zero on the morning test. So it is producing then clearing a small amount of nitrite in 12 hours, also adding 5ml of ammonia every morning and thats gone by the evening test.

K

Maybe your water supply favours the n bacs over the a bacs and they have been keeping pace so no NO2 spike
I wouldn`t worry about it, just as soon as those double zeros show at 12 hours thats day 1 of qualifying. Have you got a stocking plan ?

 

[SensesFail]

Its nice to put a tank to a name!! good luck we dont seem to be having much of it!! Im going to go down the getting some mature media option now i think.

Been speaking to guy who can spare me some which is brilliant! hopefully this will kick start my tank and ill buy some little fish to start with once the media is aquired. Think the Discus will have to wait sometime until its all sorted. Just ened to now decide what fish! We need more media donators! think ill become one when my tanks all sorted!

 

[kporteo]

So, im adding my ammonia up to 4ppm at 9am and testing nitrite then, generally getting 0ppm or very nearly 0. At 9pm my ammonia is 0ppm and my nitrite is around 0.25ppm, is this sounding right?
K