About To Start Fishless Cylcle.....

[Mowbz]

Evening Everyone!

Big day today, tank is finally all set up. Ive had plenty of experience with coldwater fish, but this is my first "from scratch" tropical tank.

Tank is a Hagen Tropiquarium 86 (70 Litre), Large (but surprisingly quiet!) air pump (Second Hand). Filter is Fluval U2 Internal, Heater is an Interpet DeltaTherm 100w, 8 Inch bar airstone.(All brand new)

I have gravel substrate as this is what came with the tank. Its been thoroughly washed, along with new decor (also washed) No live plants just yet.

Heater has been set to 27'C. Lights are out.

Pump is running, however something in my head said take out the ceramic filter media for the cycle. I'm sure i read this somewhere, but I'm not positive? Ive added AquaOne Safewater as instructed on the bottle.

Tap Parameters

PH - 7.2
Ammonia 0ppm (Thank god its not #101## im drinking!)
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 40-60ppm

Its last one that worried me Is it normal to have a Nitrate reading like this for tap water? And if you will, any other advice anyone can give for someone at my stage?

Ive not got the ammonia yet, so wont be adding this until tomorrow. The tank has been running smoothly for around an hour, so ill do the tests again from the tank and post, as i have a feeling they be needed in the future!

Thanks in advance

EDIT: Apologies for title typo. Long day...

 

[fluttermoth]

Lots of people have nitrate levels like that from the tap; it's nothing to worry about. Nitrate is problematic only at very high concentrations; I've seen up to 300ppm quoted before.

And definitely leave the ceramic media in; that's where you'll be wanting most of your bacteria to live

 

[Mowbz]

"In goes the ceramic filter box..."

Edit: Filter has three sections. Two are foam with what looks to be charcoal screens, and now the ceramic middle section is in.

Thanks!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

For the cycle, raise your temp to about 30C.

 

[Mowbz]

For the cycle, raise your temp to about 30C.

Done. Thanks!

 

[This Younger Spouse]

And would it work in this filter system to get some mature filter media from an established tank from a friend or the LFS? I started a tank from scratch and it cycled in three days with mature filter media, but it was an external with filter cartridges.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It doesn't matter what type of filter it is, just put some mature media in it somehow and you can get similar results again.

 

[Mowbz]

Thanks for the replies. I havent got any mature filter media in yet, but i have started the process after finding the proper ammonia in Homebase this afternoon. I am going to give the LFS a call tomorrow afternoon and see if they can donate some media.

I now have;

Ph - 7.2
Ammonia 4ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm

And now we wait...

 

[willowstwin]

sorry to butt in on another thread, but can I ask why we put the heater up to 30? I'm guessing that's optimum for bacterial growth, but what about lowering it again for the fish?

 

[Mowbz]

I too assume its good for faster bacteria growth, but surely its just a case of turning it down 48 hours or so before you put the fish in?

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Yep indeed, the bacteria grows best at 30c and 8.0-8.4 PH. If you want to up the ph ad bicarbonate soda from the supermarket.

Don't put the fish in until the tank is at the correct temp, however once it has cycled, you will want to do a 100% water change to get all the extra nitrates that the cycle produces out if the tank, and get the PH down if you used bicarb, so it will be fresh warm water(of course dechlorinate the water). Turn your heater on to 25-28 depending on which fish you are keeping and away you go

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Yep indeed, the bacteria grows best at 30c and 8.0-8.4 PH. If you want to up the ph ad bicarbonate soda from the supermarket.

Don't put the fish in until the tank is at the correct temp, however once it has cycled, you will want to do a 100% water change to get all the extra nitrates that the cycle produces out if the tank, and get the PH down if you used bicarb, so it will be fresh warm water(of course dechlorinate the water). Turn your heater on to 25-28 depending on which fish you are keeping and away you go

This is correct... A large water change is necessary at the end (100% water change) to remove all the nitrates that build up during the cycle, so adding the baking soda won't affect the fish at all, and when you refill with dechlorinated water, just refill with water at the temp you need for your fish (24-26 C). You can do this water change 24 hours prior to getting the fish without any concern of the bacteria dying off to the point of a mini-cycle afterwards. Doing it much sooner than that could lead to a mini-cycle, depending on the amount of your initial stocking bio-load.


I will add that the addition of baking soda, while not necessary can be quite beneficial, as it not only increases the pH to a more optimum level for the bacteria, it also increases the buffering capacity of your water. The buildup of nitrates usually comes in the form of nitric acid, which will lower your pH during the cycle and can lead to a pH crash, which will in turn stall your cycle. (Bacterial growth at 6.0 or lower pretty much stops completely. If that happens - a stall in the cycle - a 100% water change then can usually kick start the cycle right back up again.)

 

[Mowbz]

Thank again for all of your help!

I have redone the tests today, and have;

PH - 8.2 (Up)
Nitrate - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Ammonia - 0.5ppm

The ammonia reading really confuses me. From what Ive read, i shouldn't see a drop off after just 24 hours surely? Ive not added any mature media yet.

When i added the ammonia, i added it directly to the tank, left it 10 minutes with everything running, then checked it. It came out perfectly at 4ppm with the amount i put in (about 3ml in a 70 liter tank). Being quite technically minded, i started thinking through whether there had been sufficient time for it to have properly mixed to an even 4ppm throughout the whole tank in 10 minutes, just in in case (slight bit of paranoia! lol). so i left it another few hours (about 9pm last night) and retested, but this still came out at 4ppm.

What's everyone's thoughts? Re-dose and continue, or wait for it to hit complete 0, an then re-dose?

Thanks in advance...

 

[eaglesaquarium]

The ammonia does gas off a bit, some can be absorbed into different materials in the tank... substrate, filter media itself, etc. Don't worry. If you want to redose up to 4ppm, that's fine. If you want to wait for it to drop to 0, that's fine too.

 

[Miles_hot]

4ppm is where I dose to - I know that the suggested level is 4-5ppm however my kit only reads up to 5ppm. Thus if I've actually dosed to 6 or 7ppm it will still read 5ppm. Above 5ppm is bad for the cycle (the wrong sort of bacteria becomes dominant) so we dose to 4ppm as we can test for that.

I would suggest that the add and wait method is the easiest - i,e, wait till your Ammonia drops to 0ppm before dosing back up again.

Miles