My Fishless Cycle

[waterdrop]

Just finished reviewing the whole thread again. Did you have plants die.. seemed like you mentioned new plants around the time when you were getting the new heater? The last time we attempted a kickstart with the double water change series, we did indeed see nitrite go down to 0.50ppm, so we know your kit can measure it low and we know we can get it down there, but it just comes right back up pretty fast and we never did get nitrates down. I think this coming weekend or when its convenient you should consider a series of water changes such that we attempt to get all the nitrate(NO3) out of there, its just seeming too strange to me and I'm worried its prolonging this nitrite spike too long. It might take 3 or even 4 90% water changes (I know, I hear the grumblings, "did you hear, waterdrop's gone nuts" ) but then take a set of tests prior to the ammonia recharge for me and post up. Also please post your temperature stat along with others, you're making me paranoid about whether there's a heater in there, lol.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. you're probably just a 60,70 day fishless cycling case and I'm just going overboard, but...

 

[tommyg123]

Thanks for reviewing my tests waterdrop and yes i did have some plants that died afew days after. Im sure my new plants are not dying as i havn't removed them from the pots or anything.
Also still havn't got my themometer sorted so going to buy 1 from the shop and not online.
I'll try and get some water changes done tomorrow or whenever but if i do like 4 water changes does that mean i have to keep using Aquasafe every change or can i just add that on my final change?

Thanks Waterdrop.

 

[waterdrop]

I'd recommend using a conditioner on every water change because you don't want the chlorine/chloramines to kill the bacteria you're trying to grow. When a tank is mature, say a year old or later, the biofilms might very well be robust enough to not be hurt by a 25% water change without conditioner, but in your case you don't want to risk it.

Plants breaking down can produce a lot of ammonia and if the A-Bacs rapidly converted that to nitrite(NO2) that might explain a significant amount of your nitrite. I believe that rooted plants are meant to be "de-potted" as the potting and root protection via "glass wool" packing is just a thing that facilitates the farm raising of the plant and then provides protection to the roots in transit. The plant guys could advise more details about this than me but I believe its best to very gently remove the glass wool from the roots, give the root tips a little snip off with the scissors and then place the roots low in a substrate hole, replace the substrate over the roots and then gently raise the crown of the plant to be just barely above the substrate surface, thereby lifting the roots under the substrate a bit from the initial too-low positon during the planting process.

~~waterdrop~~