My First Fishless Cycle

[Miss Wiggle]

it's like the mist is clearing - it's all coming back to me now!

i'd forgotten that the higher pH was good - had remembered that it dropping was bad and could stall things but forgot that the adverse was also true.

it was also to clear some of the nitrates as I knew I didn't want a lot of those building up.

as it seems to be going OK I think I'll leave well alone for now, will water change if it starts to slow down.

 

[OldMan47]

The nitrate clearing is often done at the last minute MW. It is something we must do before adding any fish, but merely keeping nitrates low enough to prevent a pH drop is good enough during a fishless cycle.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

refresh my memory if you will guys - my nitrite test is doing something funny and it's ringing a bell in my head for some reason but i can't remember what it is.

When we first run the test it shows as quite a dark purple then over the course of the next few minutes gradually lightens to the blue of a 0 reading. remind me what that means please!

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, that's usually the test messing up because the nitrite(NO2) concentration is "off the charts" and too high for the test to measure it properly. Basically, any time you drop the nitrite testing reagents into the tank water in your tube and see really dark (sometimes shiny) deep color, it means this off the chart thing. Most of the time its a really dark purple but sometimes its a weird shiny blue-greenish sort of look and sometimes when its like that it will fade to a pale green sort of color, again just meaning nitrite levels are very high.

The nitrites being very high of course is just a reflection that the A-Bacs are grabbing all these huge doses of 4-5ppm ammonia and quickly converting them to nitrite. Each 1ppm gets processed to about 2.7ppm (about triple!) Even though the N-Bacs are growing (at about the same pace as the A-Bacs) there needs to be nearly 3 times the number of these cells to balance the output of the A-Bacs and have it all go on to be nitrate(NO3) without any nitrite showing along the way.

WD

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thanks WD, that sounds very familiar so it was probably buried in the depths of my mind somewhere!! Ian will be dissapointed though, he got very excited when it went blue!

we're processing 5ppm ammonia in around 12 hrs now but the pesky nitrite is just not shifting!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Getting a bit frustrating now - ammonia is dropping to 0 in 12 hrs easily and has been for over a week now. Nitrite is resolutely off the scale first giving a dark purple reading then progressing to blue over about 15 mins.

pH is fine at 7.8, cranked the temp up to about 29 and tinkered with the filter outlet as much as I can to increase oxygenation.

Did a 25% water change yesterday just because I'm stuck for anything else to do. Anything else anyone can suggest to speed it along?

 

[curlyriff]

Getting a bit frustrating now - ammonia is dropping to 0 in 12 hrs easily and has been for over a week now. Nitrite is resolutely off the scale first giving a dark purple reading then progressing to blue over about 15 mins.

pH is fine at 7.8, cranked the temp up to about 29 and tinkered with the filter outlet as much as I can to increase oxygenation.

Did a 25% water change yesterday just because I'm stuck for anything else to do. Anything else anyone can suggest to speed it along?

Not really just patience now from what I can see. I am at exactly the same stage as you and just waiting. It will be soon enough and normaly takes about 1 to 2 weeks once getting to those hours from what I have read. Also it will happen almost over night with the Nitrite so I wouldn't be too worried all seems well. The only difference I have is I do dose Flourish Excel as I have a few plants in there and have a little bit of the brown algea that the Excel is sorting out as well as giving my plants some much needed C02.

I have been doing around 80% water changes on my tank every few days just keep it all under control as well which seems to keep everything happy and balanced.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[Miss Wiggle]

worked out what's gone on. someone that lives with me that shall remain nameless (it wasn't the cats or me though) had become a little blase about dosing up the ammonia and was not measuring it, just dumped a load in the tank - about 50ml (the tank needs about 10ml to get to 5ppm) which was all being processed and consequently we ended up with absolutely tonnes of nitrite.

we have loads of nitrate so i'm sure the nitrite is being processed it's just not got through the massive backlog yet.

have explained why this is a problem to the nameless doser and we're just dosing 5ppm from now on!

 

[toshapetriji]

Ah men can´t live with em and can´t kill em.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Ah men can´t live with em and can´t kill em.

 

[BigIan]

Yea than #41#### lizard, i blame eddie entirely (as you have already said it wasn`t luli.)

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hmmmmmmmmmm

somehow i don't think it was Eddie either!

 

[BigIan]

well it couldnt have been me, as i`m always so accurate.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i was going to say it wasn't any of the pets - however i think maybe you fit into that category too!

 

[BigIan]

well you do feed me and clean up after me, so i`ll accept that