Oneonion's First Fishless Cycle
- Thread starter OneOnion
- Start date
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Are you watching your pH OneOnion? Just realized we're not seeing pH measurements there and have not heard you mention them?
~~waterdrop~~
~~waterdrop~~
No, actually I'm not measuring pH... I'll start measuring pH now, then. Also, do you think it's ok to not test nitrate until the end?
SidTheSquid
New Member
Hi, OneOnion!
I'm going through the cycling process also.
After reading your equipment list, I thought I'd pass on a bit of information I was given with regard to filters.
You're using the "Top Fin 10 Power Filter" which, as you can see from the chart below, will turnover the water in your 10Gallon, approximately, 8 times/hour.
Top Fin® Power Filters:
MODEL.......................Tank Size.......................Flow Rate
Power Filter 10........Up to 10 gallons........80 GPH
Power Filter 20........Up to 20 gallons........100 GPH
Power Filter 30........Up to 30 gallons........150 GPH
Power Filter 40........Up to 40 gallons........200 GPH
Power Filter 60........Up to 60 gallons........300 GPH
As you can see, their other filters turnover at the more normally expected 5x/hour.
The advice I've gotten is that (especially with a filter with a small sponge) the water turnover should be turned down to 2 or 3x/hour to enable the bacteria to take a hold in the filter media. With a higher water turnover the bacteria are being forced through at such a fast speed, and under such force, that it is difficult for colonisation to begin.
Once the cycling is complete, and the water reaches normal parameters, the flow may be increased.
This may not be the problem in your case but could be worth a try if you haven't thought of it yet.
Hope that makes sense.
I'm going through the cycling process also.
After reading your equipment list, I thought I'd pass on a bit of information I was given with regard to filters.
You're using the "Top Fin 10 Power Filter" which, as you can see from the chart below, will turnover the water in your 10Gallon, approximately, 8 times/hour.
Top Fin® Power Filters:
MODEL.......................Tank Size.......................Flow Rate
Power Filter 10........Up to 10 gallons........80 GPH
Power Filter 20........Up to 20 gallons........100 GPH
Power Filter 30........Up to 30 gallons........150 GPH
Power Filter 40........Up to 40 gallons........200 GPH
Power Filter 60........Up to 60 gallons........300 GPH
As you can see, their other filters turnover at the more normally expected 5x/hour.
The advice I've gotten is that (especially with a filter with a small sponge) the water turnover should be turned down to 2 or 3x/hour to enable the bacteria to take a hold in the filter media. With a higher water turnover the bacteria are being forced through at such a fast speed, and under such force, that it is difficult for colonisation to begin.
Once the cycling is complete, and the water reaches normal parameters, the flow may be increased.
This may not be the problem in your case but could be worth a try if you haven't thought of it yet.
Hope that makes sense.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
OneOnion: Its only at the beginning of a fishless cycle that you can get away with only measuring ammonia and nitrite and it no matter much. As you get farther in to the process it can become interesting to get an occasional peek at pH and nitrate(NO3).
We know that a pH of 8.0 through 8.4 is the ideal pH level and that as we move off of that peak, the growth rate will slow somewhat. The falloff is gradual down through 7 but is getting steeper after that, with the process coming to a standstill as we pass below 6.2. The rate is important too. The more quickly we drop pH, the more the bacteria seem to be shocked into inaction, whereas if they sit at a low pH for a long time they may begin to do some processing again, though not as vigorously.
Nitrate, as a feedback tool is complicated by the difficulty of getting the tool to work! The liquid test is difficult to make work right mostly in that the second reagent doesn't store well on the shelf, not staying mixed. The shaking instructions need to be followed fully or even exaggerated. Even if our reagents are working right, the feedback can be hard to interpret as NO3 can get absorbed by plants and the test can mess up if there is also nitrite present. Still, nitrite can do a couple of valuable things: it can confirm sometimes that we are getting through to the end of the nitrogen cycling process. Even more important, we sometimes see our tank getting up in the NO3=160 level or so in the third (last) phase (after nitrite spike phase) of fishless cycling and that tells us the nitric acid component may be slowing down N-Bac development, making a large water change in order, to hopefully refresh the fishless cycling process.
By the way, Sid's comments about the little Topfin 10 are instructional because they illustrate one of the fundamental problems facing an aquarium filter designer: Two very desirable parameters are in conflict with each other. The designer wants high a high flow rate overall (the more times the water goes through, the more it will be filtered) BUT, the faster it moves through the media area, the less well it will be filtered. It needs to be slowed down enough that the filtration functions can take place effectively, namely that debris can get caught and that the colonies can establish their biofilms and use ammonia and oxygen effectively. It just costs more money for a designer to accomplish this easily -- the classic solution is simply a much larger media volume -- a big bed of media is very good at slowing down the water and debris but when the water is channeled back together after passing through the media, there's a lot of it, meaning it still represents a high flow rate overall.
~~waterdrop~~
We know that a pH of 8.0 through 8.4 is the ideal pH level and that as we move off of that peak, the growth rate will slow somewhat. The falloff is gradual down through 7 but is getting steeper after that, with the process coming to a standstill as we pass below 6.2. The rate is important too. The more quickly we drop pH, the more the bacteria seem to be shocked into inaction, whereas if they sit at a low pH for a long time they may begin to do some processing again, though not as vigorously.
Nitrate, as a feedback tool is complicated by the difficulty of getting the tool to work! The liquid test is difficult to make work right mostly in that the second reagent doesn't store well on the shelf, not staying mixed. The shaking instructions need to be followed fully or even exaggerated. Even if our reagents are working right, the feedback can be hard to interpret as NO3 can get absorbed by plants and the test can mess up if there is also nitrite present. Still, nitrite can do a couple of valuable things: it can confirm sometimes that we are getting through to the end of the nitrogen cycling process. Even more important, we sometimes see our tank getting up in the NO3=160 level or so in the third (last) phase (after nitrite spike phase) of fishless cycling and that tells us the nitric acid component may be slowing down N-Bac development, making a large water change in order, to hopefully refresh the fishless cycling process.
By the way, Sid's comments about the little Topfin 10 are instructional because they illustrate one of the fundamental problems facing an aquarium filter designer: Two very desirable parameters are in conflict with each other. The designer wants high a high flow rate overall (the more times the water goes through, the more it will be filtered) BUT, the faster it moves through the media area, the less well it will be filtered. It needs to be slowed down enough that the filtration functions can take place effectively, namely that debris can get caught and that the colonies can establish their biofilms and use ammonia and oxygen effectively. It just costs more money for a designer to accomplish this easily -- the classic solution is simply a much larger media volume -- a big bed of media is very good at slowing down the water and debris but when the water is channeled back together after passing through the media, there's a lot of it, meaning it still represents a high flow rate overall.
~~waterdrop~~
pjandnoo
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So just to clarify something, as we are are both roughly at the same point in the cycle waiting for the nitrite spike to subside. Are we still meant to keep adding ammonia to keep the little ammonia bacs fed or just leave it alone!!!??
Thanks for all of the replies! I didn't get to test this morning because I woke up late and was late for school. Anyway, with the filter, are you guys saying that I should switch to a different filter? And, waterdrop, thanks, I'll start testing nitrite every 24 hours.
SidTheSquid
New Member
I had a look at the Petsmart website and it says that the "Power Filter 10" is the only model that isn't adjustable, for flow...
There's certainly nothing wrong with using it, and it's their recommended model for your size Tank, so I don't think it's necessary to change it but if the fast flow is a contributing factor to your problem then perhaps you can find a way to "adapt" it - perhaps by using some extra filter floss to try and slow the flow as waterdrop says?
Or, temporarily, reducing the size of the intake pipe?
You'd have to watch it carefully, after making any adjustment, to make sure that whatever you'd done wasn't stressing the motor or anything.
There's certainly nothing wrong with using it, and it's their recommended model for your size Tank, so I don't think it's necessary to change it but if the fast flow is a contributing factor to your problem then perhaps you can find a way to "adapt" it - perhaps by using some extra filter floss to try and slow the flow as waterdrop says?
Or, temporarily, reducing the size of the intake pipe?
You'd have to watch it carefully, after making any adjustment, to make sure that whatever you'd done wasn't stressing the motor or anything.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
(off-topic) Gee, several posts to address. Wish I could ever figure out whether that button labeled "multiquote" was of any use but have never found it referenced in the Help for IPBoard and its never been helpful when I've experimented with it. Anybody know how the darn thing works?
(on-topic!) pjandnoo: Yes, in fishless cycling you just keep right on plugging away with the adding of ammonia despite all our ravings about "phases" and "spikes" and the like
. We can be very distracting to beginners though we don't mean to be. 
The basic rule is that ammonia level tells you when to add ammonia. If ammonia has dropped to true zero ppm any time in the previous 24 hours then you should add a large enough squirt of ammonia to bring it back up to 4-5 (normally) ppm at your "add-time." Even if you are testing for ammonia twice a day at the 12 and 24 hour marks, you should still only ever add ammonia on your established 24-hour mark, even it ammonia measured zero ppm at the 12 hour mark. The reason is to reduce overall additions of nitrogen into the cycling.
OneOnion: I was not suggesting that you switch filters. I was simply trying to take advantage of the "learning moment" to keep your education about good filtration moving forward so that when the time comes that you might be getting a new tank and could afford a better filter, you'd have more information to help you know what constitutes better filter design.
Sid: There's not usually a good way to "make up" for a bad filter design. Stuffing it more tightly carries the risk of burning out the motor or simply slowing the flow rate so much that its less effective at cleaning the tank. The "slow" that I was referring to was not the overall filter flow rate but the internal rate within the media, which are different specifications. Now, I'm not saying that a little strategic adding of some extra fine filter floss might not work out to improve things a bit (careful experimentation should always be a part of being a good hobbyist, right? ) But I'm not sure it would help a lot. Also want to say, like I said to onion, that I don't mean to be calling this design "bad" necessarily. Luckily the powerful magic of a biofilter is pretty flexible, as many of mother nature's systems are, so a lot of good can happen even in a less than ideal device.
~~waterdrop~~
(on-topic!) pjandnoo: Yes, in fishless cycling you just keep right on plugging away with the adding of ammonia despite all our ravings about "phases" and "spikes" and the like
. We can be very distracting to beginners though we don't mean to be. The basic rule is that ammonia level tells you when to add ammonia. If ammonia has dropped to true zero ppm any time in the previous 24 hours then you should add a large enough squirt of ammonia to bring it back up to 4-5 (normally) ppm at your "add-time." Even if you are testing for ammonia twice a day at the 12 and 24 hour marks, you should still only ever add ammonia on your established 24-hour mark, even it ammonia measured zero ppm at the 12 hour mark. The reason is to reduce overall additions of nitrogen into the cycling.OneOnion: I was not suggesting that you switch filters. I was simply trying to take advantage of the "learning moment" to keep your education about good filtration moving forward so that when the time comes that you might be getting a new tank and could afford a better filter, you'd have more information to help you know what constitutes better filter design.
Sid: There's not usually a good way to "make up" for a bad filter design. Stuffing it more tightly carries the risk of burning out the motor or simply slowing the flow rate so much that its less effective at cleaning the tank. The "slow" that I was referring to was not the overall filter flow rate but the internal rate within the media, which are different specifications. Now, I'm not saying that a little strategic adding of some extra fine filter floss might not work out to improve things a bit (careful experimentation should always be a part of being a good hobbyist, right?
) But I'm not sure it would help a lot. Also want to say, like I said to onion, that I don't mean to be calling this design "bad" necessarily. Luckily the powerful magic of a biofilter is pretty flexible, as many of mother nature's systems are, so a lot of good can happen even in a less than ideal device.~~waterdrop~~
SidTheSquid
New Member
Sorry, Waterdrop; must be getting tired and misread your meaning.
The idea of modifying the filter was taken from a tip i found on an American site and (as Onion's filter appears to be what they call a "hang-on-back" filter and very popular, over there) I thought that it must be accepted practice.
Sorry if I've made a mistake and mislead anyone.
Just goes to show you can't accept everything on the Web as being right...
Thanks for putting me straight.
Night, everyone!
The idea of modifying the filter was taken from a tip i found on an American site and (as Onion's filter appears to be what they call a "hang-on-back" filter and very popular, over there) I thought that it must be accepted practice.
Sorry if I've made a mistake and mislead anyone.
Just goes to show you can't accept everything on the Web as being right...
Thanks for putting me straight.
Night, everyone!
Waterdrop: I think you press the "multiquote" button on the posts you want to quote, and then press 'add reply'. 
I was just making sure if it would be ok at least until after the cycle, but I'm already getting an Aquaclear 20 for Christmas. And, whoa. I didn't know you should only add ammonia at the 24-hour mark. I'd Better start doing that, then.
I was just making sure if it would be ok at least until after the cycle, but I'm already getting an Aquaclear 20 for Christmas. And, whoa. I didn't know you should only add ammonia at the 24-hour mark. I'd Better start doing that, then.
The 30% will be better than nothing to help the pH. It will add in about 1/3 of the available buffer from your tap water. In general, we don't do small changes like that on any fishless cycle. If you need a water change in a fishless cycle, why not just change it all?
Ok. Well, if that happens again, I'll change all the water.
D
Deleted member 55926
Guest
This happened to me too, and after following OldMan's advice, I simply added a couple of teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda (buy from a supermarket) and it brought the pH back up.
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