84l (22gal) Fishless Cycle With A Semi-mature Filter.

[Lazerus]

Right so...I think I'll do it even for my own piece of mind!

I might do a 50% change...that will maintain the tank nicely over the few days then till I return....along with my daily fish food for the ammonia.

Thanks!

 

[Lazerus]

Hi all,

On each test recently:

My Ammonia drops from 5ppm to 0ppm in 12hrs...

My Nitrite is sky high...through the roof!

My Nitrate is deep rouge red....it think is 40ppm and could possibly higher, its really hard to say.

Now, as I mentioned I was going to do a water change tomorrow before I leave....but now I'm wondering will I have the time.

So what I want to know is, will my cycle stall if my Nitrates reach too high while I'm away for the five days?

Also, my pH is dropping rapidly again now, from 7.6 down to 7, sometimes less in the 12hrs so I'm topping up with bicarb.

So obviously I'm assuming by Thursday I'll have a complete pH crash and my cycle will stall anyway...

If I don't get around to a water change, will my cycle definitely stop...is there anything I can do to keep this pH stable?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

big water change before you go, put quite a bit more bicarb in and set the auto feeder to only add a little bit of fish food then the nitrite and ntirates shouldn't get too high.

it is a bit of a tricky phase in the cycle to be going away unfortunately though. i can't say you won't have a stalled cycle to come home too, all we can do it mitigate the risk as much as possible.

 

[Lazerus]

Thanks....

Well, even though I really didn't have the time, I've just done an 80% water change.

Before the water change:
Ammonia:2ppm (interesting...cycle is stalling after all perhaps?)
Nitrite: Unreadable
Nitrate: Unreadable in the daylight!
pH:7

After the water change:
Ammonia:0ppm
Nitrite: Unreadable
Nitrate: 40ppm
pH:7.2

So, I've add my ammonia drops as usual and more bicarb...I'll add a bit more though in a minute.

Im going to grind my fish food now in a minute and fill up the auto-feeder...but can you give me a guideline as to how much food I should does every 24hrs....like a pea size? or less?

I've always had such little amounts of fish in my 10gal, that I wouldn't know what amount I can give a 22gal.

 

[Lazerus]

Hi all…back from my hols.

So…back to the grind stone.

All fish were alive and well in my 10gal tank, they seemed happy enough.

But in my 22gal there were big visible changes in just five days!

Lots and lots of algae…but it was long hairy algae???…never seen algae like it before. The hairs are about 3” (5cm) long? What is this stuff? Will it die off?

The plants, gravel and bogwood is covered in brown dusty stuff (the fish food I imagine?) and will need a good clean…

Anyway!

Did water test when I came home last night.

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite:0ppm
Nitrate:40ppm
pH:7

So, I was glad to see my cycle hadn’t stalled completely. I took away the automatic feeder and topped up my tank with the liquid ammonia.

This morning:
Ammonia: 1ppm
Nitrite: Unreadable
pH:6.8
Didn’t bother doing the Nitrate reading…might do it tonight though.

Put some bicarb in to up my pH reading. And that’s where I’m at!

 

[Dave Spencer]

The hairy algae could be spirogyra. The brown stuff is diatoms.

Unfortunately, you have been switching off your CO2, so this could be a major cause of the algae. The CO2 needs to be at non limiting levels to your plants.

As long as you are adding the ammonia, you will struggle to clear the algae.

Dave.

 

[Lazerus]

Thanks Dave.

I might take a pic and see what you all think. Its amazing it grew so long in just 5 days!!!

Anyway, I'll be back on later with this evenings results and perhaps a pic of the tank.

 

[Lazerus]

After 24hrs of adding 5ppm of liquid ammonia:

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 2ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm
pH:7

I've added 5ppm of ammonia again and a dash of bicarb.

Couldn't get a good pic of the algae, so there was no point in posing up a blurry picture.

 

[Lazerus]

This morning, 12 hrs after adding ammonia:

Ammonia:1ppm
Nitrite: unreadable
Nitrate: will do later.
pH: 7

Added bi-carb....will add liquid ammonia later when Ammonia reading drops to 0.

 

[Lazerus]

Ha,ha,ha I know nobody is really interested, but I'm just writing down my results anyway...for myself, so I can refer back! Just in case people are wondering why on earth I keep posting this stuff up!

So last nights results were:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite:1ppm
Nitrate:40pm
pH: 7.6-7.8

I then added my 5ppm of ammonia and this mornings results are:
Ammonia:1ppm
Nitrite: Unreadable
pH:7.6-7.8

 

[Thommo]

We're reading Just not posting
Looks as though it is not too far away and you aonly got set back a bit. Hopefully your nitrates will be back to 0 in a few days.

Keep Posting

CHEERS
Thommo

 

[Dave Spencer]

Ha,ha,ha I know nobody is really interested....

I`m going to make you wish you hadn`t said that.

Adding CO2 doesn`t affect the KH of the water. It has been said by a one or two of us on the planted forum in the past, but it seems to have been lost in the mists of time. People panic about adding CO2 with a low KH, yet I do it all the time with no problems. The reaction is:

CO2 + H2O <=> H2CO3
H2CO3 <=> H + HCO3

H2CO3 is carbonic acid, which is what lowers the pH.

Adding sodium bicarb doesn`t increase the KH. Most hobby test kits measure total alkilinity, not KH. You will see a rise in the KH using the test kits because adding sodium bicarb increases the alkalinity.

I used to know all this stuff, as water chemistry is important in my work, but I had forgotten it. A lot of what is written about CO2 and KH, and sodium bicarb on TFF had been bugging me, but I couldn`t be bothered to dig out the info again. Fortunately, someone on another forum saved me the spade work.

Dave.

 

[Lazerus]

Hmmm.....slighty over my head...I'll have to read that a few times so that it sinks in.

Coincidentally, I got my API KH & GH test kit in the post at last! (Got it on Ebay from a seller who was very reasonable with postage & packaging, hard to find someone like that it seems!!)

So now I'll be able to see exactly where I'm at with regards to my water hardness.

I am beginning to feel a bit panicky because as my cycle comes closer to be being finished, I realise that I will have to stop topping up the tank with the bicarb every time I see a dip in the pH and deal with my water as it is...especially when fish are introduced.

I won't be able to get away with dumping a spoon of bicarb on top of my little guys every time! I'm hoping though that once the Nitrites & Nitrates settle down and become more stable, that they won't break down my pH buffer so aggressively as it has done over the last few weeks. Perhaps weekly water changes will be enough to maintain the buffer?

Anyway, I hope you'll be here to help me out Dave cause to be honest, I know I'll be well out of my dept again!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

out of hte number of people who need to use bicarb or some other buffer during a cycle i'd guesstimate only 5-10% of them have to use some buffer with fish in. the ammonia coming through on a 'drip feed' rather than all being dumped in at once seems to affect it differently and you don't get the big crashes that you're used to seeing.

no guarantee's that you won't need to continue to buffer however I think it's more likely that you won't.

 

[Lazerus]

Hi Miss Wiggle...I've missed ye! Hope the new job is going well....I wonder would they hire you here full time and give you better wages? hmm. Wishful thinking!

Anyway, yea, that makes sense. I'm thinking thats what will happen alright, after all my pH from the tap is 7.8 which is high and combined with good maintenance hopefully, I won't see to much of a drop...although on saying that, I am hoping for a marginal drop with my bogwood & organic substrate to suit my tetras a bit better. That was the idea in the first place.

I just realised I have totally forgotten to add my CO² this past week....Doh!

I'm going to do a 30% water change now and see if I can clear up some of that long haired algae a bit....so I'll start off with my CO² again. Fresh start.

No real change with my water stats...no point in even posting them up. Exaclty the same as yesterday.

It appears to be staying consistent, with no real obvious drops in the Ammonia after 12hrs. It still taking the full 24hrs before its all gone...I think I've hit a plateau..

So as I say, I'm going to do a water change & a bit of a clean up to see if that helps somewhat.