Green Goddess's First Fishless Cycle (240 Ltr)

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1. The reason I have done a fishless cycle is to avoid exposing my beloved goldfish to harmful levels of ammonia/nitrite. No other reason.

2. Good news again today. Ammonia and nitrite were both zero again so today I increased the ammonia dose to 5ppm.

3. Do you think I need to do another water change? Nitrate is 120ppm and it's around 10 days since the last change. Advice appreciated.

4. Any advice for a better English goalkeeper? :sad: (Well done USA though, you played great :good:).
 
Yeah another w/c soon enough will hopefully speed things up.

Shame about the football...
 
Someone said to me that it's like America not being able to beat us at Baseball. Pitiful :(

Anyway, OMG I thought me and Simon had the longest cycles on here. I hope it starts to work better for you soon.

Joshua, do you mean that your LFS won't let you buy what they deem as too many fish in one go?
 
System successfully processed 5ppm of ammonia in 24 hours. Will now test after 12 hours.

PDSimon: Thanks. I'll try and do a w/c tomorrow.

Twinklecaz: Yes, this cycle has been unbelievable. It only made a move in the last few days after I added an oxygenator to the filter pump. I think it has improved the circulation of the tank water and made things happen at last.
 
This looks promising, both ammonia and nitrite are processing in 24 hours now... So yeah 12 hour tests :good:
 
OK, I did the first 12 hour test this morning and ammonia was zero but the nitrite was 5.0.

Important question: Now that I'm starting to test after 12 hours, do I need to dose the tank with ammonia every 12 hours even if the nitrite is showing as 5.0 (and ammonia is zero)? Or do I continue to add the ammonia at 24 hour intervals?
 
continue to only add at the 24 hour intervals (or add in hour as WD calls it) no matter what the ammonia reading...

Its a method the waste treatment world use called pulsing, which WD assures me speeds things up :lol:
 
continue to only add at the 24 hour intervals (or add in hour as WD calls it) no matter what the ammonia reading...

Its a method the waste treatment world use called pulsing, which WD assures me speeds things up :lol:


Speed things up??????? :lol: Ha ha, WD may need to re-think his pulsing theory (especially in my case).

OK thanks, I'll do a full water change now and then continue adding ammonia at 24 hour intervals ("add in hour")
 
Yes, still agree, 12 hours after dosing is just for testing, not adding more ammonia. The dose point just stays at the same old 24-hour point its always been throughout the entire fishless cycle. And of course there's nothing magic about the dosing or the testing being "on" the particular hour - it won't "hurt" your cycle when your life doesn't allow you to behave like a machine.. its just a goal to aim for as it helps to smooth out (take out one of the big variables) that cause it to be harder to interpret results.

As I remember mentioning in some thread recently, the filter itself and the tank circulation I suppose also represent big variations in how different fishless cycler's processes differ from each other. So perhaps GG's process has been improved some by the change in circulation mentioned above - can't see that it would hurt, and might have helped.

~~waterdrop~~
:fun: good morning you guys, getting to say a brief hello from "super-busy-darn-no-time-to-relax-world" (which world is not a place I really like to be as you can tell from all my posts promoting how relaxing an aquarium can be!)
 
Thanks WD

I'm working night shifts this week so regular testing at 12 hour intervals is going to be difficult but I'll see what I can do. I honestly think that the oxygenator attachment I added has done the trick. I think this cycle could have been completed weeks ago if it had been fitted since the start. You can visually see the vast change in circulation of the water with it fitted. This phenomenon is obviously something none of us considered but for other Jewel Rio 240 owners I would think it is extremely valuable information.

Right, I better go and see if those 240 litres have drained out yet...
 
Interesting, I remember the discussion of cirax or whatever the Juwel name for ceramic rings or such was and you pictured your Rio built-in filter and we all discussed nitrate sponges vs. blue sponges or the like, but yeah, its entirely possible that not much was ever made about your surface circulation or about bubbles or circulation in general. Perhaps your built-in filter has simply not been allowing enough oxygen exchange at the surface (sorry if all of you have been already discussing this a lot, I have not reviewed the full thread.) It would be nice to hear the summaries about this in the end as maybe we need to be more paranoid about either the surface movement thing or the built-in juwel filters or, as you say, the setup configuration where they do more surface disturbance via an attachment.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Hi WD.

Yes, we never did discuss water circulation. I never considered it to be worthwhile questioning on a new tank with integrated filter and pump. Even as a newbie, I think it's highly unlikely that the built in filtration system on a new tank would be questioned before starting a fishless cycle. We rightly assumed it was fit for purpose. The reason the little oxygenator attachment has made such a remarkable difference to the water circulation is because, with it fitted, it reduces the pump outlet hole diameter to around 1/4 inch diameter instead of the original diameter which was around 5/8ths of an inch. This has obviously greatly increased the pump outlet pressure. The water now positively whirls around the surface of the tank instead of it's previous gentle drifting. My theory is that all this extra agitation has stirred up the tank water a little better, getting more ammonia through the filter instead of it sitting stagnant in different areas of the tank. Maybe my theory is completely wrong, but this little device is now destined to stay in position permanently, even if it does make considerably more noise.
 
Interesting, well, we'll have to remember that in the future about the Juwel built-ins then! Glad you made the observation. WD
 
I did the full water change yesterday evening and dosed the tank with 5ppm of ammonia. Today (after 24 hours) ammonia is zero, nitrite is 0.25 and nitrate is 40. I didn't get chance to test it after 12 hours. I am amazed at how quickly the nitrate level rises after a complete water change. Is this normal?
 
Yeah I think so. I think it's prob good, means that none of the bacteria in your filter has died. Lol I think.
 

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