My Fishless Cycle!

[Ape-man]

Right am I just being impatient or is something going wrong, this seems to be taking forever!!!!! (see my first post for up-to-date results). Why is my ammonia not moving, but my Nitrite seemed to rise to 2ppm and has now dropped back to 0ppm.

I'll be honest I'm confused here!!!!!!

HELP

 

[Ape-man]

Right am I just being impatient or is something going wrong, this seems to be taking forever!!!!! (see my first post for up-to-date results). Why is my ammonia not moving, but my Nitrite seemed to rise to 2ppm and has now dropped back to 0ppm.

I'll be honest I'm confused here!!!!!!

HELP

Is this really just a waiting game... Looking at other peoples cycles, nobody else's seems to be taking/have taken anywhere near as long as mine to start. I have got to go through the whole cycling process yet, and I'm 39 days in and it hasn't even started... I'll be honest I am really looking forward to getting my fish in etc... But I am really bored now, not to mention the fact that I am running low on test solutions and I haven't even got a fish to show for it yet!!!!

 

[drobbyb]

hi no my tap water has no nitrates at all it doesnt have any kH either im buffering the water with crushed coral in the filter
i wont be raising the pH from 6.0 just stabalizing it as im going to be keeping marbled hatchet fish and dwarf cichlids which all prefer soft acid water i have taken the last couple of months researching the fish i can keep as its a bad idea to change the water chemistry it could make the tank too unstable which will stress the fish too much

Hi jacko32! Just wanted to hop in here and see how you were using your crushed coral. My tap water comes out of the tap at pH 6.8 with <1 KH and GH. I have to run crushed coral too to stabilize my pH, same as you do. Just wanted to check your technique and compare it to mine.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Hello there 39days wow. you are so patient.... I understand you are probably getting angry....have you tried a product like " filter start" I know many on here say they are useless, and I can understand how they could be, but I used it on both my tanks and within 18hours ammonia started shifting. the way I look at it, if it doesnt do anything, you in the same boat as you are now, and if it does do something...hallelujah! good luck x

 

[drobbyb]

I'll have to get a petri dish and try to grow some, then look real close after they have had time to grow. Then I would be able to see if the bacteria are actually alive. I just don't see how they can survive with no oxygen and no food for several months on the shelf. If your filter bacteria don't have ammonia to eat, they begin to die off within 3 days, yet somehow the very same bacteria can survive for months on the shelf? I just don't see it.

 

[waterdrop]

OK, I am ready to declare that something is officially wrong here, in a major way. We have just -never- seen ammonia simply sit there... now for OVER A MONTH... and just never drop to zero. I think we've already reviewed all the details and I for one could not uncover anything wrong. I'd like some other members to just go through the same process and take a look at the steps Ape-man took with his fishless cycle and see if you can find anything we've missed.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[drobbyb]

I've gone over everything that has been posted, and I honestly don't see any reason why the cycle shouldn't be progressing. Time to re-think things a bit. It's a fact that mature media will speed up a cycle, so I was thinking that maybe we can use it here to get that ammonia to process. Is that possible Ape-man? You could even ask your LFS for some if that's the only source. At this point we need to step back and re-think things.

Since the cycle isn't too far along, why not try an alternative ammonia source. A dead prawn or pinches of fish food can supply ammonia for your tank. All you would have to do is do a 90% waterchange and drop in the prawn or fish flakes and wait a few days for them to start to decompose. Now if you use the prawn there is probably going to be some odor. It can be a little hard to control the amount of ammonia with decaying organic matter, but if it gets above 5 ppm we can always do partial waterchanges to bring it back down.


Anyone else have an idea?

 

[Ape-man]

have you tried a product like " filter start" I know many on here say they are useless, and I can understand how they could be, but I used it on both my tanks and within 18hours ammonia started shifting. the way I look at it, if it doesnt do anything, you in the same boat as you are now, and if it does do something...hallelujah! good luck x

Right... I have added some so called "filter booster" last night and tonight it has made no difference, I'll give this another 24hrs, if there is no effect I will drain the tank off and refill, then try using some fish flakes - How many should I put in?

Just another thought but I was speaking to my mate who is a microbiologist, and just happens to do water testing as part of his job, he said that we do have quite high levels of chlorine in our water, could it be that when I did a water change a few weeks ago, that I didn't put enough water conditioner in (although I dosed it as instructed) and I killed off any potential bacteria?? Just a thought!!

Other than trying the fish flakes, anyone got any other suggestions

 

[drobbyb]

It's possible that a high level of chlorine could be the culprit. Double dose your water conditioner. That should take care of that extra chlorine. I just hope that the chlorine hasn't killed your bacteria already.

You want to add enough flakes to simulate feeding your fish, and feed that amount every day. You have to keep a close eye on your ammonia though.

I wish I had a better answer for you!

 

[LilyRose Tank]

It might be interesting to give your friend a sample of your tap water, and a bottle of your conditioner , and see if he can work out a doseage for you to use with the levels of chlorine you have.

 

[jacko32]

hi no my tap water has no nitrates at all it doesnt have any kH either im buffering the water with crushed coral in the filter
i wont be raising the pH from 6.0 just stabalizing it as im going to be keeping marbled hatchet fish and dwarf cichlids which all prefer soft acid water i have taken the last couple of months researching the fish i can keep as its a bad idea to change the water chemistry it could make the tank too unstable which will stress the fish too much

Hi jacko32! Just wanted to hop in here and see how you were using your crushed coral. My tap water comes out of the tap at pH 6.8 with <1 KH and GH. I have to run crushed coral too to stabilize my pH, same as you do. Just wanted to check your technique and compare it to mine.

hi i just put some in a filter bag and put it in the filter

 

[waterdrop]

We do recommend dosing conditioner at 1.5x or 2x. Certainly 2x in your case. We also recommend dosing Seachem Prime as the best choice for this as a few of the others have been suspect from time to time in my opinion. Its better not to dose higher than 2x as this is also known in a different way to slow N-Bac development.

Crushed Coral (CC) is the method of choice for KH control (if you have to make that momentous decision) after you have fish. Prior to fish, either CC or Baking Soda can be used and baking soda is usually more popular during fishless because it acts instantly, whereas CC can take up to two weeks to make its full change (which is what makes it so good for fish of course!)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Ape-man]

OK.... I almost give up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sorry I haven't been posting regularly, I have still been testing, just not posting (well, I figured what's the point in posting the same thing every day!!)!!

Day 49 of my cycle, and I drained my tank completely (well 95% anyway), I cleaned everything (in old tank water), I re-filled with conditioned tap water, I carried on testing, (I have even bought a new Master test kit cos my other was quite old and I wondered if it was skewing my results, but no... Exactly the same). And after all this... IT IS JUST NOT WORKING. My tank has just been sat a 2ppm of ammonia for another 15 days!!!!! Unless anyone can come up with any radical ideas I am emptying the tank next weekend, cleaning it with tap water (to kill anything that may have grown (or does anyone know of an aquarium safe cleaner)). Then I am gong to refill with conditioned water and do a fish-in cycle... Sorry everyone who disapproves of this, but looking at an empty tank of water for nearly three months is not my idea of "fun" fish-keeping.

I have spoke to different people in different shops, also a guy I work with (who has had tropical fish for 15 years) and they all say that they have never bothered with fish-less cycling in ALL the tanks they have. A guy in one shop has been keeping, showing, breeding & selling tropicals for 35 years and he also said he has NEVER fish-less cycled. SO, I suppose the BIG question is, is: Is it really all it's cracked up to be or is it just an idea someone came up with and every body else has run with it!!!

Sorry to seem a bit negative here and a tad controversial, but look at my first post on this thread at my results, I have done everything by the book and it just ain't working for me, so you can probably understand why I'm a bit frustrated (and bored to be honest!)!!

 

[Truck]

If I were you I would just do a fish in cycle, if properly controlled the fish will come off healthy and unharmed, 50% water changes twice daily should do it, 6 weeks later and you should be cycled.

 

[waterdrop]

Sorry to hear of your problems and that we could never diagnose what wasn't working right. Good luck on your fish-in cycle, hope that goes better for you. Note that of course even people who fishless cycle rarely ever have to do it more than once, because forever after that you always have a nice mature filter to clone from! Its the same among all the old guys around my club and local shops, they always have plenty of mature media, so fishless cycling is an oddity that they didn't get to participate in since for most of them the technique started long after they became hobbyists.

~~waterdrop~~