Fishywishie Is A Noob - A Guide How Not To Cycle A Tank

[FishyWishie]

Cycle Stats​

 

[szatek]

Welcome back FishyWishie . I knew you would not give up.

I'm in my 8th day of fishless cycle and you are already way in front of me with the stats .

 

[Liverbird36]

YAY !!!!!! Great that you're back !!!!! hang on in there gal you can do it !!!!

 

[FishyWishie]

Whoooooo Hooooooo my first double zero @ 24 hr mark (well for 4ppm anyway) Will keep adding @ 4ppm till it does this in 12 hours then ill push back out to 5ppm.

Maybe i didn't get set back as badly as I initially feared.

 

[FishyWishie]

I actually seem now to be slightly ahead of where i was pre setbacks.

Ammonia is clearing in 14 hours (maybe less I'll know tomrrow when i do the 10am Test) and Nitrite clears in 24 hours (it has 2ppm remaining @ 14 hours according to todays test)

I will be messing about with the setup as little as possible from now on

 

[LondonguyJ]

After reading your log it would seem as though I'm adding too much ammonia. I have a 125 (half the size of your aquarium) yet dose the exact same amount as you?

Hmm

 

[FishyWishie]

I used this calculator http/www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm

For 240 litres it suggested 12.63ml of ammonia to achieve 5ppm As im dosing to 4ppm atm to help with N-bac production the calc says 10.11ml so i'm dosing 10ml

According to the calc for 125l you need to be dosing 6.58ml to acheive 5ppm

 

[LondonguyJ]

That calculator is not exact.

I added 6.5ml of ammonia and that only raised my count to 2.4 To begin with, in an effort to make sure I was getting the right ppm I turned my external filter off and allowed the air stone to circulate the ammonia for about 25 minutes and 6.5 it only raised my count to 2.4 I added another 4ml and left the aquarium under the same conditions and that raised my count to 4.9

So (and this probably doesn't matter considering you have a colony of a-bacs already present) might I suggest you test your ppm without the filter running and see what the results are?

Obviously I'm not sure how ammonia concentrations work for different volumes of water. But you might want to verify the count as opposed to relying on the calculator.

Hopefully a resident expert will chime in.

J

 

[FishyWishie]

The calc seems to work ok for me when i add 12.5ml which is what the calc says for 5PPM @ 240L if i test an hour later the colour is as least as dark as 4ppm

 

[OldMan47]

You are making nice progress with full processing in 24 hours. Now all we need to do is get the ammonia and nitrites to double zero in 12 hours and it will be time to start a qualifying week.

 

[FishyWishie]

Thanks OldMan47 always good to hear things are on course.

Was out today so couldn't do 12 hour check but I did one when i got home and can safely say that at the 19 hour mark Ammonia and Nitrite are 0

Had to be so disciplined today we went for a drive and found a new LFS and my fiancee said "If you think they would be ok ill pay for some fish today" had to be strong and look but not buy wasn't easy lol

 

[OldMan47]

It can be tough when you see something you like and know you are getting close to ready to bring in fish. Hang in there.

 

[FishyWishie]

Double Zero @ 17 hours 45 minutes Not that im checking all the time or anything

 

[LondonguyJ]

Double Zero @ 17 hours 45 minutes Not that im checking all the time or anything

I found myself checking every few hours this past Saturday

 

[FishyWishie]

Ammonia is still processing easily in under 12 hours Nitrites are down to 17 hours the fish are so close i can almost hear them swimming around