Tank Cycle Log

[pirate monkey]

I'm not new to the hobby, but I'm starting a fishless cycle on my new tank so thought I'd do a log on here, mainly so I've got a permanent record somewhere!

I'm using 'Add and Wait' method as detailed in pinned topic
Tank is Juwel Trigon 350l (76 ukg)
play sand (about 30kg)
seeded with mature media from 96l community tank (about 1/8 total media)

Base line tests
pH 8.0
NH3 0 ppm
NO2 0 ppm
NO3 0 ppm <--- odd 'cos it was about 20 ppm last time I checked!

Day 1 Sun 13/04 9.30pm
Filled tank with water
Added 5ppm (18.5 ml) ammonia
Day 2 Mon 14/04
realised I'd added no dechlorinator when I filled the tank (filled via hose)
Added dechlor
Added more mature media and bogwood from community tank


Day 3 Tues 15/04 9.00pm
NH3 <8ppm
NO2 0
nothing happening, so worried I'd added too much ammonia, so 10% water change (all I could manage on my own lol!)

Went away for a few days...

Day 8 Sun 20/04 9.00pm
NH3 >4ppm
NO2 <0.25ppm

yay tank has started to cycle!

Day 9 Mon 21/04 9.00 am
NH3 >4ppm
NO2 0.25ppm

Day 10 Tues 22/04 9.00 am
NH3 4ppm
NO2 1ppm

Day 11 Wed 23/04 am
NH3 2ppm
NO2 2>5ppm

Day 12 thurs 24/04 am
NH3 1ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 20ppm

added 1ppm ammonia (~3ml)

pm (tested again cos I'm impatient and wanted to see how quickly the ammonia is being processed lol)
NH3 ~0.5ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 20ppm

Day 13 Fri 25/04 7.00 am
NH3 0ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 20>40ppm

added 2ppm ammonia

7.30pm
NH3 0.5ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 10ppm <----- nitrates have dropped since yesterday!! blink.gif (checked twice to make sure)

Day 14 Sat 26/04 8.15 am
NH3 0ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 5ppm <------ nitrates have halved again since yesterday!!

Added 2ppm ammonia

Added wood roots and silk plants, 30 % waterchange

9.00 pm
NH3 0
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 didn't test

Day 15 Sun 27/04 8.30 pm
NH3 0
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 10ppm

Added 2ppm ammonia

 

[waterdrop]

Sure is nice to have mature media, isn't it?

A small comment and a small thought:

Re: it being odd that a tap water parameter changed:

With some water authorities it can pay to re-measure your tap water parameters when you do water changes because they are unable to hold their parameters steady or make changes to the water coming down the pipes. Colin mentioned this one time - makes sense esp. if you are paranoid.

Re: forgetting to put in the dechlor:

This sounds like a small thing but is probably very common. If you use something like grid paper for some sort of table format for your log, its easy to have checkboxes for the adding of both dechlor and ammonia during fishless cycling and there are just times when you'd like to know whether you remembered to actually do them!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[pirate monkey]

Thanks, waterdrop!

I did wonder if the tap water parameters changing must be due to something like that, It's changed for the better though! No doubt it will change again in the future.

It was such a stupid thing to do with the dechlor - this is our fourth tank, and you'd think by now I'd remember it, normally I fill the tanks with buckets, and the dechlor goes in first, but I couldn't even face pouring that many buckets in the tank so thought the hose would be easier... Oh well you live and learn. At least I'm cycling now!

And thanks to your experience will keep a close eye on the pH, but our water here is so hard and alkaline I don't imagine it will drop to below 6...

And yeah it is a help when you've already got mature tanks to steal media from. I plan to add a bit more mature media each week, but the filter in the mature tank is a lot smaller than the new one, so I don't want to take too much in one go, or I'll end up with mini cycles there!

I think I will set myself a check grid for my tanks, that's a brilliant idea, thanks!

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, your pH will no doubt be stable. My thoughts tend to be ever colored by the shock of finding out our water is 0 to 1 - extremely soft - from what I've read this is fairly rare.

Re the fishless section of your logbook: If you used some sort of clip-ring notebook, you could just edit a perfect couple of lines of fields in your word processor and then cut/paste that line or lines all the way down the page and then print several pages and all the little fields and checkboxes would be there waiting for you. There are checkbox symbols in some of the common fonts on most machines these days.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[pirate monkey]

Day 11
Wed 23/04 am

NH3 2ppm
NO2 2>5ppm

Day 12
thurs 24/04 am

NH3 1ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 20ppm

added 1ppm ammonia (~3ml)

pm (tested again cos I'm impatient and wanted to see how quickly the ammonia is being processed lol)
NH3 ~0.5ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 20ppm

turns out the ammonia is being processed fairly quickly.

I was surprised to see nitrates at that level this morning as the base test was 0ppm and I only saw nitrites for the first time on tues!

Should I now be putting in low amounts of ammonia so the nitrites don't build up, or should I be topping up to 4ppm and getting it to process in 12hrs before I drop to 2ppm?

 

[pirate monkey]

Day 13 Fri 25/04

7.00 am
NH3 0ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 20>40ppm

added 2ppm ammonia

7.30pm
NH3 0.5ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 10ppm <----- nitrates have dropped since yesterday!! (checked twice to make sure)

Day 14 Sat 26/04

8.15 am
NH3 0ppm
NO2 >5ppm
NO3 5ppm <------ nitrates have halved again since yesterday!!

Added 2ppm ammonia

When I got home from work yesterday, the electrics had gone off in the house... turned everything back on when I checked the timers on the lights on the other tanks it appears the electric had gone off around 9am, I got in about 5pm so thats 8hrs that the filters weren't running. All tanks with fish in were fine, but will this have affected my cycle?

Can't understand how the nitrates have dropped as there is nothing to process the nitrates, and I haven't done a water change...

 

[pirate monkey]

Updated results - consolidated them all in first post.

Nitrates are on the rise again!