Miles' Fishless Cycle

[Miles_hot]

Your tap nitrates are unusually high (mine are 0-5 ppm right now, and were 10-15 ppm when I lived in UK), and we don't know how much trace minerals your water contains..

Have you decided on your stocking yet? If you get the same results from day 86 to day 90 as you got on 84 and 85, I think it would be safe to consider your filter cycled.. but *only* if the results are consistent! Because you're still getting some ammonia and nitrite, you will not be able to stock as fully as normally after a fish-less, but at least half-stock with plants should not be a problem.

Also, what's the water volume and the filter you're working with? What media do you have in your filter?

Maybe it's the time of year or living in the country?? Who knows!

We are in the process of chosing the fish. We'd got a good selection and then discovered that they prefer a softer water to ours so we've shifted focus to Asia. I'm popping back to the excellent fish shop we found tonight to take a note of all the names so that we don't miss any out of the deliberations however Tiger barbs are very strong contenders

I am confused by your comment abuot stable reeadings - other than stablising at 0/0 after 12 hours is there another stable condition we can aim for? We are always doing 4ppm fully metablised to 0/0 after 24 hours but are struggling with the 12 hour target Based on the advice last time we were considering stock we will eventually end up exceeding the 1" finsh / Gallon guideline I suspect however we will be introducing the more (relativly) timid fish first and leting them get used to the tank. The Tigers will be the last in I suspect.

Our tank is c. 200l litres, the filter in an Ehiem 2075 with their filter media as supplied.

Miles

 

[Miles_hot]

+1

A word of caution regarding plants... Adding new plants can actually increase ammonia. As our friends in the planted section call it, plants can "melt" a bit as they get acclimated to their other new home. Just be careful... Also, for the sake of keeping ammonia low, I would post in the planted section and try to find plants that don't "melt" easily. I hear that while most cryptocorynes are "easy", they do melt almost all the time when moved.

Thanks for the warning - I will have a look around. The article on hard water identified some plants to consider so I'll initially start with that set and move out from there. At the moment I'm aiming to do without CO2 however I'm not against using it if I have to. I expect we'll plant the tank before we put the fish in and then let it stabilise. The two reasons I've not done that yet are:
1) I want to check that the fish we want (when they've been chosen) don't need a dark substrate
2) I don't want to end up with a algae filled nightmare before I can safely introduce the flying foxes to deal with it

Any thoughts on these reasons for not going for it?

Many thanks

Miles

 

[KittyKat]

Have you decided on your stocking yet? If you get the same results from day 86 to day 90 as you got on 84 and 85, I think it would be safe to consider your filter cycled.. but *only* if the results are consistent! Because you're still getting some ammonia and nitrite, you will not be able to stock as fully as normally after a fish-less, but at least half-stock with plants should not be a problem.

I am confused by your comment abuot stable reeadings - other than stablising at 0/0 after 12 hours is there another stable condition we can aim for? We are always doing 4ppm fully metablised to 0/0 after 24 hours but are struggling with the 12 hour target Based on the advice last time we were considering stock we will eventually end up exceeding the 1" finsh / Gallon guideline I suspect however we will be introducing the more (relativly) timid fish first and leting them get used to the tank. The Tigers will be the last in I suspect.

I mean, 0.0/4.0 -> 0.5 -> 0.0/4.0 -> 0.5 -> 0.0/4.0 -> 0.5 -> 0.0/4.0 -> has a pattern to it, so it is "stable" in the sense that you're getting the same readings over and over again.

When we tell people to use 4 ppm, we overcompensate for the stock we recommend you start with. Some people will even use 2-3 ppm of ammonia for their cycle. So as long as the readings are not all over the place, we can consider your cycle complete at this point, but you just start with a lower first stocking than originally planned, for example with 10-15 tiger barbs instead of 25. Also, it doesn't matter with the barbs, whether they are first or last.. that sort of stuff is usually most important for territorial fish, such as cichlids.

A word of caution regarding plants... Adding new plants can actually increase ammonia. As our friends in the planted section call it, plants can "melt" a bit as they get acclimated to their other new home. Just be careful... Also, for the sake of keeping ammonia low, I would post in the planted section and try to find plants that don't "melt" easily. I hear that while most cryptocorynes are "easy", they do melt almost all the time when moved.

Thanks for the warning - I will have a look around. The article on hard water identified some plants to consider so I'll initially start with that set and move out from there. At the moment I'm aiming to do without CO2 however I'm not against using it if I have to. I expect we'll plant the tank before we put the fish in and then let it stabilise. The two reasons I've not done that yet are:
1) I want to check that the fish we want (when they've been chosen) don't need a dark substrate
2) I don't want to end up with a algae filled nightmare before I can safely introduce the flying foxes to deal with it

Any thoughts on these reasons for not going for it?

There are no fish which "need" a dark substrate.. another way of putting it would be "x fish can't deal with bright light, so create an environment where the lights are not bright and the fish can hide under an overhand of plants/wood/whatever", it is a matter of perspective.

You want the tank mostly to fully planted before adding CO[sub]2[/sub], you are right.

Crypts are pretty much the only plants which will melt, and not guaranteed at that. Java moss, swords and Hygrophila are safe starts, but even with those you need to manually remove dead leaves.

 

[Miles_hot]

KK - on the dark sand issue; I was basically going on something I read abut a couple of Cichlid types which were variously noted as prefering / looking at their best against a dark or black base. I was only going to check once I knew the fish types....

Do you think that we should go ahead and plant (and uncover the tank obvously) before we're ready for the fish or just slog on and get to some stability before we introduce another variable?

The results this morning were 2/2 however 1 hour later they were 1/1 - i suspect that the tank took a little time to come up to temp given that we'd changed the water 2 times...

Off to the fish shop to oggle some fish in a moment - i will report back with the candidates list just like last time

Miles

 

[Tizer]

Blimey, you been plodding along with this for ages now, still no fishes? Get a move on lad, just bosh some fish in and do a few water changes. gogogo!!

 

[KittyKat]

KK - on the dark sand issue; I was basically going on something I read abut a couple of Cichlid types which were variously noted as prefering / looking at their best against a dark or black base. I was only going to check once I knew the fish types....

/me would like to point out that no Asian cichlids are commonly available in the trade, they are quite difficult to find!

Do you think that we should go ahead and plant (and uncover the tank obvously) before we're ready for the fish or just slog on and get to some stability before we introduce another variable?

..uncover..? Fish and plants go in on the same day because plants need light and light + ammonia = algae.

Blimey, you been plodding along with this for ages now, still no fishes? Get a move on lad, just bosh some fish in and do a few water changes. gogogo!!

*prod*

 

[Miles_hot]

OK, so I shouldn't press ahead with the planting ahead of the fish as this will cause Algae issues - which is pretty much my original plan. Good oh, plod on until we have some stability!

 

[librarygirl]

Interesting that you have double zeros for a day or two and then get some nitrites again. I wonder why that is?

And I thought my cycle was taking forever! Hang in there, it seems like you're close!

You could get the plants a day or two before you add fish, that way you can place them without stressing the fish and won't have to keep the lights on without fish in there for a long period of time.

Good luck!

 

[Miles_hot]

LG - we pretty much always get double zeros at night - hence the fact that we didn't bother to measure last night, just dosed and had a little more wine It's the morning figures which are key at the moment and they're just down right reluctant to come on down.
Good idea on the timing of the planting.
Miles

 

[Miles_hot]

I've listed some stocking ideas on my old stocking thread : http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/365039-compatibility-check-fish-advice-please/page__st__20
Any suggestions / comments gratefully taken
Thanks
Miles

 

[KittyKat]

How're the readings? I haven't seen updates in a while!

 

[Miles_hot]

Ops...will sort tonight

 

[Miles_hot]

OK, results updated as promised.

The pH is still doing stupid stuff which we don't understand and the nitrates are steadily increasing. We are still very good at getting 0/0 by 24 hours however the 12 hour mark is still not there. This weekend has not been good (we were away and attempted to correct for this when we came back with limited success).

We'll have to see what a week of steadiness brings

I wonder if we'll break the 100 day mark

Miles

 

[eaglesaquarium]

If your nitrites did in fact just drop from 5.0 ppm to 0ppm in 12 hours, you are very close to a double zero reading. Probably not tomorrow, but the next day is a possibility. The good news is that if your fishless cycle takes this long, a fish in cycle would have taken just about as long, if not longer with daily water changes, stress to both you and your fish, and probably several deaths.

More importantly, once this filter fully matures (about 6 months) you can just clone your current filter to a new one and the entire process will be so much LESS work and less time in the future!

 

[KittyKat]

Well, there is always the option to stock for the 24 hour mark, which would be about 10-15% of total stock.. this is getting ridiculous though.