My Fishless Cycle Log

[yasinullah]

ok thanks
i think i'm judging the colours wrong as i now got 1.0ppm for +18hours, so musta been 1.5ish before at +17. Going to do hourly tests to see where I'm at. Am away from home next weekend and so wont be able to have fish til 2 weeks time anyway hopefully be sorted by then.

on sep 5th i got 0.25ppm at +18hours hmmmn, maybe the water change did have a big effect after all.

 

[sjolliff]

I wish i would nto of done it, but then again what would of happened if you did the first big WC a day before the fish? could of done whats happened now.

I just decided to take all my plants out, lights off everything and towel back over, im just going to dose 5ppm every 24HRS check PH at the same time and test every wed, see the results every 12HRS is de-flating me and my G/F lol

 

[yasinullah]

yeah, i really dont get how a water change can disrupt things so much, maybe the bacterial colonies are still too weak at this stage. But doesnt seem the case with everyone.

Getting the same old results again, just did a +22hours test and got 0 - 0.25 ppm. This happened when my first nitrite spike ended, and wouldn't budge either. I don't get why everyone else as far as I can remember reached double zeros at 12hrs very soon after the end of the nitrite spike. I'm away from home next weekend so will have to wait til the weekend after anyway to get fish, otherwise I probably would've gone ahead and got some fish anyway next weekend. So I'm giving it 2 more weeks.

 

[sjolliff]

Hi how things going?

 

[waterdrop]

Am I just reading the first post wrong or are we starting to see some zero nitrites between days 79 and 82 results after the previous very long period of nitrite spike?

It could be that its finally beginning to "studder" out of it kind of like it happens for a lot of people between days 60 and 70 but for you its just in the 80s.

I always feel there's just the element of the unknown in every individual case. Maybe there's some weird rare chemical in there that the autotrophs didn't like for their growth!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[yasinullah]

right since DAY 82 i started getting 0 for nitrite after 24hours, i then started topping up to 5ppm (ammonia), since then I constantly get around 5ppm at 12 hours, and 0ppm at 24hours for nitrite, the 12hour results won't change AT ALL!!! Am now on DAY 96, been continually adding 5ppm of ammonia every 24hours.

This is similar to what happened after my first nitrite spike was over, it would process all nitrite in 24 hours, but no change at 12hours would remain around 5ppm.

There must be some other chemical or so as waterdrop suggested causing this. I'm going to get some fish either this Weds or the coming weekend, and hope that my tank eventually completes the cycle or dive into a fish-in cycle ! but at least I've endured through these 96days to get this far , so I hope it shouldnt be too much trouble.

i'm also going to switch to seachem prime (from tetra aquasafe) arrived today

 

[OldMan47]

You are going to drive yourself crazy testing every few hours yasinullah. Try a huge water change, all that you can get without tilting the tank up at an angle and recharge once. I would bet that your actual nitrates and other chemicals that have built over the last 3 months are affecting your test results somehow. If you can reliably dose to 2 ppm and have zeros after 12 hours, I think I would call it good and put the first fish into the tank. The refined nitrite processing to get to a full stocking can happen while you are enjoying your first fish. After all, there must be some fish that are going to have to wait for the tank to mature anyway. They can wait while you enjoy the rest.

 

[yasinullah]

thanks OM.

i only did the extensive testing on 2 days, just to see what was going on.

i did do a water change around 10days ago now, yet N-bacs still unable to process all the nitrite after 12hours. However it able to process 2.5 - 3ppm of ammonia and the resulting nitrite in 12 hours. So will get my first fish tomorrow, am going to get 6 harlequin rasboras, and 2 guppies or platys (males) to begin with, then will add 2 more guppies/platys, and later 6 neons once tank has matured six months down the line.

 

[OldMan47]

Keep a close eye on that tank just in case there is something that we missed while looking at your cycle.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, will be interested to see how the tests go after fish. Its really hard to predict how much ammonia a particular stocking of fish will give off. The 5ppm spec in RDDs main article is supposed to be equivalent to quite a huge stocking, so that should give you some leeway....

~~waterdrop~~

 

[yasinullah]

right ended up with 5 harlequin rasboras, and 4 platys, they all seem quite active is that bad? harlequins in particular ,
I did the huge water change and tested an hour later, got 0 for nitrite and ammonia, acclimated and added the fish shortly after this. Will do frequent tests to make sure everything's alright

edit: tested at 8pm , 0's for both nitrite and ammonia might have slightly overfed though, so hard to tell how much to feed, and the cheeky harlequins dart all over the place and gobble up most of the flakes! they shoal nicely, though one seems to wander off alone occasionally

 

[waterdrop]

Congrats! Lots of action sounds healthy!

My rasboras are expert and strafing the surface for food and getting it before other fish can. If anything they've become better at this over time even as they've become larger. For flake food what I do is put down a little surface food and let them start this behavior and then I grind up the next bit between my fingers and put my fingers beneath the surface, rubbing them together to be sure pretty many smaller flakes are released to move downward. This gives other fish that are less successful at the surface a chance to compete better against the rasboras and danios. Don't know if this would help with platies but just thought I'd mention it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[yasinullah]

thanks for the advice wd, cheecky harlequins go for the large flakes also funny to see em gobble up a large flake! they are so adorable!!! are tetras just as interesting?

checking twice a day, still getting double 0's

 

[waterdrop]

Yup, tetras are great too!

 

[sjolliff]

Glad your tank is running fine now
Tetras need a more mature tank around 6 months