Hi nicnak and Jeff,

You have posted directly under the "pinned article" for fishless cycling. No problem, but I think RDD and the other experts only look here occasionally. There is much more discussion activity if you post down in the "New to the Hobby" forum I think.

Meanwhile, I'll take a start at your questions:
nicnak: Sorry to hear those bacteria don't seem to be playing by the rules, mine are not always giving me back good signs either! Your story is a good example of why it is also recommended that "fishless cyclers" continue feeding in the daily ammonia and testing for another week or so even after they think they have finished the process successfully. To find that one or the other of ammonia or nitrite again won't drop should not, I believe, change your behaviour. However, when fishless cycling, a large water change is usually more effective than a small water change - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with changing out all the water except what's sitting in the filter and then bringing your ammonia back up to somewhere between 2 and 4ppm level (after all, its not the water you are cycling, its the filter!)

Jeff:
Sorry to hear about your problems - you are a good example of why nearly all those supposed cycling products are almost always worthless. They are worthless in so many ways - usually continuous refridgeration was lost somewhere along the way and the funniest one of all is that they probably have the wrong species of bacteria anyway! Or some of them are just effectively ammonia and not nearly as much ammonia as one would need to cycle a filter!

Plants love ammonia (at least in any of the quantities your fishless cycling would get up to) (and by the way, your starting upper ammonia level should be kept pretty closely between 4-6ppm (not 7-8ppm where a wrong species could start to develop)) Plants will even eat some of that ammonia and sometimes will absorb nitrates, convert those to ammonia and eat that! There is indeed some feeling that live plants might aid in fishless cycling as they (or technically, the biofilm and water film they carry into the aquarium) may be an "introducer" of the two good bacterial species we want. But note that this is pure speculation and aquarium systems are also cycled with pure ammonia and no live plants. Which plants has to be your choice. If you search TFF, there are lists of "easier" plants for beginners and even lists of plants best for cycling but I don't remember exactly where I've seen that.

"Speeding up cycling" is of course the "64 thousand dollar question" as we say in the states because everyone would love to know! Speed of cycling is very, very different in practice for real people (even though the theory can show that 21 days should be a sort of predictable time.) I have read what appear to be honest reports of TFF members who, all told, took 8 weeks for their fishless cycle, mistakes included etc.

[IMO the "randomizers" of time include the highly variable initial introduction of the starting bacterial population (after all, you are indeed relying on a few of the right bacteria to "be there" in your tap water (and indeed they are!), and the highly variable combinations of water parameters that people have in their tap water and tank environments and then their significantly variable actual behaviours with respect to testing, ammonia introductions and water changes etc.]

OK guys, if this was too boring to read, just move on over to "New to the Hobby" and keep asking questions. Luckily there are all sorts of members willing to communicate the info in many ways and one way is bound to suit you!

~~waterdrop~~ (recently returned to the hobby and having fun!)

Thanks for that waterdrop
luckily all went well and im now cycled

just starting on my 4 footer now

This post has been edited by nicnak: Apr 12 2008, 02:49 PM

Hi all, I have just started cycling my Trigon 190. My inital base line tests from the tap came back as:

PH: 6.8
Ammonia: 0.25

I have API test kits and have hopefully added enough Ammonia to take it to 5ppm however the colour card goes from 4ppm to 8ppm so its a little bit of guess work.

Is it normal for tap water to show traces of Ammonia?

Thanks Waterdrop for your help and advice, I will do a little research on the plants. Been cycling for 7 days now. This morning water was a little clowdy and tested for nitrite. Yea a 1.0 reading so I think the cycling has begun I will try to follow the directions from this post as closely as possible letting the ammonia go down to 0 before adding to 4-5 ppm again. I also am using the API test kit and the ammonia card only goes to 4 & 8. It seems you have to guess a little but my guess would be better a little less than over in the ammonia department?. anyway maybe in 3 weeks or so my cycling will be complete, and thanks again for all the help from the forum. Great to get advice as a noobie as this looks easy but seems like it can be a little complicated, at least for a noobie.

Yes guys the colors between 4 and 8 are guesswork and Jeff is right that being a bit low is usually better in most all the stages of adding back ammonia. You get very used to hitting the 4 or tweeking it maybe a few hints darker. I call 8 the "evergreen" color and have never seen it that dark - its good to avoid as a wrong bacterial species likes 8 and will slow down your cycle (at least this is the word on the street!)

Yes stormy, fairly common to see trace ammonia in a water system, esp in farm country or the UK I think from bits seen here on TFF. You can also get a trace of ammonia if your system uses chloramination instead of chlorination and you test after using a dechloramination product. The product will separate the ammonia from the chlorine and it appears on your test. Its not significant as far as your fishless cycling goes (during fishless gets lost in all you are adding, after cycling your filter will take care of it.)

I suggest you move your cycling questions over to the "New to.." forum.

~~waterdrop~~

There is actually an ammonia calculator in the Aquarium Calculator at the top of the screen. I have now added a link to it to the original post on here so people don't have to guess about the amount. As a general rule though, 1 ppm will raise 5 gallon of water to about 5 ppm.

I try to keep an eye in here and usually subscribe to th thread but if there aren't any new posts in 4 days, it purges the subscription.

Does this look ok to other forum members so far? The ammonia just seems to be holding steady and the nitrIte is not budging. Any tips or advice would be cool. Thanks! I'm using API test kits.

Day 5 (Thursday 16th April)

Tested Ammonia at 6pm
Ammonia: 1ppm
NitrIte: 5ppm (Deep purple)
I didn't test for PH

Would Walgreen's brand clear ammonia work? I forgot what the ingredients were. But I can take a quick picture of it later on during the day.

Thanks!


Edit: Walgreen's Clear Ammonia does not work. I shook the bottle, and it foamed.

This post has been edited by gumby: Apr 29 2008, 09:07 PM

Hello to all,

I have 2 tanks going with the fishless cycle, 1 with the add daily method-20 gal, This formula is from another source, due to finding it first.

The 2nd tank is a ten gal. with the add and wait method from this site.

I have a couple of questions for you.

First of all, here is the set-up:

10 gallon - 9 gallons of actual water capacity = water is from water change from 2 other tank with debris from gravel cleaning
top fin filter - with a whisper 10 filter bag - carbon removed - from a cycled tank
2x2 sponge - from cycled tank
heater - 82 degrees
1lb pound gravel - from cycled tank
1 medium cave/ornament - from cycled tank
3 very small terra cotta pots - from cycled tank
8 medium sized rocks - from cycled tank
Test kit - API freshwater master test kit

Readings from night of set-up: 04/26/08

brought ammonia level up to - 4.0
nitrIte - Was .50
nitrAte - was 20
Ph - 7.8
hardness - 150
alkaline - 180

Readings 04/28/08:
amonnia - 4.0
nitrIte - .50
nitrAte - 20

Readings 04/29/08:
ammonia - 4.0
nitrIte - 1.25
nitrAte - 20

Readings 05/01/08:
ammonia - 1.0
nitrIte - 1.0
nitrAte - bright red - no color match to color card

Due to work schedule, missed a couple of days of testing.

questions:

1) Do I add ammonia, to bring up 4.0? or wait until levels drop to 0

2) The nitrAte level, do a water change, to bring down to readable level?


Now if you dont mind have a question in regards to the 20 gal tank.

I have readings of:

ammonia - 1.0
nitrIte - 1.0
nitrAte - bright red - no color match to color card


Would it be possible to do an complete water change and add fish to the tank?

The reason for this question, I just had 3 mollies give birth in another 20 gal, now way overstock? Tried to put most of them in fry keepers but there are over
200 of them. 200 is what we put in the fry keepers= over full, there are still alot in the main tank.
I will leave the remainder in the main tank and let nature take its course

So I need to to house the fry, the keepers are impeding the feeding & water changing of the main tank. (4 of them)

Thank you for your time.

Christine

Your article rocks rdd1952, kj23502 and waterdrop reccommended it 2 me, IT ROCKS THANKS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH

I'm going to start a fishless cycle and want to make sure the ammonia I bought is good to use.

I got it from a grocery store and it just says it's all-purpose ammonia. Under the ingredients it lists:

Active Ingredients: Ammonium Hydroxide (contains no phosphorus)

Will this work?

thanks,
Matt

drsoda007: could you change the font on your post to something a bit smaller it looks way too big and I'm sat about 1m from my screen with the resolution on 1440x900!!

This post has been edited by iankent: May 22 2008, 03:52 PM

Do i test my ammonia reading on the day i first add it?

i would, just to make sure you've achieved the level you want (so if your adding enough to get 5ppm, check you've got 5ppm about 20 minutes later), although I suppose on the first day its not particularly important - just nice to know!

I have a question, Instead of adding ammonia and doing that whole process, why not just add the bacteria??

Hi Molly,

If it were only that simple. The problem is that the bacteria need food to live. You can buy the bacteria in a bottle products but none of them seem to work. The problems is that they are subjected to sch temperature extremes while traveling in trucks and sitting in warehouses. They see temps well below freezing in the winter and over 150 in the summer in those trucks. Even in a warehouse, it's not unusual for the temperature near the ceiling to be well over 100. So first, they see to much extreme temperatures and second, they have no food in the bottle so over time, they die off. It's even been debated whether those products actually contain the proper bacteria in the first place.

There are a couple products that do seem to work for some. Those are Bio-Spira in the US and Bactinettes in the UK. But even those get very mixed reviews.

The simplest way is to clone a tank. Simply move media from an existing tank into the new one. The bacteria are on he media so you basically have an immediately cycled tank. That's fine if you have other tanks but if you're new to the hobby, you don't usually have that option unless you know someone that can give you some media.

Okay, So I bought bacteria from Petco. I looked in the bottle very closely and saw little specs. Does that mean the bacteria are still alive?? What food does the bacteria eat?? I have fish in the tank that poop and there must be some left over flakes somewhere. Do they eat that? Or does only the "Bad" bacteria eat that. Well If the bacteria I put in the tank worked.. would I have an immediately cycled tank??

(OK, hang with me here and read it twice if you need to )

It generally takes from 3 weeks to 3 months to cycle a tank/filter. The reason we use the word cycle is because the process goes round and round - the teaching charts to describe it use little arrows making a circle. The fish poo (and the waste from them breathing with their gills, isn't that cool!), the leftover flakes and any broken off plant parts will float around in the tank, then there are these tiny invisible bacteria that are everywhere in the water and reproduce really fast which we call heterotrophic bacteria -- anyway, these guys gobble up all that stuff and create ammonia from it, so then there is ammonia moving around the tank. The ammonia is food for some completely different types of bacteria called autotrophic bacteria -- these guys reproduce much more slowly and anchor themselves to all the hard surfaces, especially the media inside a filter where fresh water, ammonia and oxygen are flowing past, giving them the perfect environment they like. There are two species of these that we fishkeepers want to grow in our filters. The first species likes to eat ammonia and starts growing as soon as the ammonia is there. I'll call them A-bacs (for Ammonia-eating bacteria) and they change the ammonia into nitrite (nitrite with letter "I", has symbols NO2.) The second species likes to eat those nitrite (NO2) and produce nitrates (nitrate with letter "A", has symbols NO3.) I'll call them N-bacs (for Ni