Mola Mola - Fishless Cycle Log

[Mola Mola]

Yes, when redosing, you want to put it up to 2-3ppm instead of 4-5 ppm for the duration of phase two (the nitrite spike). Then, slowly raise it back up during phase three (after nitrite falls back to zero).

Thanks, I'll make sure that I do that. With the ammonia I bought it seems that 10ml is 2-2.5ppm, so I will just start dosing with 10ml each time.

Thanks again.

 

[Mola Mola]

Day 16

ammonia - 0 ppm (re-dosed to 3 ppm)
nitrite - 5+ ppm
nitrate - 160+ ppm

The ammonia had completely gone so I re-dosed back to 3 ppm (actually took 20ml of ammonia this time). I would put nitrite down as off the scale, but it is still deep purple (I understand that it goes green when it is off the scale). Nitrate is definitely beyond 160 ppm.

 

[Delloy12]

You're getting there I'm currently in my fishless cycle ........been 7 days so far

 

[XeroTolerance]

Your doing great! So far when I add 3ppm of ammonia the next day there will be 1.5 ammonia and 0 nitrite! I think I'll be done soon!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

To address your stocking question from the other topic, I recommend doing a 50% initial stocking. Then wait two weeks to watch for anything weird. Once things have settled in for 2 weeks, you can add another 25% of the total stocking. Then wait another two weeks for things to settle in. Then add the remainder of your stocking.


The reason for this is two fold: First, it is still a very immature tank and will take some time to mature a bit and develop a proper equilibrium. It will also give you a chance to watch your fish interacting in the tank. Once you have watched them for about two weeks, you may want more of the fish you have, or you might want to go a slightly different way. The more you watch, the better gauge you will have about your fish.

 

[XeroTolerance]

Was that directed towards me or Mola?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

That was directed to Mola.


For you Xero, I would recommend keeping the stocking level very low, no higher than 25%.

 

[Mola Mola]

Day 17

ammonia - 0 ppm (re-dosed to 3 ppm)
nitrite - 4 ppm
nitrate - 160+ ppm

Well, the ammonia is back down to 0, so it managed to process 3 ppm in one day (in fact in 21 hours). The nitrite seems to be about 4 ppm (definitely not 5), so it seems that is getting processed faster too.

pH is 7.6

 

[XeroTolerance]

Ok so should I add only my two mystery snails and my 5 Flame Tetras?

 

[Mola Mola]

To address your stocking question from the other topic, I recommend doing a 50% initial stocking. Then wait two weeks to watch for anything weird. Once things have settled in for 2 weeks, you can add another 25% of the total stocking. Then wait another two weeks for things to settle in. Then add the remainder of your stocking.

The reason for this is two fold: First, it is still a very immature tank and will take some time to mature a bit and develop a proper equilibrium. It will also give you a chance to watch your fish interacting in the tank. Once you have watched them for about two weeks, you may want more of the fish you have, or you might want to go a slightly different way. The more you watch, the better gauge you will have about your fish.

Thanks Eagles, that's very useful information.

It feels right to start off a bit slowly, and it is good to know that there are good reasons to do so (as you have pointed out). A 50% initial stocking is plenty to keep the kids amused anyway!

Thanks again.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Good stuff Mola!



Xero,

With your small tank, 5 flame tetras would be almost the full stocking limit of the tank. That would be a lot for your filter to handle at this stage. You can add then, but you will be finishing the cycling process as a fish-in cycle. I gave you some tips on doing that in your thread. You very well could get away with it and the fish very well could survive and even thrive. BUT, it would be better to wait another week or two to get the filter more fully cycled. Getting a single double zero reading in 24 hours is a far cry from the "recommended" (on this site) double zeros at 12 hours for 5-7 days. You're about half way through your cycle at this point, not all the way there. You haven't raised your dosing back up to 5ppm yet, and you aren't getting zeros for either ammonia or nitrite at 12 hours yet. You still have some waiting to do, if you want my advice. Your plan to add fish on Monday is a bit premature, if you ask me. Now, that doesn't mean that it can't work, but you need to be prepared for spikes in ammonia and nitrite. They will come. You can preempt some of those by doing water changes before the spike comes and by limiting your feeding amounts. But, you need to be diligent about your testing and as soon as you see any color other than the yellow (ammonia) or sky blue (nitrite) to change the water then, rather than just waiting for it to hit 0.25ppm. The way I see it, it is far better to change the water too often (which isn't really possible) than not often enough (which is far too common). If you do go forward with getting the fish sooner rather than later, do very large, frequent water changes and things are going to go much better. Eventually (a couple of weeks) you will be able to decrease the frequency and size of water changes and get into a standard weekly 30% water change. (I would also recommend a monthly 75% change with a good scrubbing of the glass, etc.) With a small tank, it should be rather easy to stay on top of, but it is also a more dangerous situation, because problems can arise much more quickly than with a larger volume of water.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

To address your stocking question from the other topic, I recommend doing a 50% initial stocking. Then wait two weeks to watch for anything weird. Once things have settled in for 2 weeks, you can add another 25% of the total stocking. Then wait another two weeks for things to settle in. Then add the remainder of your stocking.

The reason for this is two fold: First, it is still a very immature tank and will take some time to mature a bit and develop a proper equilibrium. It will also give you a chance to watch your fish interacting in the tank. Once you have watched them for about two weeks, you may want more of the fish you have, or you might want to go a slightly different way. The more you watch, the better gauge you will have about your fish.

Thanks Eagles, that's very useful information.

It feels right to start off a bit slowly, and it is good to know that there are good reasons to do so (as you have pointed out). A 50% initial stocking is plenty to keep the kids amused anyway!

Thanks again.

It will also increase the excitement of adding new fish to multiple trips to the LFS rather than doing it all at once. My 5 year old loves it when we head off to the LFS to get a few more fish. I started off with a very low stocking level in my 56 gallon tank (about 15 fish) I've lost a few as the first 7 I got were all rescues from another tank - I still have two of those originals - and sometimes you just get a weak fish when you add some to your tank. As you can see from my sig that I now have 27. I've slowly increased that over the past three months. I would get 4 fish here, or 6 fish there. The excitement has been there EACH time we get more.

 

[XeroTolerance]

Wow thanks for your reply! I think I'll wait and see. There was another site that said this is what I should do. This is the link.
http/www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f15/the-almost-complete-guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html

With this method will there be a Nitrite spike every 12 hours? I am just doe testing my water and I got double zeros for sure today.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

K) Wait for the magic to happen. Keep watching your levels and adding the ammo up to 4ppm. Keep a very sharp eye on pH at this point. If you see any hints of the pH level dropping…time to break out the bucket and bottle of Prime to do a 50% water change. We want to make sure we have plenty of buffers in the water to keep the pH stable.

One morning you’ll wake up and when you test the water…Ammo and nitrItes will be gone! They’ll have vanished overnight! Technically this means your cycle is complete, but we’ve still got a bit of testing to do to make sure.

L) Add your ammonia up to 4ppm one more time. Look at the clock. If within 24 hours you can turn that 4ppm of ammonia > nitrItes > nitrAtes… congratulations! After the 24 hours your test results should be ammo-0 nitrItes-0 and have lots of nitrAtes. You grew one heck of a bio-filter and are going to have ridiculously happy fish!

M) Now you’ve just got to keep your bacteria alive until you add fish. Add around 1ppm of ammonia daily just to keep the bacteria alive.

Well, I don't agree with this fully. The bacteria will still be very fragile at this stage. Remember we talked about the water change potentially "pausing" the cycle for a day or so. This is because the bacteria colony is not yet matured and capable of handling disruptions to their environment. At the end of the cycle, you need to do a massive water change (as close to 100% as possible) to clear the nitrates. If you do that to an immature colony just before adding fish, the colony can go through this 'pause' at the WORST possible time. The fish will already be stressed by the move (which causes them to produce more ammonia than usual) and the bacteria colony won't be capable of handling it. This is a bigger issue when you are planning to add a full stocking to such a small tank immediately, which I gather is basically your plan.


The guide used here indicates the cycle is complete when the ammonia and nitrite clears in 12 hours. That means that your bacteria colony would be at least TWICE as robust as the one from the website you are referencing. Not only that, but we also add in a "qualifying week" as opposed to just a day. Again, this means that you can be that much more secure in knowing that your bacteria colony is that much more capable of handling the bioload you will be adding to the tank. Then, we suggest that you continue to monitor your levels for at least a full week (usually at 24 hours) just to be certain that there are no spikes or mini-cycles that rear their head. The bacteria will be dealing with a different temp, possibly different pH and the ammonia will be available in a much different way (continually released by the fish instead of a huge dose once a day). There are a lot of things for the bacteria to get used to all at once at the most critical time for your fish. We, on this website, tend to lean to the much more conservative side of what is a "safe" environment than some others. But, the goal is to keep ammonia and nitrite at zero the ENTIRE time you have fish.

 

[XeroTolerance]

Thanks . I think that I will not have a platy. You made a good point saying there it is already overstocked. The only reason I would like to add my fish on Monday is because this weekend I'm going to a meeting and will be there for the rest of the next week. I don't have anyone to add ammonia to the tank. I can however change the water with this thing-a-ma-jigger I made. I talked to the guy who made that thread and he said that there won't be a nitrite spike because ammonia is released in a steady stream instead of all at once. He also said that when he used this method that there was never any spikes for him. I got a lot of the same replies from everyone else who used it too. So basically my question/statement is, when ammonia is produced in a steady stream that my bio-filter will be able to handle it easily because it is already used to processing 4ppm of ammonia in 24 hours. Also the stocking that I have I don't think will produce 4ppm of ammonia at once if I do water changes every 3 days.