Need Help With Fishless Cycle

[Marclau]

O'K, it's take 2 after nearly 3 years..........

After 3 weeks, and a constant daily check the Nitrate was finishing the Ammonia after 12 hours.

However, now after 3 weeks (and over the past couple of days) it now takes around 24 hours to get ammonia down to around 1ppm after adding 25ml 6 hrs before.

The thing is that now my Nitrite is also stuck on 2ppm and Nitrate is still sitting also on 40..........

How long to go before my Nitrite will start to reduce...........?? I understand that a water change will be needed to reduce the Nitrate......

Any ideas on what may be happening with the Ammonia and Nitrite??

thanks in advance

 

[drobbyb]

It depends on many factors. Usually 2 to 3 weeks under good conditions. Can take longer especially if your pH falls too low and stall's the cycle. It's important to test.

 

[fatheadminnow]

You need to check you pH, it seems like your pH might of crashed, and that could completely stall a cycle.

In the meantime I would do a 50% water change.

Check you pH and post back on here.

-FHM

 

[Marclau]

You guys/gals are legends.............silly me.........

I simply didnt top up the water lost from condensations and didnt bother to read Ph..........dropped to lower then 6. My API kit only goes down to 6 and was different colour.

I have topped up the tank with straight tap water (25%) and added Bicarb Soda to increase Ph levels..........

I waited about 15 minutes and done another reading with the new stats:

Ph 7.6
Amm 4ppm
Nit 2ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

I will check again in around 3 hours and post if stats are different...........

Should this now trigger the cycle to continue??

 

[Marclau]

O'K 3 1/2 hours later and here are my new test results using API Master liquid Test

Ph 7.6
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 0 (actually the colour is not even on the card....sort of pinkish light brown)???!!!
Nitrate 40

How come now my Nitrite is different colour??

Help please

I've now added more ammonia and will test again in about 8 hours..........(tomorrow morning)

 

[fatheadminnow]

Yes, bringing your pH back up with allow the bacteria to continue on.

Is the nitrite sort of a gray color?

If so, this would indicate that your nitrite reading is off the charts.

-FHM

 

[Marclau]

Thansks for your reply......
Yeah it starts of sort of clear grey then after 5 minutes it has a pinkish brown tint to it.

O'k after another 8 hours the test shows Ammonia down to 2 and Ph 7.6.
Nitrite is as mentioned and Nitrate is somewhere between 40-80 on API tests......

Have added ammonia again and will test in 12 hours.............

Do you think my cycling is back on thrack and the Nitrite spike is as should be?

 

[pammy172]

I think you're testing too often - you need to test no more than 12 hourly and tbh unless you're clearing ammonia and nitrite within 24 hours you only really need to test at 24 hourly intervals. Once it is clearing them within 24 hours then you should test at 12 hour intervals. BUT do test your ph more regularly if it has a tendency to drop which is not uncommon and will cause a stall.

The nitrite test if off the scale will turn purple immediately you put the drops in - ie as the solution hits the bottom of the test tube, without you shaking it. If it does then don't bother shaking or waiting 5 mins, you're wasting your time. It's off the scale and there's nothing you can do other than wait 24 hours. Once you hit the pale blue in 24 hours - which might take a couple of weeks you can test 12 hourly to see that baby blue colour.

Are you also putting in too much ammonia? If your solution is 9.5% then 25 ml is far too much for the tank you have. To get to 5ppm you need approx 14ml for 270 litres of water. Could be something else for you to consider.

hth

 

[fatheadminnow]

I would still test every 12 hours, since it is 12 hours when we want the ammonia and nitrite to be at zero, not 24.

-FHM

 

[Marclau]

Thanks for the reply.........

Ok new readings 12 hours from this morning.....

Ph 7.6
Amm 1
Nitrite Off the scale.the minute the drops hit the bottome, dark purple........when shaking test tube is purple brown.....
Nitrate 40


Not sure about strenght of ammonia......In Australia its called Cloudy Ammonia. I need to put in around 25ml to raise my Ammonia back to 4 (from 1.0) .......I did try less fortnight ago but it only slightly increased my ammonia levels.......it also only takes around 12 hours to go back down to 1 so I need to check every 12 hours to keep feeding it the ammonia.......

 

[OldMan47]

Cloudy ammonia has soap in it. If you carefully shake a well capped bottle of it there will be obvious soap bubbles on the surface. It is not what you want to use. If they call that stuff cloudy ammonia, there is probably another bottle called clear ammonia which is what you would want. If you have made good progress using cloudy ammonia, you will need to rinse out the whole tank thoroughly before adding any fish to the tank. Soap can be very hard on fish and the product you have been using is adding soap every time you dose it.

The best guess for a bottle of ammonium hydroxide, aqueous ammonia, that has no concentration marked on it would be about 10%. The concentrated lab grade is only about 35 or 40%. Try experimenting with a known volume of water in a bucket and you can confirm the concentration that you have.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Thanks for the reply.........

Ok new readings 12 hours from this morning.....

Ph 7.6
Amm 1
Nitrite Off the scale.the minute the drops hit the bottome, dark purple........when shaking test tube is purple brown.....
Nitrate 40


Not sure about strenght of ammonia......In Australia its called Cloudy Ammonia. I need to put in around 25ml to raise my Ammonia back to 4 (from 1.0) .......I did try less fortnight ago but it only slightly increased my ammonia levels.......it also only takes around 12 hours to go back down to 1 so I need to check every 12 hours to keep feeding it the ammonia.......

Yup, add enough ammonia to raise it up to 4-5 ppm.

You want to add ammonia every 24 hours, not 12.

You just want to test every 12 hours.

So, add ammonia up to 4-5ppm, check 12 hours later to see where you are at. (this is the 12 hours where you want ammonia and nitrite to be zero when the cycle is done).

Then, 12 hours later, check again to see where you are at. This is now 24 hours later, and this is when you want to add ammonia back up to 4-5ppm.

-FHM

 

[Marclau]

Thanks FatHeadMinow..........appreciate it............

Yes, sure enough, Ammonia had dropped back to 0 after 12 hours.........unfortunately, I added ammonia before reading this post hence added ammonia within 12 hours again.
I will now leave it for 24 hours but test every 12 hours.
Ph still 7.6, Nitrite of the charts, and Nitrate is around 40-80ppm....hard to tell on the API colour chart........

Waiting game now.........

 

[waterdrop]

Its not a big deal to accidently add ammonia at 12 hours instead of 24, it just over-contributes to the size of the nitrite spike, since every 1ppm of ammonia produces 2.7ppm of nitrite(NO2.)

Once you know that though, you can drop back to only ever adding ammonia once in 24 hours and only if ammonia went all the way to zero sometime in that previous 24 hours. The bacteria (the A-Bacs in particular) won't starve, in fact it would take them a couple of days at zero ammonia to start showing any measurable die-off.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Marclau]

Thanks for that Waterdrop............I was going to ask about the nitrite spike as a result of overfeeding on ammonia...........you have now confirmed that is does........