I have been away a while and missed this thread when I've been on. It sounds to me as if you have been cycled for a while. Nitrite will take a little longer to process since 1 ppm of ammonia yields about 2.7 ppm of nitrite meaning the 5 ppm of ammonia turns into about 13.5 ppm of nitrite.

As for the pH drops, I think that will sort itself out once the daily dose of ammonia is gone. Nitrate is acidic so the constant addition of nitrate through the cycling process keeps pulling the pH down. Once you do a large WC, you will be back to basically tap water again and the pH should be fine.

Welcome back RDD! That's interesting - we have had a number of fishless cyclers who have reached the point where ammonia is being processed down from 4ppm to 0ppm in 12 hours or less and their nitrites are close to that but not quite making it within 12 hours. A few of them have gone ahead and done the big water change and stocked with fish and then reported that everything was fine and they saw no ammonia or nitrites at all after getting the fish in.

It sounds like you agree that this is a typical end-of-fishless circumstance? If that's true, it would be reassuring as far as advice to pass along.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. we figure you were burning up the great golf courses

???

it does produce more but surley you should wait until both ammonia and nitrite are processed down to 0 within 12 hrs.

often seems to be a few weeks at the end of a cycle where the last bit of nitrite lingers, but it does drop down eventually.

I think the key is that if the tank is now processing 10+ ppm of nitrite in 24 hours or less, then there is plenty of bacteria present to handle the nitrite produced by a full fish load. I'm sure that eventually the nitrite would process in 12 hours but I'm not so certain that is necessary.

The one key difference between a fishless cycle and a stocked tank is that during a fishless cycle, we are introducing the full 5 ppm of ammonia at once so the bacteria have to kick into overdrive to process it. In a stocked tank, the ammonia (probably not 5 ppm in a full day) is released gradually as it is emitted from the fish or as waste breaks down.

hmmmm makes sense, i've always just thought it's best to wait until both of them have gone.

perhaps if stormy's got too much time on his hands he could do an experiment for us, add the 5ppm of ammonia gradually over the course of the day, monitor for ammonia and nitrite hourly over 12 hrs and see what happens. would be more like a real simulation of a stocked tank that way.

That would be interesting to see. I have thought of how it would work to do a drip line of ammonia during fishless cycliing to see how it went. I think that once nitrite is being processed to the point that you are seeing nitrate climb, if the 5 ppm were added over the period of 24 hours, say .25 ppm per hour, you would probably not see a nitrite reading at all as it could probably be processed almost as fast as it it created. That's just a theory though and I haven't had a chance to test it.

Oh yes, I love it! We need a retired person!

"What are you doing honey?"

... "Nuthin Hun, just sitting here on the stool holding my ammonia dropper over the tank!"

Seriously, that is just how I've been picturing the nitrite situation near the end of fishless and I think you would actually get some anecdotal evidence if you spread out very small ammonia adds across a whole day, adding up to 5ppm (Hey, we'll get Lioness to do it after she gets back from Memorial day! )

~~waterdrop~~

Lol yeah i can't see anyone sitting with a drip line or anything like that, but you could do say 10 doses of ammonia each taking it to 0.5ppm over the course of a day and see how it progresses.


hope you didn't have any plans for the weekend stormy!!!

Erm..... I probably could add 0.5ml every few hours on Saturday, it gives me an excuse to miss a kids party lol.

So does it look like I'm cycled or not? I'm a tad confused. If I am great I would love to add some stock over the bank holiday weekend. If not then I will plough on!

My PH is definatly fluctuating as this morning it was around 6.3 and I am planning on doing a total water change tonight.

Also I have hair algea growing in the tank. Am I ok to use a hair algea remover or should I wait until I'm cycled?!?

This post has been edited by stormy78: May 21 2008, 04:08 PM

Stormy, we're all just having so much fun chatting in your nice long thread that we've quite forgotten your fishless cycle!

Last few entries you made sure made it look you are still quite spiked on nitrites after 12 hours, if that's true then you really need to keep going along. Its when your nitrites start being down below 1ppm at the 12 hour mark that I would think you could think about adding fish (apologies if I've missed entries and you are there..)

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks Waterdrop, I will leave it be then. The PH was just 6.58 so it seems higher than this morning and therefore I wont do a full water change just yet. I am going to take one bucket out after the 8pm results so I can get some of the plant debris/algea off the gravel.

My Nitrites may already be lower and its just me not being able to read the result card correctly! I just tested Ammonia and it was at the 1.00ppm mark and Nitrites were either 5ppm or 1ppm depending upon me being an idiot lol

Day 39 (Wednesday 21st May)

Tested Ammonia at 8.00am
Ammonia: 0.00ppm
NitrIte: 0.25pm
NitrAte: 20
PH: 6.26

Ammonia was raised to 5ppm

Tested Ammonia at 8.00pm
Ammonia: 1.00ppm
NitrIte: 1.00ppm (My wife thought the shade was far closer to 1ppm than 5ppm)
NitrAte: 40 ppm
PH: 6.49

I am wondering if I'm adding too much Ammonia each day? The tank is 190L however with everything in there Im not sure how many Litres of water there actually is. There are 4 bags of Caribsea Eco complete in there along with the Juwel back grounds, 3 peices of bogwood, plants, slate etc. So Im guessing that there is about 170L useable and thats what I have based all my Ammonia maths on. Its hard to tell on the API kits as theu jump from 4ppm to 8ppm. Am I close or way off the mark?

This post has been edited by stormy78: May 21 2008, 07:16 PM

I honestly think you are cycled. The fact that 5 ml of ammonia is back to 0 in less than 24 hours (the nitrite could be 0 in 16 hours since you are only checking at 8 AM & 8 PM) leads me to believe you would be fine to add fish. You might try cutting back to say 3 ppm of ammonia tomorrow morning and see if that is all gone by 8 PM. But once again, I do not think you would have any issues if you did the large water change and added your fish.

Thanks RDD, I think I will add 3ppm Ammonia tomorrow as you say and see how it goes. If all is well I will continue to do this until Sunday and then stock the tank! Should I stock lightly at first? I would like to add 2 male Apistogramma cacatuoides, 4 female Apistogramma cacatuoides, 12-15 Cardinals initially. Then after a week or so I plan to add 12 or so Rummy Nose Tetra's. Then after another week or 2 add some Oto's and maybe 6 corys.

If I am truely cycled then thanks everybody for your help, especially Miss Wiggle, BTT, Waterdrop and RDD, if I'm not cycled.... perpare for more questions soon! lol

That's GREAT! and you got it from Mr.Fishless himself, lol.

Hey BTT (if still looking) ... I'm trying to find the thread where I finally figured out that there is indeed another Hovanec article later than the '96 one I've quoted in the past - any chance you remember what thread we discussed that in - I was going to try and mention it in the scientific one..

~~waterdrop~~

Cheers Waterdrop, as I said above you guys have been great throughout so fingers crossed I am finally there!

I'll bet we've been taking that sentence in the Add&Wait writeup too literally about dropping both ammonia and nitrite to zero in 12 hours. It seems ok if the processing of the nitrites appears to be a little slower, since really that population is chewing on a lot more nitrite than the ammonia oxidizers are on the ammonia.

I'm just hoping that tomorrow at 8pm Ammonia and Nitrite are both 0.00ppm after cutting the Ammonia down to 3ppm. If it is then the weekend means a big water change, a pruning of the plants, clean of the gravel then off we go