Fishless Cycling Problems And Reading Test Kit Problems =(

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lgarvey

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Hi Guys,

I am currently doing a fishless cycle on my new 125litre tank using the correct ammonia from homebase. I test ammonia everyday and regularly test nitrites and nitrates.

Firstly, I am confused by how you match the colours from the test tubes to test card, with the API test kit. It says to use the white space on the test card to compare the test tube to the colour bands to determine the level. However, if I hold the test tube directly against the white strip it always looks a lot darker than when I lift the test tube say half an inch away from the white part of the test card. In the first instance, it looks darker because of a shadow created by holding it so close. But if I move it away it looks as though I'm seeing the true colour of the test tube.

But, with the ammonia, if I hold it against the white part of the test card it registers about a 7ppm. Yet if I have a bit of a gap between the test tube and the white part of the test card, it appears to be about 4ppm. Which one is correct?

OK. I've been fishless cycling for about 3-4 weeks and I don't seem to be getting nowhere. I boosted the ammonia up to 5ppm, left it for a few days, it remained grain. Then I had to go away for a week to do some work and when i got back I tested the ammonia and it had gone totally yellow -- great! The nitrites appeared to be at around 2-3ppm and the nitrates at around 20-40ppm.
At that time I added some live plants, some bogwood that had been soaking in water for several days, and a added an external filter and boosted the level of the water (with dechlorinated water) to compensate for the water that ended up in the new filter.

This was maybe two weeks ago and the ammonia appears to still be high. The nitrites and nitrates appear to be at a similar level too.

I have 3 theories: -

1. The ammonia processing bacteria processed all the ammonia and then died off in the time I was away for a week.
2. The added items, which were initially washed in chlorinated water, added enough chlorine to mess with the bacteria
3. Due to not being able to read the test kit, I may have a much higher PPM -- say 7+ppm and this is stalling the tank

IF anyone can shed any light on what may be happening and what can be done to rectify the problem, I'd really appreciate it. I'm also using Stability everyday, because the LFS recommended it. But from what i've read on the net, it's probably not worth much of anything.

Thanks

LG
 
Hi ok, firstly I always place the tubes against the white of the card to read the results, if you take it off the card then the light between the card and tube messes with the result IMO - also have a light source behind you when you read it.

OK so you originaly had the ammonia converted to nitrites and now its stalled? Have you tested your ph reading? If not, can you do so for us.

I doubt the small amount of undechlored water you used to wash stuff will have had an effect on your cycle. It could be that the ammonia was processed whilst you were away and did die back slightly for lack of food, but that would only have caused a small stall in the cycle I would imagine.

If you do have 7ppm of ammonia then that may be do high.

Can you do the ph test and then we can take it from there. I suspect you may need to do a large water change, re-charge the ammonia back to 5ppm and that will kick-start the cycle again, but others may have another idea.
 
Another couple tips for getting readings: As said, hold the tube against the card, better yet against a different sheet of white paper. I get different readings under soft white reading lights than under harsher white florescent tubes, and generally trust the florescent light.

I've also found if you try to get readings in a room with a lot of green or blue in it, it can make the yellow color of 0 ammonia look slightly greenish. Never really paid much attention to other readings, but it might make it harder to read shades of green as well. Sometimes the light plays tricks on me when I hold the tube against the card - it'll look slightly green, but against a sheet of white paper without the color scale it'll be clean yellow.
 
Thanks for the fast response! it's really appreciated! =)

This process is weird, weird, weird.


OK I'd say the ammonia is about a 7ppm, but it depends on how I look at it.

But, oddly enough, the nitrites have dropped right back to zero! They were bright pink on the APS test kit -- maybe 3-4 ppm, now they are pale blue which indicates 0ppm nitrites.

Also, the nitrates have gone from between 20-40ppm (orangey,redy, brown colour) down to yellow, which indicates a near to 0ppm nitrates. Could this been the plants? I added 11 live plants recently.

So perhaps the ammonia really is to high and this is inhibiting the ammonia processing bacteria, but somehow the nitrite processing bacteria has become established?

I think I'll do a large water change today to bring ammonia back into range and see what happens over the next few days.

So my stats for the tank, including ph appear to be:

pH 8 (using the high test solution because it's out of range for the lower test solution) I'm not sure why it's this high. Tap water is usually 7, and I haven't added anything to adjust the pH upwards. The bogwood should, from what i've read, begin lowering pH but it's been nailed at 8ppm throughout.

Ammonia - 7ppm

Nitrites - 0ppm

Nitrates - ~ 0 ppm

Any other suggestions, thoughts, ideas would be welcomed. =)

L
 
Yes, try to change all the water apart from that in the filter and gravel which you cant get.

Make sure you use dechlor but then I'd say only recharge the ammonia back up to about 3ppm so it's not too much for the filter to cope with. Take a reading before adding any ammonia though as the reading may still be quite high, say if it reads 1ppm you need to add about 2ppm.

Good luck.

Vicki
 
Strange its not processing ammonia but is nitrites. Ph is good, although not sure why its higher in the tank, do you have any rocks in there that could be altering the ph?

The plants wouldnt account for all that nitrate being processed, they may use some but not that much.

Yep the water change 90% would be good, make sure the ammonia is re-charged to 5ppm and test over the next few days and see what it does. Dont forget to dechlorinated the water!! :good:
 
Yep the water change 90% would be good, make sure the ammonia is re-charged to 5ppm and test over the next few days and see what it does. Dont forget to dechlorinated the water!! :good:

When I was in the same situation I done a big water change and only recharged to 3ppm as the filter was not coping at 5ppm and stalling. Once it was processing 3ppm I increased it to 4ppm and then 5ppm etc. Also I feel adding what a newbie feels is 5ppm can sometimes turn out to be 6.5ppm etc so best to add a little less at first IMO.

As long as the filter can process 5ppm of ammonia to 0 and nitrite 0 in 10-12 hours that is all that matters but should your tank of stalled because of too much ammonia I would add less for now and build it back up to avoid stalling.

Hopefully it hasn't stalled and you can see that once you have recharged the ammonia and it's back to 0 in 10-12 hours etc. Check your results after the water change and compare them to tomorrows results after the ammonia has been processed.

It may not all be doom and gloom you may almost be there but until the W/C and next lot of results we wont know.

Vicki
 
Welcome to the forum L.Garvey. Its good to see you here trying to get things straight.
Locust, I agree with the basic approach of change water and recharge. It should help whether the problem is high ammonia or whatever that has slowed the cycle. The recharge should be approached cautiously so you don't overdo it and have to start all over again. Plants use ammonia and nitrates. They can't use nitrites directly but will once the bacteria convert it. Many, but not all, plants will use ammonia before using nitrates because they find it easier to use. That will not keep the bacteria from getting enough to eat but is something to keep in mind when trying to evaluate the changes going on in a tank that has lots of plants.
Tank pH will rise when you add a dose of ammonia. The ammonia that we buy is properly called ammonium hyroxide. It is a base so it will move pH up. That would easily explain the pH being higher than your tap water. The overall system we are dealing with is not a chemistry set. It is a biological system that changes chemicals using biological processes. This does make it a bit harder to understand but not impossible. It also means that simple chemical reactions that can be measured precisely are not happening. What is happening is living creatures, bacteria, are changing things that we can then measure.
It sounds like you have made a good start at culturing your bacteria L.Garvey so stay with it and you will be successful. It just takes time and patience and a willingness to change direction a bit if things are not going in the right direction.
 
i can appreciate your problems reading the tests lgarvey, im red-green colourblind and have a nightmare of a time. i have to get my girlfriend to read the results for me :blush:
 
Thanks for the support guys. I just changed 40 litres of water and it hasn't brought the green colouring down much at all. I'll do another 40-80 littre change tomorrow on my 125 litre tank. Maybe it's drastically higher than I even I thought and so doing a large water change is not registering much difference? Who knows. =)

It'll be worth it in the end and I'm happy not to put my future fish under any unnecessary stress!

> I'm not colour blind, but I still find it hard to tell the differnce. It seems that, for me at least, the ammonia is the worst because they are just gradients of green. Whereas at least with nitrates and nitrites they seem to change hue between steps.

Will let ya know how it goes! =)
 
Hi, you basically need to change as close to 100% as possible - Meaning the only water that is left in there is the water in the external filter (if you have one) and the gravel etc.

After a water change that big (which is completely normal without fish) you will see it come down :good:

40 litres wouldnt be enough and I highly doubt 80 would either, you are looking at doing more like 120 litres :unsure:
 
I did the water change and it came down sufficiently. Now the ammonia is floored at 0, the nitrites were low, but they've climbed to about 1 today and i'm putting about 5ml ammonia in each day and it's having little impact on teh readings. After a few hours it registers 0ppm again!

Yipeeee! =)

Now my next dilema... what fish do I get when the nitrites get down to 0?! *sigh*

L
 
Sounds good.

A good way to "qualify" your biofilter is to be sure that 4-5ppm ammonia is dropping to zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite (NO2) within 12 hours. Once the filter does this the first time, it is good to see if it can do it for a week, with you adding ammonia each day. The extra week will verify that that the bacteria populations can keep performing in a stable manner.

~~waterdrop~~
 
It sounds like it's time to visit your LFS but leave your wallet at home. Have a look around and write down which fish appeal to you. If you come back on we may be able to match what you like into a viable community or at least suggest some alternatives. It will be a new subject so start a new thread so people won't just ignore it like I do when a thread gets up to several pages. I always figure that by then the person has more than enough advice and doesn't need my opinion.
 
It sounds like it's time to visit your LFS but leave your wallet at home. Have a look around and write down which fish appeal to you. If you come back on we may be able to match what you like into a viable community or at least suggest some alternatives. It will be a new subject so start a new thread so people won't just ignore it like I do when a thread gets up to several pages. I always figure that by then the person has more than enough advice and doesn't need my opinion.


:lol:

i always read the long ones cos there may be something interesting kicking off!!

i agree with both the above suggestions, firstly once you know it's cycled and is processing the 5ppm to 0 ammonia and nitrite in 12 hrs keep going for 1 week. the bacteria colony is fairly fragile at this stage and people do sometimes get a little blip in their readings a few days after they think it's done. better to have that happen without fish than with fish in so just stretch your patience for 1 week more and keep adding the ammonia. better safe than sorry. :good:

and yes, def leave the wallet at home but do some research, if you just get a big list of all the fish you like we can try and work it into some sort of manageable order for you!! Also have a browse of the link in my sig about stocking lists, it tells you how to work out compatibility and all the things to consider when researching fish choices so that may be of some use to you!
 

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