It really is not all that unusual for the first drop all the way to zero to take as much as 2 weeks. Once it has moved that far it seems to speed up rather quickly though.
Oneonion's First Fishless Cycle
- Thread starter OneOnion
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waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Agree with OM47, its not at all uncommon for the first drop to zero to take more than two weeks.
If we graphed "week of first drop to zero" among all our beginner cases" I'll bet it would peak between 2 and 3 weeks. A fair number of cases might start between the first and second week, then it would peak after two and start dropping to fewer cases that start at 3 weeks and it would drop to only a handful of cases that take more than 4 weeks. Of course memories are notorious for distorting real data.. I wonder what the graph would look like if I'd -actually- jotted down that data ever since I started watching cases here
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I sometimes speculate that that very first quick drop, like the one we see here in OneOnions case of 4ppm dropping right away to 1ppm but then not really going any futher for days and days is really not about bacteria. I speculate that when you first put the initial 4ppm of ammonia in, there are other places the ammonia can hook up, other things for it to combine or attach to, to some more or less fixed extent. If that were true, it would explain why the disappearance of 3ppm initally, was not sustained day after day.
~~waterdrop~~
If we graphed "week of first drop to zero" among all our beginner cases" I'll bet it would peak between 2 and 3 weeks. A fair number of cases might start between the first and second week, then it would peak after two and start dropping to fewer cases that start at 3 weeks and it would drop to only a handful of cases that take more than 4 weeks. Of course memories are notorious for distorting real data.. I wonder what the graph would look like if I'd -actually- jotted down that data ever since I started watching cases here
.I sometimes speculate that that very first quick drop, like the one we see here in OneOnions case of 4ppm dropping right away to 1ppm but then not really going any futher for days and days is really not about bacteria. I speculate that when you first put the initial 4ppm of ammonia in, there are other places the ammonia can hook up, other things for it to combine or attach to, to some more or less fixed extent. If that were true, it would explain why the disappearance of 3ppm initally, was not sustained day after day.
~~waterdrop~~
YES. Ammonia's at 0! I added 4 ppm.
Can I have different species of these gourami together? I'm planning on having 2 dwarf gourami, 2 honey gourami, and 2 pygmy gouramis or 2 dwarf gourami, 2 honey gourami, and 6 ember tetras. Would that work?
Can I have different species of these gourami together? I'm planning on having 2 dwarf gourami, 2 honey gourami, and 2 pygmy gouramis or 2 dwarf gourami, 2 honey gourami, and 6 ember tetras. Would that work?
Whoa. Ammonia at .5 already, and I just added yesterday. I guess it's working! Anyway...
Bump:
Bump:
I am not sure on the gouramis, I focus mainly on livebearers, but I am certain that you will see the ammonia disappear even faster in the next few days and you can expect the nitrites to explode right off the chart in what we call a nitrite spike.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
I'm not sure on your gourami question either, even though I've kept about all the types. Probably when I was younger I had multiple gourami species mixed in tanks but I was not as good an observer back then and I don't remember now whether there were aggression problems. I do know that the male dwarf would probably be, potentially but not guaranteed, more aggressive than the female dwarves, the male honeys or the female honeys. I don't know about pygmys. Gouramis do tend to stick with their own species and are a bit territorial. Each of the species would be wanting its own corner of the top surface for building bubble nests and to them their might be one corner with more plants and less water flow that would be more ideal and therefor they might fight over it. The more common stockings I've seen are ones where a pair or trio of gouramis are the only gouramis in the tank. In very large tanks gouramis, some of the larger types, are sometimes mixed with much larger fish but that's of course a very different type of tank than yours. I will say that Honeys will probably be much less aggressive than dwarves, so if you decide to drop down to one gourami species and could stand to lose the bright coloration of the dwarves then the honeys would be the best community tankmates I think and in a home tank situation you might find their coloration more interesting than would appear in the store of course, as with many fish. I don't know the max size on embers, do you?
~~waterdrop~~
~~waterdrop~~
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
You are clearly in the "Nitrite Spike" phase of the fishless cycle. These generally last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks and there's no predicting what time you'll come out of it. These are very boring even from the measurement standpoint because you keep getting "5," right? That's because 5ppm is usually the highest a typical test kit can measure, so even though the real reading is probably much higher than 5ppm during most of the nitrite spike, the "5" reading is all you'll see.
So, to hopefully remove your confustion about what's next, usually what happens is you just keep seeing 5ppm for nitrite(NO2) for a long time and then all of a sudden one day out of the blue you'll get 1ppm or 0ppm, you just never quite know because what's really happening is that the excess nitrite curve is suddenly heading sharply downward (say from 8ppm to 0ppm) and your test will just happen to catch it in the middle of that somewhere or after its already happened.
Then a lot of people experience it "bouncing around wildly" for a few days with all sorts of readings between 5ppm and 0ppm and then it settles down to steadily clearing nitrite to zero ppm within 24 hours after ammonia was added. So the next goal then is to hope that it starts clearing the nitrite(NO2) in LESS than 24 hours, getting closer and closer to clearing it in 12 hours.
Of course that is getting you to the final goal where both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) are cleared from 5ppm ammonia to zero ppm ammonia and nitrite(NO2) at the 12-hour test. The day that that happens you get to start your "qualifying week." The final qualifying week you just hopefully watch it clear both ammonia from 5ppm down to "double zeros" (zero for both ammonia and nitrite) each day and if it can do it all week then you are completely done and ready for the big water change and getting fish.
That final week is of course simulating what you want your biofilter to be doing for your tank day after day from then on until you break the tank down or die and leave it to your kids. The reason we want it to manage 5ppm at the end of the fishless cycle is because we've learned that this creates a really robust pair of bacterial colonies that won't "mini-cycle" on you (mini-cycling is where you get traces of ammonia or nitrite showing up because the colonies weren't quite mature enough yet) for the first few weeks or months of having real fish.
~~waterdrop~~
So, to hopefully remove your confustion about what's next, usually what happens is you just keep seeing 5ppm for nitrite(NO2) for a long time and then all of a sudden one day out of the blue you'll get 1ppm or 0ppm, you just never quite know because what's really happening is that the excess nitrite curve is suddenly heading sharply downward (say from 8ppm to 0ppm) and your test will just happen to catch it in the middle of that somewhere or after its already happened.
Then a lot of people experience it "bouncing around wildly" for a few days with all sorts of readings between 5ppm and 0ppm and then it settles down to steadily clearing nitrite to zero ppm within 24 hours after ammonia was added. So the next goal then is to hope that it starts clearing the nitrite(NO2) in LESS than 24 hours, getting closer and closer to clearing it in 12 hours.
Of course that is getting you to the final goal where both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) are cleared from 5ppm ammonia to zero ppm ammonia and nitrite(NO2) at the 12-hour test. The day that that happens you get to start your "qualifying week." The final qualifying week you just hopefully watch it clear both ammonia from 5ppm down to "double zeros" (zero for both ammonia and nitrite) each day and if it can do it all week then you are completely done and ready for the big water change and getting fish.
That final week is of course simulating what you want your biofilter to be doing for your tank day after day from then on until you break the tank down or die and leave it to your kids. The reason we want it to manage 5ppm at the end of the fishless cycle is because we've learned that this creates a really robust pair of bacterial colonies that won't "mini-cycle" on you (mini-cycling is where you get traces of ammonia or nitrite showing up because the colonies weren't quite mature enough yet) for the first few weeks or months of having real fish.
~~waterdrop~~
Ah, so it's actually above 5 PPM, but the test just doesn't have a color for that. Thanks, that was very well explained.
Is it okay that I change the substrate from sand to gravel right after the cycle is finished, during the 90% water change part, or will this ruin it? I don't want to start over x____x . Also, from advice given to me earlier in this thread, I'm also switching filters to an Aquaclear 20 after the cycle, but all the media from the old filter will be transferred to the Aquaclear. Will that combined with the substrate change have any major effects on the cycle? Thanks.
Is it okay that I change the substrate from sand to gravel right after the cycle is finished, during the 90% water change part, or will this ruin it? I don't want to start over x____x . Also, from advice given to me earlier in this thread, I'm also switching filters to an Aquaclear 20 after the cycle, but all the media from the old filter will be transferred to the Aquaclear. Will that combined with the substrate change have any major effects on the cycle? Thanks.
Bump
The substrate change can be done at any time. I think I would actually do it before the cycle is finished, that way you won't be disturbing your new fish with a substrate change and hey can settle into their new home right away.
As long as the media is transferred to the new filter, it should hold together as a cycled filter. Again, if you intend to make the change, why not do it before you declare the tank cycled, that way any bobbles will happen before you add in the fish.
As long as the media is transferred to the new filter, it should hold together as a cycled filter. Again, if you intend to make the change, why not do it before you declare the tank cycled, that way any bobbles will happen before you add in the fish.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
That was exactly what I was going to say before I even scrolled down and saw OM47's post. The perfect time would be prior to the end of the cycle and to do both at once. Get the new AC20 in hand and ready one weekend, then change out the substrate and load up the new filter with the old media and continue with the cycling.
Any time that media is moved from one filter to another there is a small chance it will have a bit of trouble for a while, so its much better to do that in the context of the fishless cycle while testing and watching it a lot.
~~waterdrop~~
Any time that media is moved from one filter to another there is a small chance it will have a bit of trouble for a while, so its much better to do that in the context of the fishless cycle while testing and watching it a lot.
~~waterdrop~~
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Yes, Planaria are a common harmless visitor sometimes during the later stages of cycling...
WD
WD
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