Cycle Diary... Finished @ Day 127!

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Ok days 94 to 97 updated! Nearly 100 days! :)

Its not going to bad considering I've just had to up the Ammonia to 4ml, still getting 1ppm of Nitrite afer 12 hours.

Getting there...
 
If somebody would pay my flights and accommodation I would love to compete! :)

It wouldn't bother me to much if there was some movement but it just doesn't seem to be improving! I made a few changes to the filter to try and improve the surface area for the bacteria, so im sure in a few more days time that should make a difference!
 
Days 98 to 101 updated. I had a pH crash this morning, dropped to 7.0 and the Nitrites were high, so obviously the cycle has stalled last night with the low pH.

Hopefully tonight the Bicarb would have sorted the pH out and the Nitrites will be all right tomorrow morning.

Well I have officially gone over the 100 day mark now, it feels close now guys... :)
 
How have you managed to keep so patient, iv been goin 20+ days with hardly any ammonia drop hope mine int as long,

i wonder why some tanks take so long? could it have anything to do with the water condition in areas?
 
Im sure different areas water qualities make big differences to cycles. Different pH, GH and KH, they all have their own parts to play!

I seriously hope your cycle doesn't last this long either! Good luck and I hope its only a couple of months! :)

Cheers
 
Yes, sometimes I wonder what may come along in the future that will change the quality of feedback and knowledge of how to test and control these processes even better. When I first started thinking about tank water in the early 1960's the books I read gave glimpses of what aquarists had thought in the period of 1920's through 1950's. In hindsight, plenty of what was thought to be true was misguided, looked at with today's information. From the 50's through 1980 the understandings became better and more widespread but with the advent of usenet and the fishless cycling idea around 1980 the quality and distribution of basic cycle information really began to take off. I'm sure the day will come when our current understandings look antiquated. Perhaps recent developments in nano-etched surfaces and sensors will reduce the cost of measuring a lot more substances and someone will combine that with more knowlege of what substances are making differences in the biofilm lifecycles of our species of interest.

I sometimes wonder whether our processes are fairly predictable for the standard major cannister filters (Eheims, Renas, Tetratecs and Fluvals) and the Aquaclear HOBs and some of the chunkier Fluval internals but whether there are perhaps more problems with our model when you get into filters that have a lot less biomedia like those with little "screens" of material on plastic frames or little bags that can only hold a few rings of material. Obviously the basic principles still hold up for most of these as we have evidence from members of most of them working eventually but I still can't help wondering sometimes whether there are some variations in filter design that could be giving more trouble during the cycling process than we realize, due to things we don't understand.

Really though, the greatest variations do probably lie completely unnoticed by us in something we have no idea of like certain trace element levels or certain organic molecules or unknown wars going on between different bacterial species. I mean, it could be that Nitrosomonas don't like chromium above 0.002ppm or some weird thing like that, just to make something up! It could be that some Nitrobacter or some other weird species gets in there and competes for space and wins sometimes and we have to wait for it to die off and give up its media positions and we have no idea this is why we're waiting so long. Living systems are so very much more complicated than chemistry would be.

~~waterdrop~~
 
It would be really interesting to look back and view this thread in 20 years to see what new developments have been made!
 
One thing is for certain - the site admins better have a good backup cause the server disks won't last 20 years lol!

Seriously I think martin deserves a medal for sticking with his cycle for so long.
 
Dont worry I have my own backups :)

Cheers for all of the support guys! Once I finish im having a BIG celebration!

On the positive side I have had lots of time to review my stocking plans and plants/decor! :)
 
Hiya All,

Ive updated days 104 to 115... Nothing happened for a while but I had a little bit of movement after the pH crash the other day! Now it seems to be stable the Nitrite is dropping a bit! Its so close I can taste the dechlorinator! :)

Cheers
 
DAY 119 AND 120 I FINALLY HAVE A DOUBLE ZERO READING!!!!!!!!

Now I have got to try and find some money to buy the fish! :S would anybody like to donate!!!??!?! :)
 
OK so I have another 2 days perfect reading under my belt!

This is a such a big occasion for me I'm even going to take a day off work just to go and get my fish on the seventh day! :)
 

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