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

[Ragtagcurtis]

Day 23 AM test concluded. Happy and surprised to see that the filter has processed 8 ppm ammonia (due to my over dosing mistake) in 24 hours with both nitrite and ammonia being doubles zeros.

I am considering ordering my livestock during the week. They will take 2 weeks to arrive in which time I would think the cycle would be complete?

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

It is at this stage where the nitrite can prolong the cycling by hanging around and not dropping to zero quickly.
Just be a bit cautious as you dont want to be presented with fish when your filter isnt fully cycled.
The safer option is to be happy that your filter is cycled and then continue dosing ammonia to keep the bacteria alive until your fish arrive.
Not everybody on the forum does the qualifying week but i think it is important to do it if you are going to spend a bit of money stocking fish quickly.

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

It is at this stage where the nitrite can prolong the cycling by hanging around and not dropping to zero quickly.
Just be a bit cautious as you dont want to be presented with fish when your filter isnt fully cycled.
The safer option is to be happy that your filter is cycled and then continue dosing ammonia to keep the bacteria alive until your fish arrive.
Not everybody on the forum does the qualifying week but i think it is important to do it if you are going to spend a bit of money stocking fish quickly.

Thanks for the advice. What I was thinking of doing was ordering the fish at my lfs who then take about two weeks to get them but can hold them for me for as long as it takes once there. Alternatively I may order online depending on quality and price of the livestock. I haven't found any lfs that keep stock of P. Saulosi. The Hollybush garden centre have a few I believe but they are mixed in tanks with other similar species and it would be to hard to tell them apart and ensure I hard only the Saulosi's. If you know of any please let me know as we are from the same neck of the words as it were.

Just a quick question that maybe you can help me with. People on here often say its better to let water stand for 12 hours before adding it to the tank when doing water changes and also to match temp so the fish do not get shocked and stressed. I have a large bucket that can hold around 60L so will be great for water changes but how would you recommend matching the temperatures? Is it OK to boil a small amount of the water to get the temp up? I understand that boiling water also removes chlorine..

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

PM test showing that nitrites are still not falling within 12 hours. After making a couple of mistakes I will now be redosing the tank in the morning rather than the evenings.

Hopefully back on track.

 

[waterdrop]

Once nitrite is dropping to zero ppm within 24 hours and you begin checking at 12 hours you are in the 3rd phase of fishless cycling. Usually the third phase is not quite as long as the second phase (the "nitrite spike" phase) but it still can be long sometimes and is unpredictable, like most of the aspects of fishless cycling.

Getting a box of bicarb from the grocery store and dosing at 2t/50L as mentioned is so harmless that I usually think it's worth doing, especially once your pH is low 7s or below.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

It is at this stage where the nitrite can prolong the cycling by hanging around and not dropping to zero quickly.
Just be a bit cautious as you dont want to be presented with fish when your filter isnt fully cycled.
The safer option is to be happy that your filter is cycled and then continue dosing ammonia to keep the bacteria alive until your fish arrive.
Not everybody on the forum does the qualifying week but i think it is important to do it if you are going to spend a bit of money stocking fish quickly.

Thanks for the advice. What I was thinking of doing was ordering the fish at my lfs who then take about two weeks to get them but can hold them for me for as long as it takes once there. Alternatively I may order online depending on quality and price of the livestock. I haven't found any lfs that keep stock of P. Saulosi. The Hollybush garden centre have a few I believe but they are mixed in tanks with other similar species and it would be to hard to tell them apart and ensure I hard only the Saulosi's. If you know of any please let me know as we are from the same neck of the words as it were.

Just a quick question that maybe you can help me with. People on here often say its better to let water stand for 12 hours before adding it to the tank when doing water changes and also to match temp so the fish do not get shocked and stressed. I have a large bucket that can hold around 60L so will be great for water changes but how would you recommend matching the temperatures? Is it OK to boil a small amount of the water to get the temp up? I understand that boiling water also removes chlorine..

That is a good plan.
Its a nice looking cichlid.
Just read this info on them:
http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/p_saulosi.php
Will keep an eye out.

The temp matching is very important.
I have personnally ditched the use of a bucket; to be honest it never got off the ground with me as it was too long winded for me!
I gravel vac the water out via a nearby window into the garden or through the kitchen into the garden.
To fill the tank back up, I then put a clean bowl in the sink and a submersible pump into it and a digital alarm thermometer. Connect a hose to the pump and put the other end in the tank. Add dechlorinator direct to the tank. I run the hot and cold tap together until it closely matches the tank temp. Switch the pump on and let the tank fill.

People let the water stand to allow chemicals to gas off and ph to match tank conditions.
Chlorine in tap water will gas off if left but chloromine will not. Your dechlorinator should remove both.

 

[waterdrop]

BBB wrote:
"The temp matching is very important.
I have personnally ditched the use of a bucket; to be honest it never got off the ground with me as it was too long winded for me!
I gravel vac the water out via a nearby window into the garden or through the kitchen into the garden.
To fill the tank back up, I then put a clean bowl in the sink and a submersible pump into it and a digital alarm thermometer. Connect a hose to the pump and put the other end in the tank. Add dechlorinator direct to the tank. I run the hot and cold tap together until it closely matches the tank temp. Switch the pump on and let the tank fill.

People let the water stand to allow chemicals to gas off and ph to match tank conditions.
Chlorine in tap water will gas off if left but chloromine will not. Your dechlorinator should remove both."

I always enjoy hearing the various stories of how we all go about our weekend water changes as that's one area with lots of differences. This one was quite interesting. I like it BBB, quite clever!

I use a traditional bunch of parts from Python like many others but I don't use the faucet vacuum starting thing, just the hoses and adapters basically and really just to get cleaner and smaller diameter and clear hoses since I leave them in the house. I just temp-match with the faucet and a plastic cup of tank water (the tank water than just got siphoned out and is therefor in the overflow bucket nearby.) Mixing faucets with separate control of flow and temp (such as the modern single arm ones) are wonderful because you can match the temp but then turn off the faucet to attach the hose directly. Still, your system sounds just as good and I'm sure the little pump could be just left with the hose as a dedicated device, making it quite convenient.

In my daydreams sometimes I think about a perfect system where the water would be piped up to a nice clean holding tank that had access to fresh air but sealed from bugs and such and had days to gas everything off and not have excess CO2. This would keep the BBA from being encouraged when doing the 50% water changes used in EI method. Of course since it's a dream system there would be a heater that made sure it was temp matched before flowing in to the tank lol. I'm sure this sytem will never get past the coffee cup here where it's being dreamed, lol.

~~waterdrop~~
(slight pause while the siamese cat lies on the mouse while cleaning her paw...)

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

Thanks for the tips guys.

This evenings testing is done and still no clear sign of nitrites falling within 12 hours. They are somewhere between 2 and 5.

I have added 4 and a half teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate and gotten my PH up to around 7.6... I have also just added my Ocean rock and other rock work which I'm sure will raise it a little further. Heres hoping it will make a difference.

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

WD - yeah i keep the pump with the hose and the gravel vac hose is attached to that hose.
The hose is the same type my filter uses so acts as a a replacement should something go wrong with the filter hose.
The pump has adjustable flow and could be used in my tank if i ever needed to improve the circulation.

The sink has a faucet that nothing can connect to it without causing a flood!

You must have some good coffee!
You need some kind of indoor water feature from which you can then transfer the water to your tank!

I run my airstones when filling the tank. Would that make much difference to the gassing off?

What happened to the mouse.............................?

 

[waterdrop]

yeah, this is kind of like one of the guys saying we need a mermaid fountain in the locker room at work. The mouse still clicks and double-clicks just fine.

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

So just concluded my test and great news. The Nitrites are now gone/almost gone in 12 hours. I can't tell truly if the test is showing 0 or 0.25 so for security I am presuming the worst in 0.25. Either way I have hope that I will be starting my qualifying week by Saturday!

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

Getting there slowly but surly.

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

Evening test done and still my nitrite is standing firm at 0.25ppm. Getting so inpatient now just want it to drop a little so my qualifying week can begin

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

Ph
Have you done a water change yet?
Were you not going to move the tank during decorating? Use that opportunity to do a 100% DTMWC - dechlorinated temp matched water change.
You are making great progress, patience is all you need now for a bit longer.

 

[Ragtagcurtis]

My decorators didnt turn up so I never ended up doing the water change. I have someone coming to lay new living room floor friday (hopefully). Would it be ok to have no water in the tank for like a day? I was thinking about setting some water up in a bucket and running the filter in that while its happening. I can then add new water when I put the tank back in its place.

Tested my PH and it is 7.6 and holding.