Lily Rose's 64L Tank Cycle

[finalfantay85]

Wooo this looks very promising, your cycle is speeding along

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Hi guys thanks for the compliments, It'll all help my confidence in this adventure. ( especially as I am ill right now...tonsilitis, laryngitis, sinusitis, ear ache and bronchitis)
todays results are promising too
ammonmia 1ppm
nitrite 5ppm ( having difficulty telling difference between 1 and 5... anhyone else get this?)
Nitrate 40ppm!!!!! yeah....why if this is so high,,, is my ammonia taking so long to drop to 0? its taking longer than usual to change to 1...and looks like .50 and then changes just before the 5 minute times up thing!!!! lol
Maybe on my birthday (tuesday)it'll be 0ppm and I'll be able to do my second ammonia dose.

 

[rebrn]

Hi LilyRose, just looked though your results, it looks like everything is going pretty good for you. Just a reminder though I noticed the last few days you have not tested for pH. Although this is not a critical thing, you do want to check on it as it can drop rather suddenly and that will stall your cycle. If you do experience a pH drop you can do a water change and/or add sodium bicarb (baking soda) to increase it. This is not advisable when you have fish as sodium bicarb works very quickly but in a fishless cycle that is exactly what you want. When I had my ph drops I didn't do water changes, I just added the bicarb and it worked great. But don't get shocked when your pH jumps, very quickly, to the 8 range .. that is normal with bicarb an a pH up around 8 is not a bad thing when cycling.

As words of encouragement, as I know how frustrating this process can be, it looks like everything is going great, keep it up and remember patience (easier said then done I know) is the key!

 

[LilyRose Tank]

thankyou rebrn, i believe i did a pH yesterday of 7.4 sorry if i didnt post it.. i have been posting twice, i am editing the original post of this thread, for every days results as well as writting it up fuller for those who hate tables.
i hope its going well,icertainly didnt expect the nitrates to go up already, i still classmyself or rather my tank to be in the fgirst stage as I still have only put in the first dose of ammonia. we shall see what wonders my tank produces tomorrow from Jayne ( LilyRose is my autistic daughters name...its her tank lol)

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, you seem to be getting an entire fishless cycle out of your first dosing of ammonia. I guess we were due for another episode of "stranger things..."

Agree about the pH being able to drop suddenly on you. In fact I sometimes speculate that the A-Bacs and N-Bacs may be almost more affected by "change in pH" than actual pH. For instance, we have some evidence that its when pH is rapidly moving down past 6.2 and 6 that colonies seems to "shut down" but its also true that tanks that sit down at pH 6.0 long term can still have autotrophic bacterial activity, so that's a shred of evidence that the colonies may be able to detect rate of change and not like that more than the absolute acidity level.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Sorry what was that water drop.... STRANGER THINGS.... ok then answer me this pH changed alright. it went UP!
pH 8.8!!!!!! what do I do about this??

rest of todays results

ammonia 0.50
nitrite 5ppm
nitrate 80ppm

getting excited!!!!!!!!! deep breath in, deep nbreath out.... sorry slight excitedness there..ok now lol

so what about this pH, 1/3 water change??

ok rechecked levels, and pH back to 7.4
ammonia 0.25
nitrite 5
nitrate 40


so can i do second dose of ammonia now??

 

[LilyRose Tank]

ok an update, after redoing my tests and getting results of .25 ammonia, 5++ nitrites, 160 ( very dark red) nitrates, i decided a 80% water change and an ammonia top up was required to get things moving
so i changed as much of the water as i could, about 80% i think, ( there is a lot of algae in there!!! will do full clean out before adding fish) added de-chlorinator, and before adding ammonia, retested and still get 1ppm nitrite, 80ppm! nitrate, and 0ppm ammonia, dosed with 3ml ammonia and waiting for it to settle before i check its reading 4ppm
will defo need a gravel siphoner...algae and no plants whats going on ( i know its prob debris from when i had plants in there, before i started cycling))

anyone able to tell me, if i did the right thing?

ok ammonia reading 4ppm
sp readings in full now
ammonia 4ppm
nitrite 1ppm
nitrate 80ppm

 

[rebrn]

There is really no need to do water changes during a fish less cycle until the end, unless of course you are having a stall for some reason, which you did not have. A pH of 8.8 is really fine in a fish less cycle, actually better then the 7.4 for cycling purposes, there was no need to worry about that, often ammonia will cause pH to increase, you will probably notice this once you start having to dose your tank again. As for the algae, that is a common side effect of cycling. If you are leaving your tank lights on you can turn them off, that will help some, or if it is really really bad you can black out the tank (cover it with a blanket or something), you don't have any fish or plants so a complete blackout won't hurt anything, well except the algae . You get algae growth in part to the light but also due to the high nitrate levels .... High nitrate + light = algae. You can scrub the tank clean at the end, with the big water change. But if the algae is really bugging you, I would just cover the tank with a blanket that way you don't have to look at it. I mean you are going to have to do a large water change and a scrub anyway at the end, so why make extra work for your self, just cover it, that way you don't have to scrub the tank twice. Or you can do what I did, buy some olive Nerite snails. I had major algae in 2 of my tanks during cycling, and despite really good scrubbing at the end the algae stayed out of control, I have had the olive Nerite snails in my tank now for roughly 4 days and they are almost completely clear of algae, amazing little eaters those snails and they won't breed in fresh water, so no need to worry about snail infestation.

Edit - Oh and I only mentioned the pH before because I didn't see the value for it and didn't want you to make the same mistake I did. I stopped checking my pH every day because it was constatnly 7.6 - checked it again 2 days later when I noticed that my ammonia, that was proviously dropping to 0 after 12 hours, hadn't dropped to 0 and discovered that my pH had crashed ... and yes it happened that fast.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

thanks rebrn, its always nice to hear of others having simular problems and how they overcame them.

Todays results
Ammonia 2ppm
Nitrites 1ppm
nitrates 80ppm
pH 7.4

I think I may have not been reading nitrates levels correctly, i think they may have been hitting 160 ( but havnt been a red brown, more of a burgundy)

 

[rebrn]

I found that when the nitrates became really high (like up around 80 or higher) it was hard to determine the exact number. Fortunately during the fishless cycle the nitrate exact number is not terribly important. You just want to see that they are there. I actually stopped testing for nitrates after a while (once I saw that they were present) simply because I knew I wasn't going to do anything about it. I tested them occasionally just out of courisity, but the realitly is that the nitrate level will continue to rise and the only way to get rid of them is with a water change, and since you really are not going to be doing any water changes until the end knowing the exact value isn't really all that important. Just make sure after you do the large water change at the end you test the nitrate level to make sure it has come down enough to safely add fish. But generally, with the large 90% water change at the end you will most definately get the nitrates down to a safe level. At this stage you are mostly concerned with your ammonia, nitrite and pH levels, the nitrate levels are important as confirmation that the nitrogen cycle is reaching its end point but not in the sense that you are going to take measures to lower them until the end of the cycle. But it looks like everything is still on track so keep going, you are doing great.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

hello there guys... just letting you know, shall be testing twice a day 9am and 9pm. this mornings 9am test results are in brackets
so todays 9pm results are
ammonia 1ppm (2ppm)
nitrite 5ppm (1ppm)
nitrate 160ppm (80ppm)
pH 7.2

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Hello there everyone. todays results are
Ammonia 0ppm... added 3.25mls of ammonia will re test soon
nitrites 5ppm
Nitrates 40ppm.... cant understand why this has dropped

anyone got any ideas if snails can magically appear in your tank. I noticed a little snail, who i shall call speedy as he can't half shift. hes only 4/5mm in length, when i find him again, i shall remove him for a photo and maybe one of you lovely chaps can identify the species. I think he may have been a stowaway on my plants. hes been hiding well though considering i did a 80% water change the other day

 

[rebrn]

It is so funny that you mentioned the snails. I had snails "magically" appear in my tank too while cycling. I thought how can they possibly survive in such high amounts of ammonia, but they did. My tank was used and had snails in it previously, but despite a through cleaning before starting they still survived. Anyway you are most likely correct that he probably came in with your plants. Generally stow aways on plants are considered pest snails so if you don't want snails then try to remove him as quickly as possible. If he did come in on your plants he is probably a rams-horn snail, or possibly a MTS, but can't say for sure. Also, there is a possiblility that you may have more snails on your plants, so you might want to rinse them really well, and inspect for snails before you add them back into the tank.

As for the decrease in nitrates it could be that you either misread the earlier test or misread this test. The other possibility is that you may not have shaken bottle 2 enough to fully reintegrate any solid particles that formed in the bottle. I wouldn't worry too much about it, you are definitely seeing progress with ammonia and nitrites, and that is the most important right now.

Also, just a quick word of advice, I see that your nitrates are up to 5 ppm, which is a sign that you are in the nitrite spike phase. During this phase you want to only dose your tank back up to 2 ppm of ammonia. This will give your N-Bacs a chance to catch up to the A-Bacs. If you keep dosing to 4 ppm with ammonia, your nitrites will take longer to catch up. Once 2 ppm of ammonia is clearing to 0 ppm ammonia and 0 ppm nitrites in 12 hours then your N-Bacs have caught up and you can then increase your ammonia dose to 3 ppm of ammonia, then back to 4 ppm of ammonia. Once you are back up to 4 ppm of ammonia and it is clearing to double 0s in 12 hours you are in your qualifying week. You want to see double 0s for 7-8 eight days (with 4 ppm dosing) then you are cycled. I wasn't aware of this little trick at first and wondered why my nitrites were never dropping, that is when I was advised to back down with the ammonia dosing until the N-Bacs caught up, and sure enough it worked. Also, remember to only dose with ammonia ONCE in a 24 hour period, even if the ammonia clears to 0 ppm after 12 hours, DO NOT re-dose until 24 hours has passed. If you do you may actually slow your cycle.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

It is so funny that you mentioned the snails. I had snails "magically" appear in my tank too while cycling. I thought how can they possibly survive in such high amounts of ammonia, but they did. My tank was used and had snails in it previously, but despite a through cleaning before starting they still survived. Anyway you are most likely correct that he probably came in with your plants. Generally stow aways on plants are considered pest snails so if you don't want snails then try to remove him as quickly as possible. If he did come in on your plants he is probably a rams-horn snail, or possibly a MTS, but can't say for sure. Also, there is a possiblility that you may have more snails on your plants, so you might want to rinse them really well, and inspect for snails before you add them back into the tank.

As for the decrease in nitrates it could be that you either misread the earlier test or misread this test. The other possibility is that you may not have shaken bottle 2 enough to fully reintegrate any solid particles that formed in the bottle. I wouldn't worry too much about it, you are definitely seeing progress with ammonia and nitrites, and that is the most important right now.

Also, just a quick word of advice, I see that your nitrates are up to 5 ppm, which is a sign that you are in the nitrite spike phase. During this phase you want to only dose your tank back up to 2 ppm of ammonia. This will give your N-Bacs a chance to catch up to the A-Bacs. If you keep dosing to 4 ppm with ammonia, your nitrites will take longer to catch up. Once 2 ppm of ammonia is clearing to 0 ppm ammonia and 0 ppm nitrites in 12 hours then your N-Bacs have caught up and you can then increase your ammonia dose to 3 ppm of ammonia, then back to 4 ppm of ammonia. Once you are back up to 4 ppm of ammonia and it is clearing to double 0s in 12 hours you are in your qualifying week. You want to see double 0s for 7-8 eight days (with 4 ppm dosing) then you are cycled. I wasn't aware of this little trick at first and wondered why my nitrites were never dropping, that is when I was advised to back down with the ammonia dosing until the N-Bacs caught up, and sure enough it worked. Also, remember to only dose with ammonia ONCE in a 24 hour period, even if the ammonia clears to 0 ppm after 12 hours, DO NOT re-dose until 24 hours has passed. If you do you may actually slow your cycle.

thanks for that. should i do a 50% water change to half the ammonia level then?

 

[rebrn]

No it is fine, just leave it for now, but next time you go to dose just dose to 2ppm