Peter's Fishless Cycle Diary

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Nitrate(NO3) is the end product of the Nitrogen Cycle process. Getting it is a good thing during cycling (at least until it gets too high, like maybe 160ppm, when you'd need a water change.) Read the Nitrogen Cycle article again in the Beginners Resource Center, it begins to make more sense as you're actually doing your cycle. The real value of this process is in the learning, not in just getting your tank cycled for the first time.

Also, as the nitrate goes up, it will have a small nitric acid component and that will try to use up your buffer and cause a pH drop. If pH drops too much the cycle can stop. In your case, since you've now got KH measurements, it makes it easy for me to tell you that with a KH=9 you may hardly have to worry about pH dropping at all. A high total alkalinity like that will be a good buffer.

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[peter1979]

Also, as the nitrate goes up, it will have a small nitric acid component and that will try to use up your buffer and cause a pH drop. If pH drops too much the cycle can stop. In your case, since you've now got KH measurements, it makes it easy for me to tell you that with a KH=9 you may hardly have to worry about pH dropping at all. A high total alkalinity like that will be a good buffer.

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cool, so i will test the pH tonight out of interest to see what is going on there.

Another question, would adding more gravel now, or even once the cycle is over, be a problem? or, even changing the entire substrate?

 

[waterdrop]

You can work on your substrate to your hearts content. The only thing important in fishless cycling is that you basically leave the filter intact (where the bacteria are building their biofilms!) and that after you do your substrate or water changes or whatever else you want to do in the tank, you refill with conditioned and temp matched water and recharge your ammonia (and baking soda if you're having to use that.)

The bacteria just want to stay wet and 99% of the time to have water coming past them with fresh ammonia, fresh oxygen and the tiny bit of calcium and iron that tap water brings with it. They do die if they dry out and they don't like light, but the light isn't a big deal.

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[peter1979]

things seem to be taking shape now. Nitrtite has dropped and tomorrow hopefully it will be down to zero, fingers crossed.

Im thinking of getting my plants sorted out now. Just ordered a CFL set up off ebay, so i will see what its like when its here, and this should give me a bit more brightness for plant growth.

 

[peter1979]

ACCIDENT DAY


nightmare today. Got some new rocks delivered and decided to redo my hardscape. I removed about 70% of the water so i could have a good change around and added a load of washed gravel. I then added my rocks and rescaped the whole thing. I topped back u with water and started the heater up and the filter. For some reason the filter stopped working and so i took it apart and layed about with it, but nothing would happen. It was 5pm and my LFS is about 40 mins away and its rush hour, so i drove like a maniac to get it sorted. Meanwhile my filter media is in the water in my tank at home.

I managed to get it swapped and tested my water and it looks like things arent too good, ammonia is up around the 4ppm mark and the H is much lower, i will test my ta water to see whats going on.

A question i have is that i do not have another heater and i have read that water heat needs to be matched for water changes, can this be with warm water from the hot tap, i should i invest in a new heater?
Is it likely that by adding cold water to the tank i have damaged or killed off the bacteria from my filter media?

what a nightmare day!

 

[peter1979]

just rechecked my ammonia twice since my last post and it is back to zero. Weird. maybe i messed up the first test.

 

[peter1979]

cycle journal updated. Since my water change 2 days ago my pH has been much lower (was 8 - 8.2 now 7.4) so i checked the tap water and it has changed. Is this normal for tap water pH to change? I guess 7.4 is a good value for the fish i want though so im fairly happy, but a little worried that a swinging ta water pH could be bad news for fish during water changes?

Ordered my plants today from a couple of online suppliers;
java moss
flame moss
java fern
anubias nana var.
crypto wendtii
dwarf hair grass

I probably wont use all of these but i will see what they are like when here. I will try and upload some pics now i have sorted my camera out.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, tap water parameters -can- vary over time, even though its not often the usual thing. Large rains in early spring or snow melt can be factors or farm runoff. Water authorities also sometimes overdose chlorine/chloramine to control elevated bacterial findings in their pipe systems, so there -are- possible variables. On a practical level though, most of us do not have the time or patience to test our tap water for every single water change. It just would be good if you could make yourself do some sort of testing pattern and record it in your aquarium notebook over time I suppose.

Don't forget that test results obtained during fishless cycling should not be used to make judgements about what your water will likely be like once you start keeping fish. The "bacterial growing soup" of a fishless cycle causes all sorts of differences to the water that will be different when you have fish.

Am I correct that you appear to have had your first double-zero at 12 hours? That would normally mean you could consider starting your qualifying week but in your case, since you had the "accident" and we are still so close after that, that I would continue to just go along for a bit before assuming you are ready for the qualifying week. Its not clear in your log whether you use an am or pm ammonia-add.

Great plant choices! All very good low-light plants I believe and will be fun to see how they do. You have the right attitude too, I believe, just get various plants (I mean study the types and try, but..) and see how they do in your tank and how you like them. Then get more after you lose or don't care for some of those. In my case the Crypt. Wendtii "melted" from my Flourish Excel (liquid carbon) dosing and lost all its leaves, but I left the root/crown in there and after a while it sprouted all new leaves and has been good for a couple years. Its been a bit worse lately though but I don't know why. Java ferns can also suffer their own sort of shock but will come back.

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[peter1979]

i am doing my ammonia adding in the pm. You are right, i have now ad 2-3 days of double zeros (am and pm). Things are looking good. I should have my plants and extra light this week, then off to cornwall the following week and and my way back im going to pick up some endler's livebearers.

 

[waterdrop]

I'm going to take that as 2 to 3 days rather than 23 days of double-zeros. We've had one other current thread (Nork) where the cycle went very fast and he is now having trouble with a nitrite spike -after- getting fish. Since your fishless cycle has gone so quickly I recommend you do a good long qualifying week of perhaps even more than seven days to make sure you don't have another spike waiting. I don't mean to mess up a nice plan but the down side would be if you found youself having to fish-in cycle!

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[peter1979]

Whoops! typo edited!

Im away this sunday which should make it a 9 day qualifying week. If things go pear shaped before then i will cancel my trip the LFS in cornwall on my way home, but if it goes according to plan its too good an opportunity to miss not going to this place, but i will reconsider it closer to the time. All was normal again this morning.

 

[waterdrop]

OK, good luck!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[peter1979]

ANOTHER ACCIDENT


Ok so Posted another thread about this, but to briefly explain, day 22 and a few days into my qualifying week i noticed my tank base bad cracked. I have had 4 problems with the tank in 3-4 weeks so i called the LFS and arranged a refund.
Before i took it back i bough a new tank

Wave Cubo 30

Transferred the media and water and planted with the plants that arrived the day my fluval edge broke down (again).
took te old tank back and said good riddance to it.

So my new tank has been planted and running now overnight, i have added ammonia and it seems like the cycle is for the most part going ok. I have postponed any idea of fish for a couple of weeks clear cycling test results. We'll see what happens. For the record i am much happier with the new tank, its larger and easier to access. Cheaper too, and takes up less ground area.

 

[waterdrop]

OK, very smart to just keep on cycling and logging. You want to find out if the transfer of the bacteria "takes" and settles back in to performing like it was doing before. Most of the time a transfer will go ok, but there are those times when for some reason the bacteria don't like it. It will be obvious, whichever way things turn.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[peter1979]

everything seems ok at the moment. I have been browsing the planted section and reading in there about not doing a fishless cycle if you have a planted tank. My tank is pretty well planted now, and i dont want to keep adding ammonia if it creates a huge growth og algae. I will add it for the next 2 days until im away, then i will probably get me some fish. Once i have introduced them i will probably do 30-50% water changes for a couple of weeks and keep an eye on things.