My 20G Setup

[Easy]

High nitrate is normal in fishless cycling. Every ppm of ammonia you've been adding gets turned first into 2.7ppm nitrite, and that gets turned into 3.6ppm nitrate, so every 5ppm ammonia you add ends up as 18ppm nitrate. It can build up pretty quick. You can end up with a very high level of nitrate, this is why you will need to do an enormous water change before you get fish, to get rid of all the nitrate.

Look at it this way, if your nitrate is going up, there must be some nitrite eating bacteria growing in the filter.

Yes, keep adding ammonia at 24 hour intervals now that the reading is dropping to zero. But add a bit less, dose to maybe 2ppm until your nitrite drops to zero, then increase back to 5ppm ammonia till both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero in 12 hours. That'll stop the nitrite level getting too high till the nitrite eating bacteria have grown some more. Once they are processing the nitrite made from that lower amount of ammonia, you can increase the amount of ammonia you add and it won't take them long to get rid of the extra nitrite that'll be made.

Thanks essjay! I have another question. So it's obvious by today's water test that I'm entering the next phase of the cycle but I also turned the lights WAY back from 15hrs a day to 5.... Would that have anything to do with the huge Nitrate spike? Or is that just a coincedence?

 

[Essjay]

The nitrate and the lights are probably a co-incidence - though you have live plants don't you? I suppose it's possible that with a shorter light time the plants won't use as much nitrate. But I'm hopeless with plants so don't quote me on that.

I don't think that even people with heavily planted tanks have their lights on for anything like 15 hours. I do know that if there's a lot of ammonia in the water like with fishless cycling, that encourages algae to grow. And having the lights on also encourages algae. So if you have both light and ammonia, you'll get a lot of algae growing. 5 hours is probably a good compromise between having the lights on enough for the plants and having them on too much and getting lots of algae.

 

[Easy]

The nitrate and the lights are probably a co-incidence - though you have live plants don't you? I suppose it's possible that with a shorter light time the plants won't use as much nitrate. But I'm hopeless with plants so don't quote me on that.

I don't think that even people with heavily planted tanks have their lights on for anything like 15 hours. I do know that if there's a lot of ammonia in the water like with fishless cycling, that encourages algae to grow. And having the lights on also encourages algae. So if you have both light and ammonia, you'll get a lot of algae growing. 5 hours is probably a good compromise between having the lights on enough for the plants and having them on too much and getting lots of algae.

UPDATE:
So lights have been cut back to 4-5 hrs and no change in the water test results. I am clearing ammonia in 10hrs but no noticeable drop in nitrite yet every test has been dark purple. But what I have noticed is the Nitrate reading will be between 5-20 twelve hrs after dosing ammonia(I test twice a day) but after 24hrs just before I dose again my nitrates are cherry red between 80-120 and then will drop back after 12 more hrs.

Also I am worried. I am going on vacation July 16-19. It doesn't look like my cycle will finish by then . I really really don't want to lose all the work I've done and if I have to start over my wife and kids will probably be over the fish all together. What should I do?

 

[Easy]

UPDATE:
I think I see movement in the Nitrite reading. I mean it's still goes dark purple but it is light blue for about 10seconds first which never used to happen. Used to go purple as soon as the first drip hit the water. nitrates are consistently off the chart now. Hope it won't be long as I am going camping next week. I still need some help with idea of how to save my cycle if it doesn't complete by then. any help would be appreciated.

 

[Easy]

So I am in the middle of my fish less cycle and I am going on vacation july16-19. What is the best way to keep my cycle going? Is fish food the only way? I don't wanna muck up the tank. Also I noticed the other day there are some tiny little creatures buzzing about on the inside of the glass. Well actually they are pretty slow. Hard to say what they look like because they are so small. They almost seem to move on the glass like a snail only much faster. They just showed up the other day although I did have some weird what looked like mosquito larvae twitching about in the water last week. Those seem to have disappeared and now I got these. Are they related? Has anybody ever seen this?

 

[Easy]

HOLY CRUD!!! THERE SNAILS".......WTH. I was trying to show the wife the little creatures when I looked at the backside of the drift wood and saw a HUGE snail cruising along. How did this happen? The only thing new I have added to the tank was the new gravel. And I washed that out like 10 times and it was per packaged from Petco. But come to think of it that when I started seeing strange things in the tank. PLEASE HELP .............

 

[Easy]

I'm calming down about the snails , still not happy but I think I can mange to keep the numbers down if I want to. Will have to see how fast they reproduce.

I have one of these hang on the edge waterfall type filters(not sure the proper name) but its the very common type sold with low to mid end range aquariums here in the US. It has a single plastic intake about 10-12 " long. I also have a plant(again not sure of the name) that was dropping a lot of small lower leaves due to the light not penetrating to that particular part of the plant. These decaying leaves are similar to let's say a half inch long pine needle, and they are all flogged around the intake. Iam going to clear this obstruction tomorrow but I noticed that the decaying matter has left a sort of brown nasty film/slime in the intake. Looks ugly, I want to clean it. But if bacteria live mostly where there is oxygen and water flow, wouldn't this place harbor a lot of bacteria? I am alllllmoost done with this painstaking process of fish less cycling and I dont wanna stall or slow it down now by doing some random cleaning.

What are your thought? Is the decaying leaves that bad for the cycle? Is it worth risking the cycle even if it's a remote chance? Or should I just leave it?

Oh yeah, forgot. I've got tot the point where my Nitrates are off the chart red so my ph started to crash. Went from about 7.8 to about 6.5 in a 3days. So last night I added 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and that brant the ph back up to about 7.2

 

[Easy]

Going on vacation tomorrow. Cycle not finished yet. Almost through probably 3-5 days away. I'm gonna dose in the morning and pray. I do have snails now thanks to the hitch hikers on my plants. Never got an answer on whether or not they produce ammonia, looks like nobody cares about this thread. I'll keep it updated anyways...............................

 

[Sype2470]

Reading this from the beginning sounds like a horror story but with great determination. Glad you still haven't given up. I did not get the size of your tank until several posts later. What is your HOB(Hang on Back)filter rated for? In the beginning there were so many things that could of went wrong.
1. Place you got your fish from is not reliable. No place really is but you would get a higher living percentage from a respected Mom n Pops fish store.
More expensive in the beginning but the more you come back, the more the hook-ups.
2. Sounded like you tank was heavily chemically induced. I have never put so much chemical in a fish tank. I barely use those carbon things they give you with filters.
3. Your water: I don't understand how your tank is supposed to establish when you are doing 90% water change. The most I would ever do is 50%. I understand about bringing the Nitrate down as close to zero but all at once doesn't sound good because you are then changing everything else PH specially all at once. If your water is too hard you might want to consider Peat Granules by Fluval that you can stick in your HOB. Your driftwood should help too with the PH. Other than the granules lower either hardness or PH should be done naturally and not with chemicals. You could always collect rain water.
BTW, What type of snails do you have. If it's the corkscrew one then you will have a mass infestation if not controlled. You can get 1 or 2 assassin snails. Yes they are ninja snails that eat other snails. Just don't use salt if you are going to have plants or Corys. Also, if all your snails are moving on towards the top of your tank, your water isn't right. You also have massive snails cause of your algae situation.

I think your plants are dying for many reasons and that's why your filter is getting all that crap in it. I would stuff a filter sponge of some type in or around your intake so it only collects water. You will have to fish out the floating parts. just gravel with plants will only last for so long. They might not be getting the nutrients they need. The 5hr light thing all depends on what type of plants you have. I run mine about 10hrs.

I'm going to scroll back and read to see if I missed something. Hope this helped.

 

[Easy]

Reading this from the beginning sounds like a horror story but with great determination. Glad you still haven't given up. I did not get the size of your tank until several posts later. What is your HOB(Hang on Back)filter rated for? In the beginning there were so many things that could of went wrong.
1. Place you got your fish from is not reliable. No place really is but you would get a higher living percentage from a respected Mom n Pops fish store.
More expensive in the beginning but the more you come back, the more the hook-ups.
2. Sounded like you tank was heavily chemically induced. I have never put so much chemical in a fish tank. I barely use those carbon things they give you with filters.
3. Your water: I don't understand how your tank is supposed to establish when you are doing 90% water change. The most I would ever do is 50%. I understand about bringing the Nitrate down as close to zero but all at once doesn't sound good because you are then changing everything else PH specially all at once. If your water is too hard you might want to consider Peat Granules by Fluval that you can stick in your HOB. Your driftwood should help too with the PH. Other than the granules lower either hardness or PH should be done naturally and not with chemicals. You could always collect rain water.
BTW, What type of snails do you have. If it's the corkscrew one then you will have a mass infestation if not controlled. You can get 1 or 2 assassin snails. Yes they are ninja snails that eat other snails. Just don't use salt if you are going to have plants or Corys. Also, if all your snails are moving on towards the top of your tank, your water isn't right. You also have massive snails cause of your algae situation.

I think your plants are dying for many reasons and that's why your filter is getting all that crap in it. I would stuff a filter sponge of some type in or around your intake so it only collects water. You will have to fish out the floating parts. just gravel with plants will only last for so long. They might not be getting the nutrients they need. The 5hr light thing all depends on what type of plants you have. I run mine about 10hrs.

I'm going to scroll back and read to see if I missed something. Hope this helped.

The filter says 20-40 which I assume is for a 20-40 gallon tank? My tank is 20g so I should be good there. The plants are fine. Another member talked about how on some plants if the light does not penetrate to well to the lower leaves the they will die off. This is what happened with mine. The rest of the plant is thriving. And there are almost no dead leaves left on it. Ive cut the lights back to keep algae too minimum but I also give a half dose of fertilizer every week so they got nutrients. By next week my cycle should be done in which case I will do a large water change and vacuum up all the dead leaves. I just hope nothing happens while I'm gone