New Juwel 96 Tank - Fish/Plants/Cycle Log

[waterdrop]

Its because your N-Bacs are processing nitrite into nitrate much faster now and the nitric acid component of the nitrate in solution is eating up your KH buffering and driving the pH down into the 6's. Neither species of bacteria likes it when the pH gets down there and they don't divide as fast. The response is not linear with colonies of bacteria, so the results you measure will seem to "bounce around" some, thus the ammonia reading where there was none before, in my opinion.

My own feeling is that this problem of excess nitrate (and nitrite too to some extent) is actually kind of good timing in the sense that the fishless cycler can begin to do weekend water changes, deep cleaning the gravel and changing out 90% of the water and then recharging the ammonia and this will be good practice for the weekly habits with the fish that will soon be in there. Usually the tap water will do a good job of raising the pH way back up and the loss of all those nitrogen complexes and the refresh of calcium and iron in the tap water will help to give the bacteria a stimulous. Be sure to condition at 1.5x or 2x what Prime bottle, or whatever dechlor you're using, says and I even roughly temp match, although I wouldn't be surprised whether a little cool burst might not be a good thing actually, but of course none of this stuff has ever been tested.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bushbrother]

Thanks for the (as ever) quick reply I was planning to do a big 90% water change this weekend anyway as the water has gone a bit yucky ... hope this sorts it out ... its nice to see the Nitrites finally nearing 0.

I will update after the weekend when I have done a few 12 and 24 hour tests ...

 

[bushbrother]

Weekend update ...

So the ammonia again on Saturday morning was not at 0ppm so I carried out a 90% water change and double dosed the WC. I then let the tank settle to 27-28 degrees and tested the water ... it was 0ppm for Ammonia and Nitrite (as expected). pH is back to about 7.8.

Then at my usual time in the evening I added 5ppm Ammonia. Sunday morning @ 12hours the Ammonia was 0ppm and the Nitrites were 0.25

@ 24 hours both were 0ppm and so I added my Ammonia again. This morning @ 12 hours the Ammonia was 0ppm and the Nitrites were 0.75-1ppm ... so it is looking good again, do you think Nitrites will reach 0ppm anytime soon? or is that wishful thinking?

 

[waterdrop]

Naw, you'll still be adding ammonia in the year 2015...

 

[bushbrother]

Naw, you'll still be adding ammonia in the year 2015...

Hmmmm I might need to buy some more ammonia then

So yesterdays results were 0ppm ammonia and 1ppm Nitrites @ 12 hours, the double zeroes. Today @ 12 hours I got 0ppm ammonia and 0.25ppm Nitrites.

 

[bushbrother]

This mornings (day 45) results @ 12 hours:

Ammonia = 0ppm
Nitrites = 0.25ppm
pH = 7.8

Still looking good, just wish it would hurry up getting to 0ppm

 

[bushbrother]

Day 46 and the results are even better, @ 12 hours today I have the following:

Ammonia = 0ppm
Nitrite = 0.1ppm (It only changed from sky blue to a kind of gray blue after 2 minutes and is definately not the purple shade for 0.25ppm)
pH = 7.8

I am hoping this will mean next week is my qualifying week so i can get fish the weekend after that, WAHOO!

 

[waterdrop]

Hang in there BB and you'll get there.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bushbrother]

Day 50 today and over the weekend I was getting results for Nitrites from 0.5ppm to less than 0.25ppm, this morning @ 12 hours it was less than 0.25ppm again. Ammonia is always 0ppm.

Does anyone have an idea how long its gonna take from here? after 50 days I am getting a bit frustrated I have read around other fish logs and some people have been waiting for 70 days! I also read that dosing to 5ppm is somewhat "overkill" as a full bioload might only do 3-4ppm ... is this true?

Edit: What's up with the new website? I get a lot of broken images everywhere ...

 

[waterdrop]

No, 5ppm is not overkill. People base those comments as if you are simply trying to "match" the waste output of x number of fish, which is not the case. One of goals of fishless cycling is to grow the two bacterial colonies *with their biofilms* to a "robust" enough level that when the artificial ammonia dosing is stopped and the colonies "drop back" to match the living bioload, they will still have enough structure and hardiness to resist going through a mini-cycle with the living bioload of fish. Its all about robustness.

Full biofilter maturity is not really achieved until about 1 year, so what we are trying to do is find this sweet spot where the filter, which we know is still fragile and new, is nonetheless strong and stable enough to be reliable and all these little tricks for figuring that out are the result of watching many, many failures and successes come through here.

It is very frustrating, I agree, especially if you have the type water chemistry that is one of the 60 to 70 day fishless cycles (we see a lot of those) as opposed to the 35 to 40 day cycles, which we see a lot of too. But those results really will eventually drop to double-zeros, even though it doesn't seem like it now. If you want to only stock 50 or 60% and have waited out the period after the nitrite spike until you are only getting traces of nitrite at 12 hours then I see nothing wrong with going ahead with something like -that- as long as you are prepared to test and change water if the N-Bacs are still having trouble after the fish are in there.

~~waterdrop~~

No, 5ppm is not overkill. People base those comments as if you are simply trying to "match" the waste output of x number of fish, which is not the case. One of goals of fishless cycling is to grow the two bacterial colonies *with their biofilms* to a "robust" enough level that when the artificial ammonia dosing is stopped and the colonies "drop back" to match the living bioload, they will still have enough structure and hardiness to resist going through a mini-cycle with the living bioload of fish. Its all about robustness.

Full biofilter maturity is not really achieved until about 1 year, so what we are trying to do is find this sweet spot where the filter, which we know is still fragile and new, is nonetheless strong and stable enough to be reliable and all these little tricks for figuring that out are the result of watching many, many failures and successes come through here.

It is very frustrating, I agree, especially if you have the type water chemistry that is one of the 60 to 70 day fishless cycles (we see a lot of those) as opposed to the 35 to 40 day cycles, which we see a lot of too. But those results really will eventually drop to double-zeros, even though it doesn't seem like it now. If you want to only stock 50 or 60% and have waited out the period after the nitrite spike until you are only getting traces of nitrite at 12 hours then I see nothing wrong with going ahead with something like -that- as long as you are prepared to test and change water if the N-Bacs are still having trouble after the fish are in there.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bushbrother]

Thanks waterdrop, I will have a think about what you have said carefully. I understand what you are saying though.

 

[bushbrother]

More updates from the past couple of days:

Day 53: Basically it has stayed the same with Ammonia hitting 0ppm in 12 hours but Nitrites staying around 0.25-0.5ppm after 12 hours. I have also noted my pH steadily dropping and has now hit 6.6 and it looks like I am seeing the Ammonia levels rise again as I got 0.5ppm Ammonia this morning

So my question is this, why does my pH drop over a period of 2-3 weeks? Are the high Nitrate numbers the cause? Do they block the A-Bacs from doing their job? And are they killing the A-Bacs?

I was also having a think about pH, am I going to have this "falling" issue when I have fish in there? Is it going to be a big problem or am I right in saying that captive bred fish are quite tollerant to pH levels (atleast the fish I am looking at).

I appreciate any help on this, I guess the best thing to do this weekend is another large water change?

 

[waterdrop]

One rule of thumb I try to tell beginners is to never start judging how the hardness and pH of your finished-filled-with-fish-tank is going to behave based on anything that's going on during fishless cycling. (It isn't completely true of course and often you can learn some valuable things about your tap water during fishless cycling, but in general I think its a better rule to not do it!) Its better to think of the tank water during fishless cycling as just being a special "bacterial growing soup" that may be quite different in water chemistry behavior than that finished cycled tank with fish and plants will be. The finished tank will probably be MUCH more "well-behaved!"

Dumping 5ppm of pure ammonia in on an almost daily basis is generally going to be a much bigger, steadier bioload simulation than what the real system will be experiencing later. The amount of nitrite and nitrate produced is going to be quite large and the small fraction of nitrate that will exist as nitric acid is going to be more significant, so significant that even well-buffered water is likely to begin running out of buffer and lose its steady pH.

Yes, a big water change should give you a lot of fresh buffer and get your pH back up!
Don't forget to recharge the ammonia.
~~waterdrop~~

 

[bushbrother]

OK, so I have changed the water before the weekend, and again the ammonia has processed in 12 hours like before, pH has come up to about 7.6 again and Nitrites are anywhere from 0.1 to 1ppm, it seems to change each day.

So I have been thinking about what you said about doing 60% stocking as I think im getting into a similar position as Doggiebag has with her cycle. I was planning on getting some neon tetras and as they are better after 6 months I thought I could do 60% stocking now for 6 months, then add my neons to bring me a bit higher ... a good idea? I know I have come quite far with this and I really would like to see it end, but it is making me very impatient!

I have this as a proposed stocking list for now, what do you think?

2 x Dwarf Gourami (Is it best to have male and female?)
4 x Corydoras Julii
6 x Dwarf Neon Rainbow
3 x Cherry Shrimp

Advice/thoughts appreciated.

 

[OldMan47]

I think I would up the cories by a couple. The DG are best with no more than 1 male so if you want more than one, the second should be a female. I'm not sure how long the shrimp will last in a tank with fish as big as a DG.