Tom's Fishless Cycle Log

[FishyWishie]

I noticed you said "I cleaned my tank out as the Wife wanted a new theme & gravel so it is & 100% water change with the filter out of the tank so any bacteria were quite safe."

Did I read your initial post correctly and your using a filter than was previously in operation in a tank? If you are this would explain things happening so fast as the bacteria within the filter would be giving you a pretty good jumpstart.

 

[Aqua Tom]

I noticed you said "I cleaned my tank out as the Wife wanted a new theme & gravel so it is & 100% water change with the filter out of the tank so any bacteria were quite safe."

Did I read your initial post correctly and your using a filter than was previously in operation in a tank? If you are this would explain things happening so fast as the bacteria within the filter would be giving you a pretty good jumpstart.

Yes that is exactly right. The filter was in the tank when I tried to do a fish in cycle (unsucsessfully). So i kept the filter media safe while I water changed etc.

 

[FishyWishie]

Ah that makes sense then.

Despite your cycle not fully completing it will have some bacterial colonies which explains why were seeing drops in ammonia and nitrite getting converted into nitrate. It wont instantly cycle but it should mean your looking at a shorter time frame than a complete from scratch cycle with no colonies.

 

[Aqua Tom]

Right, did a 15% water change today on the advice of waterdrop on my PH thread.

Results as follows.

Ammonia --- 0.6ppm
Nitrate --- 50ppm
Nitrite --- 0.3ppm
PH --- 8.5

Temp 84f

 

[Aqua Tom]

I still think you have carbon dioxide in your tap water. When it leaves the tap water, your pH will rise since carbon dioxide dissolved in water makes carbonic acid (which in turn makes your pH show lower than it actually is). To test this for sure, draw a cup of water from your tap and let it sit in a cup for 24 hours. After the 24 hours test the water in the cup. If it has risen, then you have carbon dioxide in your tap water.

Ok I drew off a cup of tapwater & tested it. Then left it for ages & tested it again.

26/10/10 01:36 hrs PH --- 7.5

Left for over a day.

27/10/10 08:30 hrs PH --- 9


Conclusion, the PH has jumped quite a lot in a glass cup sitting undisturbed for 31 hours.




???

 

[drobbyb]

That means that you have carbon dioxide in your tap water. This is a common thing.

 

[Aqua Tom]

Checked the Ammonia at 8pm last night it was 4.9ppm.

Checked again this morning at 6am & it was 2.4ppm


PH has dropped to 8, probably due to introduction of bogwood.

 

[Aqua Tom]

I have read the bigineers resource article on fishless cycling a few times now & cannot find a clear explanation of the "qualifying week", I believe it is an extra week added to the end of the cycle to reduce the risks of mini-cycles in the new tank.

Is it a week of just letting the tank do its own thing or do you keep adding Ammonia?

I know I am nowhere near this stage yet but can someone please enlighten me further?

 

[Aqua Tom]

Added more information to OP

 

[waterdrop]

The idea of the qualifying week is just that once you finally get your first double zeros at 12 hours, its best to then continue to dose the tank daily for another week and make sure it repeats those 12 hour double-zeros, telling you that it will absolutely do that same thing with fish in there. And its not necessarily a full week, the idea was for it to just be the better part of a week, assuming you are doing final planning for a fish-buying weekend sort of thing. WD