My Fishless Cycle Log || Everything That Has A Beginning Has An End&#3

[Ragtagcurtis]

So finally business picks up!!!

Can't express my joy at those readings tonight and my excitement as I can see a little progression. My first 0 0 and it came out of the blue.

So I'm redosing to 5 right? and then do i check every 12 hours or still 24 hours until I get back to back 0 0's?

 

[Gelt]

Cool Raga ,

same day i hit double zeros! must be the same tank thing,

yep and now into the 12 hour testings , dose back up to what you were before the NitrIte spike phase, mine will be back to 4 ppm

then i'm aiming for 0700 & 1900 hrs testings and dosings- roll on next phase

Next test being 1900 hrs on 22/04/11 then 12 hrs later rolling on!
Good luck.

G

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

Nitrite hasn't fallen in 12 hours which is maybe a little disappointing. Ammonia is almost back from 4 to 0 in 12 hours however which is great.

Do I redose ammonia back to 4 now whenever it hits 0? even if the nitrite hasn't came down?

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

Yes, I agree with KK, there have been discussions in the past that it is really the *change* in pH (the delta if you will) that the autotrophs are responding to. Dave Spencer and I had some discussions about that because even in very acid tanks the bacteria will slowly come back to working even if they stopped working when the pH first dropped down to being very acid.

I also think our "graph" from Tim Hovanec of pH and growth rate have been good over the years that growth is stopped, stalled or very bad down at 6.0 and moving up to stalled at 6.2, then gradually getting better as we head up through the 7s until we finally reach the peak plateau of 8.0 to 8.4 where his lab work always found it best. Then the growth rate falls off a little as you go above 8.4.

My thinking has also gone along the same lines as KK in that I've always thought it would be interesting to do some fishless cycles where large water changes were done fairly frequently throughout the second and third phases when all the bad things (nitrite, nitrate, nitric acid) can and will build up. So you'd be removing those and replacing them with fresh tap water that has the things the bacteria want (ammonia in the right concentration, oxygen, calcium and other trace minerals from the fresh tap water.) It could be that KK will do one of these, she was going to try some "experiments" a while back.

Of course, two of the counter arguments are that first of all one of the supposed benefits of fishless cycling is that you *don't* have to change a lot of water like you do in Fish-In (especially if you stumble in to Fish-In unplanned and are overstocked for it) and of course the other one is the "disturbance" to the bacteria when a water change is performed which in some cases can cause the bacteria to "go on strike" for a couple of days in protest.

I truly don't know: it could be that a bunch of disciplined water changing with careful recharging of ammonia and bicarb to bring up back up to 8 would really shorten a fishless cycle significantly OR it could be that the darn things are just going to take their set amount of time to grow and that's it! All our hunches are made very hard by not knowing how many bacteria a fishless cycle started with from a particular tank of tap water. That alone is an exponential factor and a constant confounder for all our "hobbyist" experimenting!

~~waterdrop~~ (gee, are we having fun now )

Thanks again waterdrop.
Shame i dont have another tank to setup and try!

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

Thanks Kat.
Lets hope you get more cycling logs to look at. From your obs it seems that the overall time could be reduced quite a bit.
The progress of Ragtagcurtis and Gelt is great and appears to support your obs.

Talking about the change in ph (delta), i have read about ph crashes in established tanks.
I have therefore been running my airstones whilst filling my tank during water changes as tap water ph is 8.4 but it settles after 36hrs to 7.6.
As i believe a change in ph of 0.3 is stressful to fish but appears to affect the bacterial filter potentially as well.
Would the airstones help gas off and settle the ph quicker?

Nitrite hasn't fallen in 12 hours which is maybe a little disappointing. Ammonia is almost back from 4 to 0 in 12 hours however which is great.

Do I redose ammonia back to 4 now whenever it hits 0? even if the nitrite hasn't came down?

Thats what we would expect the ammonia to do at this stage - great!.

Yep. RE-dose when ammonia is 0ppm even if nitrite hasnt come down.

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

Just done my PM test for the evening and I'm happy to report Ammonia 0 and Nitrite 0

I'm hoping this means that the tank can easily handle processing 4ppm ammonia and nitrites in 24 hours. Just need to get it to 12 now.

 

[Gelt]

i don't think your Ammonia processing will be a problem in 12 hrs, its the NitrIte may take a while to drop to zero in 12 hrs, don't forget we are re-dosing back up to 4-5 pmm again after the first double zero, so i anticipate maybe 1-2 ppm NitrIte on your first few 12 hrs readings.

over the halfway mark anyhow, fingers crossed, keep a close eye on Ph mate.

G

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

AM test concluded. Nitrites do not seem to get below 5ppm in 12 hours. Although saying that the API test kit is not very clear with regard to colour difference of nitrites 2-5

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

You have made great progress.
Trying to guess nitrites between 2 and 5ppm is just that a, guess!

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

Thanks.

Hey guys my PH has taken a dip today reading somewhere around 7.0 - 7.2

What can I do to get this back up I'm guessing I need to?

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

Just can't process Nitrite in 12 hours and redosing Ammonia every 12 is only going to make it longer

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

You only re-dose ammonia at the 24hr mark even if it is 0ppm at 12hrs.
The nitrite drop will take time but will be even longer as you are effectively dosing 8ppm in 24hrs. That will produce a lot of nitrite.

With regards to your ph, you have some options:
- 100% temp matched dechlorinated water change
- add sodium bicarbonate to tank. 1-2 teaspoons per 50L of water. Mix thoroughly with some tank water and then add it to tank otherwise it will be clumped.
- 100% temp matched dechlorinated water change and add sodium bicarbonate to tank.

Check ph daily.

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

You only re-dose ammonia at the 24hr mark even if it is 0ppm at 12hrs.
The nitrite drop will take time but will be even longer as you are effectively dosing 8ppm in 24hrs. That will produce a lot of nitrite.

With regards to your ph, you have some options:
- 100% temp matched dechlorinated water change
- add sodium bicarbonate to tank. 1-2 teaspoons per 50L of water. Mix thoroughly with some tank water and then add it to tank otherwise it will be clumped.
- 100% temp matched dechlorinated water change and add sodium bicarbonate to tank.

Check ph daily.

Oops looks like I made a mistake with the Ammonia dosing...

As for the tanks PH, is have 7 - 7.2 that bad? will it effect the cycle negatively at that level? I may put 5 teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate tomorrow then once I can find a place to buy it.

 

[Gelt]

i would only put 1 teaspoon of bicarb per 50l of water , make sure its mixed in tank water prior to adding.

however yes your PH has dropped slightly but its fine, keep an eye on it if it drops more maybe a 50% water change and that should re-invigorate things.

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

After reading the fishless cycle guide again I see that a PH between 8 - High 6's is fine for the fishless cycle so I won't make any changes at the moment. I will however test it daily and if/when it falls below 7 I will add some sodium bicarbonate (3 teaspoons).