Small Tank Fishless Cycle

[Tropicoll]

Fishless Cycle Day 18 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
10 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 1830 - 11.5 hours after adding ammonia.
Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 5
Nitrate: 5-10 good.gif although, strangely this still hasn't gone up yet...

Nothing added, nothing taken away. Fingers crossed the Nitrite level will be down by the morning.

 

[Bojangles]

Fishless Cycle Day 16 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
10 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 1830 - 11.5 hours after adding ammonia.
Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 5
Nitrate: 5-10 good.gif although, strangely this still hasn't gone up yet...

Nothing added, nothing taken away. Fingers crossed the Nitrite level will be down by the morning.

Looking good mate

Looks like we are at the same stage of cycling

 

[Tropicoll]

Thanks Bojangles! I think your mature media you added proves that it helps the cycle along though. I started from blind and am on day 19 now. So:

Fishless Cycle Day 19 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
10 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 0630.
Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 40 - thankfully

Added 1.25 Ml ammonia.

So, I finally have movement on the nitrates too. Ammonia is processing in 12 hours (ish) and Nitrites in 24. Come on you NBacs you can do it in 12!


Nitrite is rising and my filter is slowing - got some crud in there I think. I want to do a water change to sort the filter (wash the pads in the old tank water. Will it be ok?

Oh, and I currently have the air attachment on the Fluval 2+ to aireate the water. Do I need it? It keeps stopping even when the flow from the filter is ok. Should I remove it and get an airstone?

 

[waterdrop]

Had a review of the thread and it certainly is looking good. You have enough plants that they will be making the nitrate readings be unpredictable, so I wouldn't worry about them. Cleaning a filter during that latter stages of fishless cycling can be done, if done extremely gently in tank water, but it is not desirable as the structure of the bacterial colonies is still very fragile and probably more bacteria get washed away than later when the colonies are anchored better. If the filter is truly getting slowed down then probably you will need to disassemble it just enough to see if you can find a blockage. If you can find a little leaf or something and solve it without having to squeeze out the sponges that would be the luckiest result.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Tropicoll]

Hi WD, thanks for the response. I (carefully!) took the filter apart (Fluval 2+) and discovered that I have a black filter pad in there. Is this one of the carbon type filter pads? Temporarily it has been removed from the the filter but I have left it in the bottom of the tank. Should I remove it completely at some point and replace it with a second white pad?

I have taken a short video with my mobile phone and uploaded it to youtube as I am a little concerned about a couple of things. I'm sorry, it's crap, but it's here: http/uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WpXKiWNtp1Q - if I need to re-shoot it please let me know.

1. Is the flow now too strong? I know that there's a filter pad missing which will not help but the filter is currently turned to minimum flow and seems to be absolutely belting out.

2. In the video on the right there is a red plant that is the same as the one on the back. Do you reckon this is dead? Can you see the movement on the leaves? If so, should I pull it and replace it?

3. On the left of the thank next to the broad leafed plant there is a tiny one with brown stems. You'll see that there is new growth in the tips. This was beautifully green when I got it but turned brown (I think) because I hadn't put plant food or fertiliser in. Both are now there. Does this stand a chance or should I pull that too?

 

[Tropicoll]

Well, 12 hour tests are as follows:

Fishless Cycle Day 19 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
10 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 1830 - 12 hours after addind ammonia.
Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 1
Nitrate: 40

Well, having sat and stared at the plants for a couple of hours I am now pretty sure I am going to pull the long dead plant on the right of my tank. I tried to do another video but can't get it off the phone right now. The pocket camera is on charge and will try more photos. If that doesn't work then I'll have to break out the dSLR.

 

[Tropicoll]

Today's tests.

Fishless Cycle Day 20 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
10 plants (1 dead), 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 0730
Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 40

Added 1.25 ml ammonia

Fishless Cycle Day 20 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
9 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 1900 - 12 hours after adding ammonia.
Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: .25
Nitrate: 80

I removed the wavey plant from the video, turned round to put it in the bin, it fell apart in my hands and then went "splat" all over the floo (laminate thankfully!)

I took some decent (ish) photos too. Hope you like 'em!

 

[Bojangles]

Love your tank that would look nice beisde my pc

Might i ask where you get it from mate?

 

[Tropicoll]

Thanks! Funnily enough, that's exactly where mine is sitting! A 45 degree turn of my head and there it is. Fabulous!

Embarrasingly, I bought it from Pets At Home although I can't see it listed on their website.

It's a Clear-Seal 54 litre (CS106): http/www.clearseal.com/aquariums_shaped_first.htm

 

[Bojangles]

Thanks! Funnily enough, that's exactly where mine is sitting! A 45 degree turn of my head and there it is. Fabulous!

Embarrasingly, I bought it from Pets At Home although I can't see it listed on their website.

It's a Clear-Seal 54 litre (CS106): [URL="http/www.clearseal.com/aquariums_shaped_first.htm"]http/www.clearseal.com/aquariums_shaped_first.htm[/URL]

Cheers for link

Think i might have a pop over p@h over the weekend to see if they have a 9 gallon one would be a nice tank for a male fighter

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Trop,

Wrote you some stuff but then my lame laptop keyboard lost it. Just hoping the charcoal sponge wasn't too big a percentage of the filter as it would have also been some of your biofilter. About what percentage of the total media do you think it was?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Tropicoll]

Hi WD, thanks for the reply.

In the Fluval 2+ there are two main filter pads, one on either side which "catch" the incoming water. In the instruction booklet it said that the carbon filter was optional along with a white pad to sit in the middle of the filter. would hazard a guess that the carbon filter (which is still in the tank by the way, just not in the filter) makes up about 20% of the total media.

Taking this out has (obviously) made a huge difference to the water flow and test results (which I'll update and post a little later) don't seem to have changed to much with ammonia and Nitrites still processing in 12 hours.

I haven't been able to do much as I have damaged my thumb and been told to rest it for three to four weeks. Doing this shtuff with one hand is pretty bloody difficult!

 

[Tropicoll]

Fishless Cycle Day 21 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
9 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 0730
Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 80

Added 1.25 Ml ammonia

Repeat above results (without adding ammonia) for the 1900 hrs test

Fishless Cycle Day 22 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
9 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 0730

Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 80

Added 1.25 ml ammonia. (test showed 4 ppm after 1 hr)

Thought I'd do a test at 2.5 hours too to see what happened:

High PH 7.8
PH 7.6
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 1
Nitrate back down to 40???

Is that good? To be processing the Ammonia and nitrite that quickly I mean? Can the results be believed?

 

[waterdrop]

On the face of it, that's looking very good, especially considering that 21 days is kind of special for the add&wait method, being technically the start of when you see good non-mature-media-added fishless cycles sometimes be completed (bignose did a science section thing about it I believe.)

We managed to get you doing a great job with reporting your day, tanksize, plants and stats. The other thing that would help would be reporting the time differently. Everyone seems to want to report the time of day when the did the test but that is not particularly useful to us observers from various places. The most useful thing instead is simply the rough rounded number of hours from when ammonia was added. (eg. instead of "Test Time 730", put "Tested ~12H from amm add" or such.) Likewise, reporting the number of ml s of amm added, while not a bad thing, would be better with "(~4ppm)" after it. Or, of course, in your case the times when you tested it an hour later are great, they're the best (but not saying you have to do that every time by any means!)

Tank is looking really nice. I'd offer advice about the plants but alas I'm feeling like a new beginner myself with plants and currently struggling with seemingly mountains of conflicting information and methods and usually end up feeling silly in the advice I give. One thing for sure, having -more- plants never seems bad. So when you lose one, as per one of your pics, I'd make plans to not only replace it but maybe bring in more. Seems that at about 70% substrate coverage (as an extremely crude measure) you get a very real advantage of the plants themselves out-competing the algae for nutrients. Your rooted plants (eg. more sword-like ones) will often benefit (esp. since no fish & lighter stocking to begin) from root fertilization tabs inserted below them in the substrate. Seachem makes some that are nice and slow to break down and there are probably better ones too. Eventually you might want to be thinking about easycarbo or flourish excel as a carbon source. Since its a little tank this might work well. All that stuff depends if you want to get into worrying about that side of things, as I hesitate to complicate things for you, esp. as I'm not the best advisor for it by any means, lol!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Tropicoll]

Thanks WD for taking the time to reply.

Whilst not lax in tests (up to last night/this morning), I have been seeing the same readings at each test:

Day 23-24
Ph 7.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40

Day 25 is a little awkward. I had to run to work this morning and didn't test or add the ammonia like I should have done.

However, tonight's test has come back exactly the same.

Fishless Cycle Day 25 on 54L/11.8 Imp Gallon (14.2 US Gal) Tank:
9 plants, 1 small skull decoration, 1 small bogwood, no extra chemicals, apparently 1 snail!
API Master Liquid test kit

Test time 1815 - 35 hours (ish) after last adding ammonia.

Water Temperature 25 deg C

Ph 7.8
Ammonia: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrite: 0ppm good.gif
Nitrate: 40

I have topped up the ammonia and will test at 1915 and then (hopefully!) every hour until I go to bed around midnight and try and log the results.

I had a chat with my Dad (a long time former fishkeeper) the other night and he told me not to worry too much about the plants. The Cabomba has grown almost 1.5 inches in height since I planted it and although I'm losing leaves (2 per plant) from the twisted vallis the others seem to be doing ok. Of course, there's minimal nutrients in the (gravel) substrate and none of the plants I bought had roots...

Next update 1930 ish