Need Help Please

[Essjay]

@TwoTankAmin Looking at your fishless cycling method you said

If for any reason you are unable to stock the tank when it is cycled, you can continue adding ammonia to keep the tank cycled. For this you should add the 1/3 snack amount every 2-3 days. The bacteria do not need to be fed every day and will be fine.

but in the post above you said to add more ammonia more often. Does your method need to be revised?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

No- There is a difference between cycling a tank from scratch v.s. keeping an established tank which has had its supply of ammonia removed, cycled. Since you completed your cycle, the article has nothing more to contribute.

I was disagreeing when essjay wrote suggesting you dose 1/3 (1 ppm) every 3 days.

Once a tank is established the size of the bacterial colonies will be in balance with the normal supply of ammonia. The soze of the colony is a function of the total number of individuals cells in that colony. Under normal conditions in a cycled tank individuals in the colony will be dyding every day and other bacteria will be divided, creating new individuals. The number of individuals in the colony determine how much ammonia it can process. Of course the same applies to the nitrite oxiding bacteria as well and they live alongside the ammonia one.

In terms of ammonia levels in a tank once it has been established (cycled and well stocked) one of four things can happen.

1. Ammonia levels can be fairly constant and the number of bacteria dying and reproducing will be in balance and the colony size will be pretty stable.
2. Ammonia level can be incresed meaning the colony is not large enough to process it all. So the reate of reproduction will increase to above the death rate which means there will be an increase in the number of cell. When the colony is big enough to handle the new ammonia level. the two rates will equalize again.
3. Ammonia levels can be reduced meaning the colony is too large for the lower levels. So the rate of reproduction will slow to below the death rate. The number of individuals will be reduced making the colony smaller. Once in the colony is in balance with the new lower ammonia level, the reproduction and deaths rates in the colony will equalize again.
4. Ammonia levels can disappear completely. AAnd now comes the interesting part. The cells are able to detect that ammonia is no longer available and they will respond by goin into a state of dormancy. It is like suspended animation. They can remain this way for a very long time. However, give longer time period and no re[production there will be a very slow death rate. How son this might begin depends upon how well fed and how "healthy" they are when they go dormant.
A colony in good shape can stay dormant at room temperature for about 6 month and then be revived by the return of ammonia and they will be able to procress as much as they could then they went dormant in short order. This time can be extended if the dormany bacteria are stored at colder temperatures but not frozen as that kills them.

The ability to go dormant is how bottled bacteria can be viable sealed up with no oxygen, ammonia, nitrite etc. and then come "back to life."

Because of how the bacteria operate the best way to preserve them at full strength is not to feed them less and less often. It is better not to feed them at all if you need them to stay viable for weeks or months. Let them go dormant. However, I would not do this for shorter term periods. Nor would I lower the ammonia dosing because that can cause the colony to shrink which means it cannot process as much ammonia.

The other factor here is something learned from the waste water treatment industry. There ammonia levels are rarely constant. They tend to be what is best described as pulsed a lot of the time. Big influx that slows and then another occurs. Apparently, this has the effect of making the bacteria able to process more ammonia before they need to reproduce and to shrink back less when ammonia is temporarily decreased. But our tanks can never experience this once fish go in. However, if a cyled tank has no fish, one can add ammonia by doing a full dose every 2 or 3 days. The 3 days for me is usually because I messed the every other day. Once I have a tank fully cycled, if I do not take down when it is empty, I want to keep it fully cycled.

Remember, to few bacteria for the ammonia and nitrite levels can harm fish. Too many bacteria than are needed to keep the fish safe can result in some of the excess bacteria being lost. This will not harm fish.

 

[Coolysd]

You guys are amazing thanks so much for all of your wisdom! I try to do the testing in the mornings however I was running late for work this morning so I wasn't able to do it until after work. It tested 0 for ammonia and nitrite. The PH had dropped to 6.6 so I did a 60% wc and added 15 drops of ammonia. I tested it again a couple hours later and ammonia 1ppm, nitrite 0, nitrate dropped to 40 and PH went up to 7.8. I added 15 more drops and will continue as you suggested to keep doing that every 3 days until I find my Betta.
This journey definitely seems to have it's highs and lows but I'm enjoying it all the same. I have learned so much from this and other forums. I swear it seems like I can't get enough! My mind is always "in the tank" lol. I'm still working on my 75g and can't wait to get it stocked. I have a 10g that is waiting it's turn.

 

[Essjay]

I was disagreeing when essjay wrote suggesting you dose 1/3 (1 ppm) every 3 days.

@TwoTankAmin
Can you clarify something please.




When I wrote to use 1/3 (1 ppm) dose every 3 days I was quoting what you wrote in the fishless cycling method on here.

If for any reason you are unable to stock the tank when it is cycled, you can continue adding ammonia to keep the tank cycled. For this you should add the 1/3 snack amount every 2-3 days

Now you say that's wrong.


Could you explain, please, which is correct - what you wrote in your fishless cycling method, or what you have written in this thread. If the information in this thread is correct, the fishless cycling method needs to be changed.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I did indeed write what you quoted and If I could edit the article I would. I would suggest it should be changed to say add the full dose every 2-3 days. The 1/3 amount would be OK for a very short period. However, most folks tend to stock fairly soon after the cycle completes because they really want to have fish. Most folks will be stocking pretty fast after cycling and if they wait just a week the 1/3 ammonia dose will work fine.

But you indicated it would be at least a week, and that implies it could be longer. Th longer the period of no fish making ammonia, the more important it is for the dose to be a full one. There is a reason for this.

The basical article for cycling has to work for pretty much any tank parameters. It is possible to base the amount of ammonia used in a fishless cycle to match one's water parameters and planned stocking. But If I try to explain everything involved in how to make adjustemnts Iit wouls confuse heck out of a lot of people new to the hobby. The cycling method must work for pretty much everybody. So, the 3 ppm dosing level is designed to insure that the hiher pH andtemperature tanks will be safe at the end of the cycle. Many folks could do fine at 2 ppm and those who will stock lightly can get away with even less.

So whatever method of cycling I proposed needed to be certain to protect all tanks. This danger is not in having too much nitrifying bacteria in the tank, it is in having too little. The is especially true for the high pH warmer water. So the article uses 3 ppm as the full dose to be sure all tanks will be fish safe at the outset. As noted, the amount of bacteria in a tank will react over time to changes in the general ammonia level.

The challenge if writing a cycling article is to be sure it works if followed and that it protects all tanks. At the same time it needs to be a simple method and easy to follow. I made the assumption in the article that people would be wanting to stock fairly fast and they would not wait much more than 5-7 days. one or 2 1/3 doses will work fine, more and it can start to reduce the amount of bacteria.

One of the biggest benefits of a fishless cycle is that it permits one safely to do a full stocking right away. The article is written to accommodate this.

I will plead guilty to creating a bit of confusion here. But it was my effort to make sure that if your "at least a week" turned into longer, you would not run into potential problems. As I said, it is better to be over cycled than under cycled. I think I need to to ask admins to modify that part of the article to make it clearer. I should have written it as below.

"If for any reason you are unable to stock the tank when it is cycled, you can continue adding ammonia to keep the tank cycled. If the wait time to add fish will be not more than a week, you can just add the snack dose amount. However, if the wait time to begin stocking will likely be longer than one week, use the full ammonia dose, do not use the 1/3 snack dose. To keep a tank without fish fully cycled for extended amounts of time, you will need to do weekly water changes. If you do not, nitrate will build up and KH levels will drop which can cause unwanted issues."

 

[Coolysd]

Okay so even tho it hadn't been 24hrs yet I tested this morning just to see what it looked like. Ammonia 2, nitrite 0, nitrate back up to 80, PH 7.8. I tested again this evening ammonia dropped to 1 and the rest were the same as this morning.
So now my understanding is that I test every day until ammonia is less than .25 and nitrite is less than 1. When that happens then I add the same dosage as I did in the beginning (which was 20 drops). However, that dosage took it to 4ppm and y'all said that it was too much which is why I reduced it to 15 drops the last couple of doses.
Am I doing this correctly? Did I mess it up with the large wc and double dosing? I just want everything to be perfect for my future tenant and if I gotta stay patient and wait, then so be it.
Thanks again!!

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Water changes dilute things. In a normal fishless cycle they are not often needed. Mostly we do them when the cycle gets messed up and we need to do a reset. So what you need to be doing here is:

whenever you test and ammonia is .25 ppm or lower and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, it is time to add another full ammonia dose (Dose #4) and then test in 24 hours.

If ammonia and nitrite both read 0 ppm, you are cycled. Do a large water change, be sure the water is the proper temperature, and add fish. The odds are this will not be the case quite this soon.

If ammonia and nitrite do not both read zero, continue to test daily. Whenever ammonia is again at .25 ppm or less and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, add the full amount of ammonia (Dose #5) and test


Yes- if you read back I actually posted that you needed to be at fewer than 20 drops. It has to do with tanks not holding the volume of water equal to their size. I believe in the states tank volume is based on the outside dimensions, so the glass is included. The we do not gfill our tanks to the max. which means one more drop would overflow. Further, anything solid we add to the tank reduces the volume of water the tank can hold, This includes the large stuff like substrate, wood and especially rocks. But also equipment and even plants.

For lightly adding things figure the tank hold 10% less water than the size and a little more decor and it easily reaches 15%. In some cases it can be even more. In a 5 gal. tank using 4 drops per gal. that is 20 drops. But a 5 gal tank likely golds more like 4 gals. So that comes out to more like 15 or 16 drops/addition. This should produce a reading using the API kit of about 2.6 ppm or a tad more.

For most tanks that should be enough to get it cycled. But, for those folks with high pH water, ammonia becomes more toxic. So to be safe most fishless cycling uses 3 ppm. It provides protection if you have rift lake water params.

For your tank it was likely possible to use less ammonia. But, it is not possible to write fishless cycling directions where they change based on the tank parameters. It would leave most folks starting out tearing out their hair. But as i keep saying, it is better to be over cycled than under cycled. the difference in time is not all that great, maybe an week and a bit longer.

Cycling sounds more daunting that it actually is. The biggest problem most folks have is they stall the cycle. The cause is too much nitrite which is caused by dosing too much ammonia at one time and/or dosing ammonia too often. And newe folks are not aware that when we test if the result is at the highest number one the scale on the card, which is 5 ppm for API, that doesn't mean there is just 5 ppm. It could be 8 ppm but the test stops at 5.

The only way to check the result is to do diluted testing which require pure water. So, what I set out to do with the cycling article here was to make a system which made it impossible to reach a level of nitrite high enough to cause issues. The scientists call this level for either ammonia or nitrite as 5 ppm as nitrogen. For the API nitrite test 5 ppm as nitrogen translates to about 16.3 to 16.5 ppm. But the API kit only goes up to 5 ppm for nitrite. So, for one to know if that 5 is the real level or it is actually much higher means doing diluted tests.

The cycling method here was designed to make it impossible to reach the 16+ ppm level for nitrite. So even when the test reads 5 and is actiually 10, it doesn't matter in terms of stalling the cycle. However, it does matter for those who still cycle with fish. The other side of this coin is that one can deal with high nitrite without doing a water change. Chloride blocks nitrite from entering the fish as the chloride competes with the nitrite. The neat thing about this is you can get the needed chloride from ordinary salt- sodium chloride.

This is all laid out in the two articles on rescuing a fish in cycle gone wild.

I can also admit to not being perfect. I wrote the cycling articles in 2013. I have learned a lot more since then. The snack dose during cycling is a single dose used to insure the ammoina bacteria do not slow down or die back over a short time period. It did not occur to me that some new folks might have to wait for some time after cycling before stocking. Most of us could not wait to be able to add our first fish. So I wrote things the way I did.

I am about to email one of our site Mods to change that part of the article to read as I wrote in my prior post. I need to thank you for bringing this to my attention. This change should make sure that those folks who may have to wait to stock to know that they can do so and not lose any bacteria. Thank-you for having pointed this out.

 

[Essjay]

Just so that everyone knows, the fishless cycling article has now been changed as TwoTankAmin has requested

 

[Coolysd]

Hey y'all.
I am fishless cycling my 5gal and I'm using Dr. Tim's Ammonia and today is day #19.
Day #1 added 20 drops of amon and it stayed at 4 until day #5 (in the AM) it was at 2. I added 4 drops and that night it was back to 4, nitrite 0.
On day #12 amon still at 4 and nitrite showed up at .25.
Day #13 amon 4, nitrite .50, nitrate showed up at 5.
Day #14 Amon 4, Nitrite 2-5, nitrate 5.
Day#15 amon 2, nitrite 5, nitrate 10.
Day #16 amon 2, nitrite and nitrate at 5. I added 5 drops of ammonia.
Day #17 amon 0, nitrite and nitrate at 5. I added 15 drops of ammonia.
Day #18 (AM) amon .25. nitrite and nitrate at 5. I added 20 drops of amon. That evening (last night) amon 1, nitrite 5, nitrate 20.
This morning (day #19)
Amon 0, nitrite 5, Nitrate 20. Did a 50% WC and then added 20 drops of amon. And so tonight amon 1, nitrite 5, Nitrate 5-10.
So having 0 amon this morning and adding a full dose, then to only have 1ppm this evening, should I add another dose or do I wait?
I have read the cycling thread here several times for reference, but it seems like this tank is on a different schedule. I know every tank is different, however I'm kinda lost right now and not sure how to proceed moving forward.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted y'all to have all the info. This is the first time I have cycled a tank this way, and to be honest, I am finding it very interesting. It kinda gives me a sense of pride as well. Can't wait to shop for my Betta!! Here's a pic.
TIA y'all!! I appreciate you!!

UPDATE:
Happy fishkeeper here! 5g is fully cycled and has it's first temporary tenant! While I had originally planned the tank for a Betta (which still may happen in the future) right now it's being used as a quarantine tank for the newest member the fam.
I popped in my lfs to maybe get a couple of plants for my 75g. Well, that and to get in a lil fish therapy (yes it's a thing lol). This one tank had a beautiful male Flame Dwarf Gourami, a few glass fish (I think) and a couple dozen fancy guppies. The entire time I was there, about 30 mins, the guppies kept attacking him over and over!!
It was making me so mad! So guess who is in my newly cycled QT? Yep! Still working on a name for him, feel free to throw out some suggestions if y'all want!