Update On My Cycle!

[tibby25731]

woo! Well i have done a 25% change today and a bit of a vac. I have removed my donated filter sponge as it looked gross and it was slowing down the filter flow a little. I've given my own filter sponges a quick swish in old tank water to get rid of some gunk and the filter is much better now. I hope I don't create a mini-cycle... but I will keep a close eye on my reading in the next few days! The bacteria should be able to grow to replace what were on the donated sponge anyway, right?

oh and my tap water seems to contain no nitrates, so i am gonna go for the once a week small water change i think!

 

[Gillymore]

Me and my lad are in a pseudo surreal fishless cycling state. We started, (with good intent) about 15 days ago for a fishless cycle but for about the first week we didn't know how much ammonia was in the tank!! Yep..the rest is more add and wait method whotsit.

We think that we may be near to cycling....but have yet not registered a Nitrite spike, (unless we missed it).

Current water stats.............

Ammonia......0.5 ppm
Nitrite...........0.25 ppm
Nitrate..........10 ppm

Still...we are undaunted....we WILL carry on!!

 

[waterdrop]

tibby, Sounds good! From my reading it has always sounded like once you have nice solid established populations in your media, they can make "come-backs" quite rapidly, just like they are good at populating other new filter media if moved.

gilly, A little hard to follow your story as it jumps around but it sounds like you two are still solidly in the first phase where you are watching to see when the "green finally fades to clear yellow" (ammonia finally makes it to zero and can be topped back up to 5-6ppm) and for "that light purple to suddenly go deep purple" (nitrite to spike). There will be slow production of nitrite (thus the light purple) along the way and slow production of nitrate too, although no point in measuring it really. I wish more were known about what parameters optimize nitrite-oxidizer growth!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[tibby25731]

Well i will take readings tonight when I get home... after a week of only testing at night, I completely forgot to check on things this morning, I just looked in on the fish and popped the light on as usual and all seem fine. Hopefully everything will be OK.
Now I just need a NEW TANK, a bigger one!

 

[waterdrop]

If you knew what tank you were going to get and get some appropriate filter sponges and just put them in your existing tank next to the filter or air stone, would they colonise over a few weeks. You could then put them in your new tank when you eventually got it.
Would this work??

Hi 2excitedkids,
Looking back it appears we missed commenting on your question here in Tibby's thread.

You will see a lot of discussion about taking parts or all of the media of -well-matured- filter media and either putting it over into a new filter or putting it in a new tank in order to introduce lots of the right kind of bacteria to that tank.

That is -not- the same thing as what you are proposing. Hanging some appropriately sized sponges in an existing tank and hoping they would be colonized would not be efficient I don't think -- it would happen eventually but the speed would be glacial. The bacteria we all hope to have for our biofilters would much prefer a constantly moving stream of fresh highly-oxygenated water -- the bacteria want that constant supply of ammonia or nitrite washing steadily over them along with fresh oxygen.

(There are even other parameters that are worried about in detail in microbiology labs that culture these bacteria, like light quantities and pH ranges and such, but it is a bear trying to find out about those things and for the most part they are not too important to know about for the practical cycling formulae imo.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[2excitedkids]

If you knew what tank you were going to get and get some appropriate filter sponges and just put them in your existing tank next to the filter or air stone, would they colonise over a few weeks. You could then put them in your new tank when you eventually got it.
Would this work??

Hi 2excitedkids,
Looking back it appears we missed commenting on your question here in Tibby's thread.

You will see a lot of discussion about taking parts or all of the media of -well-matured- filter media and either putting it over into a new filter or putting it in a new tank in order to introduce lots of the right kind of bacteria to that tank.

That is -not- the same thing as what you are proposing. Hanging some appropriately sized sponges in an existing tank and hoping they would be colonized would not be efficient I don't think -- it would happen eventually but the speed would be glacial. The bacteria we all hope to have for our biofilters would much prefer a constantly moving stream of fresh highly-oxygenated water -- the bacteria want that constant supply of ammonia or nitrite washing steadily over them along with fresh oxygen.

(There are even other parameters that are worried about in detail in microbiology labs that culture these bacteria, like light quantities and pH ranges and such, but it is a bear trying to find out about those things and for the most part they are not too important to know about for the practical cycling formulae imo.)

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks for that, I'll scrap that idea then. Already thinking of bigger tank when money allows so will probably use one of current sponges. Will the old tank have a mini cycle when you replace an old for new sponge then??

 

[waterdrop]

If you knew what tank you were going to get and get some appropriate filter sponges and just put them in your existing tank next to the filter or air stone, would they colonise over a few weeks. You could then put them in your new tank when you eventually got it.
Would this work??

Hi 2excitedkids,
Looking back it appears we missed commenting on your question here in Tibby's thread.

You will see a lot of discussion about taking parts or all of the media of -well-matured- filter media and either putting it over into a new filter or putting it in a new tank in order to introduce lots of the right kind of bacteria to that tank.

That is -not- the same thing as what you are proposing. Hanging some appropriately sized sponges in an existing tank and hoping they would be colonized would not be efficient I don't think -- it would happen eventually but the speed would be glacial. The bacteria we all hope to have for our biofilters would much prefer a constantly moving stream of fresh highly-oxygenated water -- the bacteria want that constant supply of ammonia or nitrite washing steadily over them along with fresh oxygen.

(There are even other parameters that are worried about in detail in microbiology labs that culture these bacteria, like light quantities and pH ranges and such, but it is a bear trying to find out about those things and for the most part they are not too important to know about for the practical cycling formulae imo.)

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks for that, I'll scrap that idea then. Already thinking of bigger tank when money allows so will probably use one of current sponges. Will the old tank have a mini cycle when you replace an old for new sponge then??

Can't tell which of two questions you are asking.
If you take only 1/3 of mature media (1/3 ceramics, or cut 1/3 sponge with scissors say) then the 2/3 left in old tank should keep it from mini-cycling but it needs to be watched closely.
If you are asking whether a tank will cycle due to replacing entire bio-media (sponge or ceramics) with a new one, then yes, great way to greatly upset your cycle. Its important to understand what constitutes your entire bio-media in your filter. If it has multiple types, say, ceramic rings + ceramic pebbles + sponges, then you would have more to work with for a cloning procedure of course.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[tibby25731]

Well, removing the donated filter sponge has not affected my stats, whoopee! Looks like I am all done. Now i just need a bigger tank for my favorite fish... my common pleco! Though he is still only about 2, 2 1/2 inches long at the moment... I better get sorted though!

 

[waterdrop]

good for you tibby! you can stop worrying about these water things for a while and start enjoying the fish!