Fishywishies Fishless Cycle

[FishyWishie]

Hi all !

This will be my ongoing thread covering my fishless cycling as well as the inevitable ups and downs there will be along the way. For those who don't know my setup.

Tank Fluval Roma 240 litre
Filter Fluval 305 (External)
Heater Tetric heater
Aerating via 28" bubble curtain, Bubble Stone and directing filter outputs towards surface

Tap Water PH = 7.4

Ammonia = 0ppm
nitrite = 0ppm
nitrate = 0ppm

Water temp 28 deg c


Post Holiday Log

33 days had passed by this point Day 1 is 1st day back from holiday.

Day 1 back Ammonia 8+ ppm back from holiday to find heater has blown up and tank overloaded with ammonia 60% water change done and ammonia brought back down to the 4ppm colour on API master kit
Day 2 Ammonia 2ppm Nitrites 0.5 Nitrates approx 10 (tested at new time of 11pm)
Day 3 Ammonia < 0.5 Topped back up to 2ppm (Done at 11am to allow a 11pm comparison test to be done to see if im close to 12 hours or if i should revert back to the 5 down to 0 dosing. UPDATE It had only dropped to about 0.25 so ive dosed back to 5ppm.
Day 4 Ammonia 0.25-0.5ppm redosed to 5ppm (12.75ml) should be 12.79m but no danger am i trying to measure 0.04m lol
Day 5 ]11AM TEST PH 8.0 Ammonia 2.0ppm Nitrates Off chart Nitrates Off Chart - - 11PM TEST Ammonia < 0.25 80% Water Change carried out and ammonia topped up to 3ppm.
Day 6 11AM TEST Ammonia 0.25ppm Nitrites Off Chart Nitrates 80 11PM Test Ammonia 0 Nitrites 2/5PPM ( alot lighter than last night) Nitrates 20ppm redosed to 3ppm
Day 7 Ammonia 0ppm Nitrites 2ppm Nitrates 20ppm redosed to 3ppm
Day 8 Ammonia 0ppm Nitrites 5ppm? Didnt check Nitrates redosed to 3ppm
Day 9 Ammonia 0ppm Nitrites 5ppm Nitrates 20ppm redosed to 3ppm
Day 10 Ammoina 0ppm Nitrites 0ppm Nitrates Man thats Orange
Day 11 Ammonia 0ppm Nitrites 2ppm Nitrate 40ppm
Day 12 Down to sand water change performed and redosed to 4ppm
Day 13 Ammonia 2ppm Nitrites 4/8pm Nitrates 40ppm Looks like i've managed to put my cycle back somehow Added 5ml to bring it back to 4ppm and see if it can recover.
Day 14 Ammonia 4ppm Nitrates 4/8ppm Nitrates 40/80ppm

 

[FishyWishie]

 

[FishyWishie]

Forgot to add im doing the add daily method as im in no rush and i want the strongest filter i can get bacteria wise.

 

[JoshuaA]

Forgot to add im doing the add daily method as im in no rush and i want the strongest filter i can get bacteria wise.

Add daily as in... you're adding 4ppm a day? That method has always seemed excessive to me.

I'm currently doing the add and wait method. Have signs that Nitrite may be being processed but no grantee at the moment. 21 days into the cycle as well now.

 

[FishyWishie]

Yup im adding the ppm each day mainly as quite a few of the fish im considering have quite a high bio load and i play to have it fairly fully (tho not over) stocked.

Good to hear your starting to have results on your tank ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

 

[JoshuaA]

Yup im adding the ppm each day mainly as quite a few of the fish im considering have quite a high bio load and i play to have it fairly fully (tho not over) stocked.

Good to hear your starting to have results on your tank ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

You better start crossing those toes for me too! Haha

Well if its anything like my tank it took 10 days for Ammonia to start processing but if you're adding 4/5ppm you'll end up with around 40-50ppm of Ammonia in your water and then once that's processed you'll end up with 108 - 135ppm Nitrite. I'm not sure if that would be an overkill but it would certainly raise the pH up with the Ammonia and could cause a crash like my tank had the other day when there is so much Nitrite.

 

[PDSimon]

I agree with joshua, I don't really understand the point of add daily. All your doing is making it harder for the bacteria by putting excessive levels of ammonia in the water... Infact, if your ammonia levels go over 8ppm you're encouraging the wrong type of bacteria grow. These levels are already high enough to reach full stocking. If you're over stocking, you could use 6ppm I suppose.

If I were you i'd add 5ppm, let it drop to 0, keep adding 5ppm at a set daily time if the reading is 0. Then like joshua said, in ~ 10 days, your ammonia will process 5ppm within 24 hours.

That would be the first third of your fishless cycle over.

 

[FishyWishie]

Thanks for the advice there both of you but im kinda tied to some degree now having started the add daily method (2 days X 5ppm) so im going to bit the bullet and persevere 2 friends that keep fish swear by the add daily method and i seem to find when googling a pretty even split with for/against and its also in the fishless cycling section of the newbie guide if its so bad at producing the bad bacteria why do we keep that information there ?

If i can find categorical evidence that it will produce wrong bacteria ill drain the tank and start again if i have to im stubborn but im not stupid

 

[PDSimon]

You don't have to drain the tank, you could let it go back to 0 itself and/or do a water change to get it below 8ppm

Everyone on the forums is advised to do add and wait method from my short experience here. The articles on the cycling seem to be older and could do with updating on what the experienced members know, from there own experience and from others.

It's not necessarily wrong, just not optimum conditions

 

[Twinklecaz]

Hi

Did you put your light on just for the photo? Just that people have told me not to have mine of whilst cycling coz it'll encourage alge growth.

Imagine how happy I was to come home from a day in London last Sat to find my Dad had put it on to have a look (which i do from time to time - fine) but LEFT it on all day!

 

[FishyWishie]

I have them on if im sitting in the living room in the evening so i can gaze lovingly at it but the rest of the time its off and as im usually on pc its not on long

 

[JoshuaA]

Thanks for the advice there both of you but im kinda tied to some degree now having started the add daily method (2 days X 5ppm) so im going to bit the bullet and persevere 2 friends that keep fish swear by the add daily method and i seem to find when googling a pretty even split with for/against and its also in the fishless cycling section of the newbie guide if its so bad at producing the bad bacteria why do we keep that information there ?

If i can find categorical evidence that it will produce wrong bacteria ill drain the tank and start again if i have to im stubborn but im not stupid

Don't drain the tank just let it process it and then start the add and wait method. I did a quick look but can't find the information on it however... currently your Ammonia concentrations aren't going to be too sky high.

I believe the theory goes along the lines of the bacteria that forms due to the high concentration of ammonia only prefer high concentrations of ammonia. Once you stop artificially adding the large amounts of ammonia you are adding (which your tank will probably be at around 40/50ppm of ammonia before the bacteria start forming) your fish will not in any way producing sufficient quantities of Ammonia to please your bacteria. Your bacteria will then be like #129### wheres our food source? It will die and then you will end up in another mini cycle if not back at stage one because the bacteria can't cope with the low ~0.5ppm of Ammonia your fish will produce. You probably will get minimal amounts of Nitrite being produced and once that A-Bac dies off and then you will probably see quite a bit of N-Bacs die due to loss of food source. You will also have to wait until a sufficient amount of normal A-Bacs multiply into a good colony before you see 0,0.

Like I said I believe that is the theory however and impression I get from the people on this forum however...

From my experience even doing the add and wait method. Your pH will fluctuate and I can imagine you could be in for a massive pH crash in your tank if you were to add so much ammonia. If your pH crashes too much and you need to do a water change then you'd have to know how much ammonia was in your tank to redose it, or you'd have to start adding daily again and not restore the previous concentration.

I think you would be heading in a better direction if you were to do the add and wait method. I also think you'd probably receive more advice from experienced people on this forum if you took that option.

Anyway good luck on your method and I will keep and eye on it! To see how you're doing!

Edit: It's best to keep your lights OFF during a cycle. With the huge amounts of Nitrate that will be produced especially with your add daily method you will likely have a HUGE Algae problem at the end.

 

[waterdrop]

Well, maybe RDD will happen along and comment on the Add Daily method. I haven't even thought about it in a long time, much less done any reading on it. I can't remember RDD making extra comments on it, whereas I do remember him having plenty of refinement type comments about the Add and Wait method for years after he first posted his nice writeup.

The concern that I think comes up about ammonia concentrations of 8ppm and higher originated in communications that I and others had with Tim Hovanec both during his short posting period here on TFF and externally from TFF. Most of us, Miss Wiggle, BTT, rabbit, OM47, myself and I'm sure probably RDD and the other longer term Mods and experienced ones have pulled and read some or all of his published scientific papers.

The issue, according to Tim, is that at about 8ppm (and higher), there is at least one other family of species of autotrophic bacteria that are encouraged to grow and create biofilms. (It should be understood that there are many species competing with each other in our filters, not just a simple environment of the two we talk about, the better analogy would be a city at night will all sorts of different cultures of people roaming about, lol.) At 8ppm concentrations, these other bacteria, which are autotrophs which carry out the nitrogen cycle just like our desired Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira species, will become dominant and shut out the biofilm spaces for our desired ones. They grow and give us normal feedback as if our biofilter is developing properly. Unfortunately, when the ammonia level later drops below 8ppm, whether from a water change or whatever, they will quickly die, leaving their biofilm material clogging up most of the biomedia surface area. It then takes quite a while for this material to degrade and spawl off, during which time we as fishless cyclers are seeing a crash of our process. We are continuing to dump in ammonia and the whole nitrogen cycle is simply no longer operating well or at all.

Anyway, that's the "8ppm story" as I know it and like so much else there's virtually no real science out there much beyond the work that Tim did way back when, so our hobby continues on in the usual starts and stops of speculation and attempts at good communication.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[FishyWishie]

Hmmm perhaps a waterchange to bring it down to 5ppm / waiting for it to drop to 5 ppm itself may be wise if thats the case. Either that or continue and provide some up to date test data i hate changing things but i can see the merit of what you all say.

I will hopefully be getting some mature media from Backto Tropical once exams are over so that will speed up the process a little depending on when i get it.

 

[FishyWishie]

Ok this is most odd

I got a free bottle of nutrafin cycle (250ml) so i followed the instruction on it and chucked it in over 3 days as directed

Now i dont know why but i was sitting reading threads and i thought ill go check the nitrites/nitrates

and ............... i have some of both

Nitrite is dark either 2.0 or 5.0 ppm

Nitrate is either 10 or 20

Ive taken pic of the tubes beside the cards ill try and upload it in a bit so maybe someone can confirm.


Im confused tank hasn't even been cycling 72 hours yet.