Menacer's Fishless Cycle Log

[KittyKat]

You might want to do a 90% water change at this point, to avoid a pH crash and clear those nitrates out...

 

[menacer]

Ok i am doing it now, thanks Kitty Kat

 

[menacer]

YES! Ammonia and Nitrite hit 0 I did not do the water change in the end as pH was fine =D

 

[L_Plates]

Good stuff

 

[menacer]

Good stuff

Thanks L_Plates!

 

[menacer]

I have now had my tank for 60 Days according to my log, however i had it 2 weeks before i started my log starting to get impatient again

 

[KittyKat]

Well, something is going on.. I'd do another water change to get the nitrates in the under 50 ppm sort of level. What are your tap nitrates?

I am wondering if that reading is particularly accurate because if you now have 160 ppm (I guess your kit doesn't test over that?) and you did a 90% water change with 50 ppm of nitrate, your pre-water change nitrate would have had to be over 1000 ppm.. which is very high.

 

[waterdrop]

I agree with KK. Now we see the beauty of doing a posted daily log. We can easily scan down that first post and see that despite the (horrible) time spans involved, you are clearly now seeing something happen and the progression of things happening (when they finally do, lol) is proceeding just like other fishless cycles. First the ammonia wouldn't drop, then it did. First the nitrite wouldn't spike, then it did. Then the nitrite spike stayed forever, but finally it has given a few early signals. Hang in there. WD

 

[menacer]

Ok going to do the water change in an hour or so, will check tap nitrates to

 

[menacer]

Ok water change done.... both taps Nitrates showing at 20ppm for both.

 

[waterdrop]

OK, so now you know and can file this away in your Aquarium Notebook (even when something seems so obvious I would never forget it I still record it and that has been useful plenty of times.) WD

 

[menacer]

ok thanks WP

 

[KittyKat]

Well, something is going on.. I'd do another water change to get the nitrates in the under 50 ppm sort of level. What are your tap nitrates?

I am wondering if that reading is particularly accurate because if you now have 160 ppm (I guess your kit doesn't test over that?) and you did a 90% water change with 50 ppm of nitrate, your pre-water change nitrate would have had to be over 1000 ppm.. which is very high.

Ok water change done.... both taps Nitrates showing at 20ppm for both.

To me, that indicates that your pre-first water change nitrates were at least 1420 ppm.. but if they're still at 160 ppm after latest water change, then they were most likely much, much higher before the first one.

This is sounding very wrong to me, I will look at calculating how much nitrate the ammonia should have theoretically resulted in...

 

[menacer]

Should i be checking every 12 hours yet, i have had Ammonia and Nitrite 0 for 4 days now?

does that mean in 3 days i am ready to stock?

 

[KittyKat]

Yes, check every 12 hours, and you might want to up the ammonia to 4ppm or dose to 2 ppm every 12 hours.

Qualifying week starts the moment you start getting double zeros at 12 hour mark after dosing. You should be done in a week now, I think.