My Fishless Cycle

[Twinklecaz]

Day 33

Ok so the bicarb appears to have worked, PH now 7.5 again (at least I think it is. The blue on the 7.6 was darker than before but it still shows 7.4 on the high Ph test)

Now NITRITE..... I did the test, it went it's now usual deep pink colour straight away as it has been, but I went downstairs, came back 2 mins later and it had turned a grey-lilac colour......does this mean it's gone off the chart?

Would you still recommend I do a water change when I get the chance now it seems to be moving along ok?

Finally, if this is my Nitrite spike, this means I prob have about another 2 months left doesn't it (bearing in mind my first Ammonia dose took 24 days to go back to 0 )? :'(

 

[PDSimon]

Yeah, when i'm doing nitrites, it turns like a transparent black colour... its started turning green now too!

It has been for like 10 days now

No one can tell really, it could be 2 weeks or 2 months...

 

[Twinklecaz]

Lol I'm trying to look on the bright side that by the time I'm ready I'll be sure the fish I want are the fish I want. So you're in your NS right now too?

 

[PDSimon]

Yep. It's been going for ages my nitrike spike, well it feels like ages...

Hopefully it'll end in a few days and the nitrites will be able to cycle fast

Some people have really short ones though

 

[Twinklecaz]

I know, it's funny isn't it. I just try and tell myself that a longer cycle is a more thorough one

 

[waterdrop]

OK, two things about taking your tank lid off (note that I carefully chose the word lid instead of top )... one is that you can lift and quickly move the lowest corner right over the water surface. The second is that its just a standard thing that you have to get a lot of "fishtank" towels to have around for the various procedures. Just plan to put them all around before you even start and to have one over your shoulder for things like lid drips (I actually drip my lids directly onto a towel while walking down the hall to clean the lid in the bathroom.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Twinklecaz]

LOl@ top off. Thanks!

 

[Twinklecaz]

Simon, is your Ammonia processing in 12 hours yet? Mine still isn't, in fact I swear it was doing it in about 15 but is now more than that again.

In other news my Nitrite went green this time

I only dosed 2ml Ammonia tonight to see if it can do that in 12 hours.

 

[PDSimon]

Simon, is your Ammonia processing in 12 hours yet? Mine still isn't, in fact I swear it was doing it in about 15 but is now more than that again.

In other news my Nitrite went green this time

I only dosed 2ml Ammonia tonight to see if it can do that in 12 hours.

My ammonia is processing within a day yes, the first stage is complete when you process 5ppm in 24 hours. I thought you'd already done that? (if you have, does that mean its struggling because of the pH crash?)

In the nitrite spike, waterdrop advised me to dose 3ppm but if you're not processing 5ppm of ammonia in a day you mayaswell keep putting 5ppm everytime it drops to 0 (but at the same time each time).

my tank has been processing 5ppm+ of nitrite for 16 days now. So if 16 days ago it was 5ppm nitrites... it means i've added 48ppm of ammonia since then and its not processing it much (if at all?) yet!

Your nitrites seem to have gone up much quicker than mine, which hopefully mean they'll go quicker but who knows

 

[Twinklecaz]

LOl ok confused now. Yeah it is processing in 24 hours (well the Ammonia is, not the Nitrite....that isn't going atall really yet) just not 12 hours yet.

 

[PDSimon]

LOl ok confused now. Yeah it is processing in 24 hours (well the Ammonia is, not the Nitrite....that isn't going atall really yet) just not 12 hours yet.

I wouldn't worry about processing ammonia in 12 hours, thats for the last 'stabilisation week' I think so anyway!!

You only just went into your nitrite spike and think how long mines lasting

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, its not very common for the ammonia to be processing within 12 hours in the middle of the fishless cycling process, usually its taking somewhere between 12 and 24 hours. And since each 1ppm of ammonia produces 2.7ppm of NO2, the NO2 excess really takes off for a long time. Eventually, in the third phase after the nitrite spike has come down, you are waiting for both ammonia and nitrite to be able to make it to zero ppm within 12 hours, but often one or the other (yes, surprisingly, sometimes its ammonia that sticks a bit) will just seem to stick and not be quite zero at 12 hours.

One problem in fishless cycling is that all that excess of nitrite and nitrate is not the environment that the N-Bacs like (yes, this too can seem weird because they are indeed the ones that process nitrite into nitrate but they don't want to "live" in too much of it apparently) and can slow their development. But the problem becomes one of balance, because you also don't want to perform -too- many water changes as the bacterial colonies also need a lack of disturbance to do their thing. There are no set formulae for which way is better to tip this balance of contrasting needs.

Another thing to remember is to take all these details with a grain of salt (though don't put that in the aquarium ) because of course cycling is something that will pretty much just inevitably happen if one is patient enough.. you can do lots wrong and still get there. Its a fundamental process of nature and is going on out in your yard all the time of course.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Twinklecaz]

Day 37

Ok strange thing, my Ammonia read at 0.50 tonight! It's been processing in max 24 hours for a while now so I'm confused? PH is still stable.

 

[waterdrop]

I wouldn't worry about it. Its not going to do the same thing every day, its biology, not chemistry. And you look quite typical for having just passed the month mark. You are solidly in the nitrite spike period the big buildup of nitrite is making the tank environment different from what it was in the beginning. The lengh of time that one must wait out the nitrite spike varies a lot between different peoples cases we watch here.

WD

 

[Twinklecaz]

Thanks. I didn't dose yestday because of it, i'll just do it at usual time today which I hope is ok.