My Fishless Cycle Log

[jmkgreen]

My "A-bac" was present after a week. A further 2-3 weeks on I still have no evidence of "B-bac" so nitrites are off the chart.

An easy way to check if you're developing the "b-bacteria" is to look for increases of nitrates. No increase for me yet

Oh and congratulations on the new job, whatever that may be

 

[yasinullah]

My "A-bac" was present after a week. A further 2-3 weeks on I still have no evidence of "B-bac" so nitrites are off the chart.

An easy way to check if you're developing the "b-bacteria" is to look for increases of nitrates. No increase for me yet

Oh and congratulations on the new job, whatever that may be

Got a shocking 20ppm for nitrates before the water change, maybe i did it wrong though. I left it 24hours+ without ammonia and retested and it was 1 - 2.0ppm, so looks liek its processing now. Am adding really low doses of ammonia now, as looks liek after yesterdays addition the ammonia went up a bit, not off the charts though as drops aren't changing straight away, hard to tell really was at 1.0ppm level for a good while then when all pinky-purple
Pesky N-bacs are driving me mad, especially since I was processing them in 24hours, 2 times before, now can't reach that stage again.

Thanks, am working as an assistant technician in a hospital pharmacy. Will keep an eye on teh nitrates this time round, I always skip that test, far too lazy for that one lol

 

[yasinullah]

Went and bought a Fluval U2 today, anything to help speed things up, will run the internal Juwel filter at the same time.

If my current pH is around 7.6, will I benefit by bumping up the pH with baking soda to 8.4 ish, or is it not worth the bother?
Am just annoyed that I had N-bacs twice before but no sign of them now which really bugs me.

Thanks

 

[yasinullah]

Right, getting really confused now as still no major changes to nitrite spike since 27th July follwing a pH crash and water change. I've started keeping a proper log again since the 18th, before that nitrites were around 5ppm or more. Last water change was done on the 15th, a week ago now. I'm adding now adding around just under 2.5ppm of ammonia since 21/08 before that was adding 2ppm.

DAY 64 AM - Ammonia <0.25 - Nitrite 0.75/5.0
DAY 65 AM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite <0.75/5.0
DAY 65 PM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite 1.0/5.0
DAY 66 AM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite >0.75/5.0
DAY 66 PM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite -------/>5.0
DAY 67 AM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite >0.75/5.0 - Nitrate 10 - 20ppm
DAY 67 PM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite ~2.0/>5.0
DAY 68 AM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite <1.0/>5.0 - Nitrate 20ppm
DAY 68 PM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite >1.0/>5.0
DAY 69 AM - Ammonia 0.0 - Nitrite >1.0/>5.0
WATER CHANGE
DAY 69 PM - Ammonia 3.0 - Nitrite 0.50 - Nitrate 15ppm - pH <7.8

The nitrite readings are in the order of, 1ml tank water with 4ml tap water (5 X dilution) and second is just tank water reading.
Is it just a case of waiting it out? as it does appear I do have N-bacs as the NO2 values have been keeping steady, I'm not going to do any further water changes as I feel that might be slowing everything down.

oh and credits to martinking for his template, thnx

 

[yasinullah]

^ added this mornings test results. Is doing a 5 X dilution an inaccurate test? as I'm only taking 1ml from the tank as opposed to 5ml for a normal test???

 

[sjolliff]

I use baking soda for the PH the ideal PH for bacteria growth is 8-8.4 if you dont want the PH to raise to much only add 1tspn per 50L of water it will just buffer the PH and keep it there

 

[yasinullah]

can i ask where you get your baking soda from? always wanted to give it a try. thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Baking soda is just regular kitchen baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) (just make sure its not baking powder as sometimes that has other ingredients in certain brands.) If you do try baking soda you don't need to be as tentative as mentioned, it does not raise the pH directly, instead it buffers the water against pH drops and even it you add 3 teaspoons per 50L, as opposed to the 1 t. per 50L mentioned, it shouldn't raise the pH above the ideal 8 to 8.4. The only thing wrong with this discussion of course is that your pH is already seeming to hold at 7.6, which is quite good and bothering with all that to try and get it up above 8 probably won't actually make a noticable speed-up. (of course, we always love different types of experiments to give us different pictures here on TFF, so we'd probably file away your experience ) The real problem is probably just that you have one of those 60 to 80 day fishless cycles that we see so many of and its driving you crazy but there's probably not much you can do about it...

That being said, there is a different, or additional, variation in technique you could try that OM47 and I have thought about some. If you have the time and inclination, why not try doing more frequent large gravel-clean-water-change-recharges (as I call them, lol)... the way you do it is to gravel clean, taking the water all the way down to gravel level.. basically where it finally breaks the siphon (what we call a 90% or more or less total water change) and the of course refill with conditioned, temperature-improved (so the heater doesn't take so long to get back to the hot temp the bacteria like) tap water and then recharge both the ammonia and the baking soda to what you want them (I'd probably go 3ppm ammonia rather than 2ppm, but who knows?)... anyway for this experiment I'd do this at least every weekend. The theory is that the N-Bacs will like this environment of much lower nitrite and nitrate and will multiply a little faster. They (the Nitrospira) may be having to compete with some other species that do a little better with the higher levels of nitrite and nitrate and your tank may be one of the ones that the other bacteria liked a little more than usual, hence your slower process. At the worst, using this technique might not make any difference to the overall time or might even do a tiny bit worse, but it might do better and of couse we'll never really know on an individual case, we'll only add to the aggregate experience we gather here in the beginners section. Its up to you...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[sjolliff]

I get my baking soda from a corner shop near me for 49p.
As waterdrop said not baking powder as it contains other ingredients

 

[waterdrop]

I get my baking soda from a corner shop near me for 49p.
As waterdrop said not baking powder as it contains other ingredients

Yes, as an aside, I've learned from rabbut and others that some of commonly used baking powders (I guess) in UK are perfectly ok too and are used, its just that from an international standpoint for the sake of the forum I've always thought there's some concern that some baking powder mixtures in some countries might contain some other ingredients that might hang around past the big water change. In all cases, the idea is that the big water change will rid the tank of the stuff you don't want from encouraging cycling. The sodium that comes from the baking soda (sodium bicarb) for instance, is not desirable, but goes out with the big water change and you never put it in again.

Also, want to mention to yas... The format of putting in the "Day" you are on that you were doing back in your first post of this thread was a good thing to keep up. Having to look up dates and try to figure that out is a bit of a hassle. Also I don't really "get" your nitrite readings.. probably better just to guesstimate or put a "high" number for them than to try to write a range. Are you still "spiked"?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[yasinullah]

cool will count up my days again, reason i stopped doing that is i didnt think the day i'm at would matter any more considering that my N-bacs have been MIA since my 2nd water change into my cycle.

The nitrites been spiked since day 43, but I've done at least 3 large water changes up til now which is day 69!!
what I was doing above was i was mixing 1ml of tank water with 4ml of tap water for a 5 times dilution to tray and see whther there was nitrite movement. I'll update my first post again (without the dilution tests) to make it all clearer.

I did another water change an hour ago right up to the sand, water stats (after 30mins ) are:

NH3: 3ppm, Nitrite: 0.5ppm, Nitrate: 15ppm, pH: <7.8 (not sure as was quite lighter than the colour on the card, but was a light brown-like colour). Will try get hold of some baking soda tomorrow evening.

Thanks wd and sjlolliff.

updated day counts and first post, am on DAY 69!

 

[sjolliff]

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, its just one of those things. When I'm jumping around commenting on dozens of different cycles, one of the very first things I look at to orient myself are the number of days the person's been cycling. This tells me two things: the limits of -possibility- for what the bacteria could be doing probably and secondly the likely level of frustration of the human (although that varies quite a bit more than the bacteria )

Anyway, sounds like a plan and I wish you good luck. It helps to understand sometimes how little we actually do understand! There's a fairly good chance that the major factor in the slowness of your fishless cycle is simply that you've somehow started with very few N-Bacs (after all its a totally chance thing, how many happen to have come in with your tap water) and perhaps some factor continues to make them slow to develop. This very same thing just seems to happen sometimes to people like you who have all the parameters adjusted such that a quick cycle could be expected. All these things we're talking about doing may or may not make much difference.. most likely not much. Its awful, but the ultimate thing you've got on your side is in fact.. time! Eeeventuallyyy, by continuing to supply fresh ammonia and oxygenated water, they will grow.. never seen a case where they didn't.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[yasinullah]

still no change, am processing 2.5ppm of ammonia in 12hours, nitrites remain off the charts.

baking powder containing: Raising Agents (Disodium Phosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Rice Flour, is NOT ideal right? will try some other smaller shops and see if they have baking soda.

 

[sjolliff]

No
only with the ingrdient Sodium Bicarbonate is suitable,
I hope you nitrites come down soon, its been forever

I had a funny thing on my cycle
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...01958&st=20 last post