Tropical_fish's Fishless Cycle - Complete

[OldMan47]

You can keep the bacteria ticking over by just dosing with ammonia once a day until you decide to add your fish. At that point a large water change to drop nitrates and you should be good to go.

 

[Tropical_Fish]

It's not ready for just ticking over yet.

I tested 4 hours early and could see that the nitrite and ammonia had both been processed so I wanted to know if it needed the 4 hours of doing nothing or if I could move on to the next dose early to try and speed up the cycle slightly.

Or would I do more harm?

So basically it's fully processing in 20 hours, so can I dose after 20 hours when both nitrite and ammonia are 0 or is it best to wait the full 24 hours?

 

[sjolliff]

just been reading a few other posts and most of them say top up 24 hr, then when its goes to 0 at 24 then start testing at 12hours,
hope this helps

also how long did it take for your intial 5ppm to gets to 0 im at 5 days and down to 1ppm

 

[OldMan47]

You only need to add amonia once a day and it is easier to keep track of things if you dose at the same time every day. If 4 hours earlier in the day would always be a more convenient time, go ahead and move the dose time.

 

[Tropical_Fish]

My idea was just to try and shave a bit of time off the cycle.

Normally the time I dose is 9.00pm and it wasn't processing Nitrite in 24 hours (but it processes ammonia in less than 10 hours) Then each day I re-dose at 9.00pm to keep the ammonia eating bacteria alive, but not more than once a day ( I made that mistake earlier on! ) so as not to create too much Nitrite.

But now my Nitrite isn't taking 24 hours I basically wanted to shift to a shorter 'day' to speed things up and wanted to see if there would be any negative effect to this - I couldn't imagine any negative effect as the nitrite and ammonia are both at zero.

So instead of dosing at 9.00pm I could have dosed at 7.00pm and then tested at 7.00am to see if it was processing in 12 hours, then if it still wasn't I would test at say 12:00 to see if it had processed in 17 hours (which is likely) If it had then I would dose then at 12:00 and then test at midnight to see if it was processing etc etc.

I'm still interested to know if there would be any negative side effects to trying to speed up the end of the cycle, but it's a bit useless now for tonight as it's nearly 9.00pm so I'll dose at 9.00pm and test tomorrow to at 9.00am to see if I'm down to 12 hours!

Thanks for the input though

 

[OldMan47]

The growth rate of the bacteria is pretty well set based on their genetics. I doubt that you will speed your cycle much by shortening the interval but it is up to you how you go about it and what you try.

 

[Tropical_Fish]

That's the sort of reply I was after - I'll stick to the 24 hour doses, I wasn't sure if they would pause there growth whilst they had no food, or if they continued to grow without ammonia.

Cheers

 

[OldMan47]

I am not sure if they can stop and start that fast either. Maybe you could try it and let us all know how it comes out for you. I am always ready to learn something new.

 

[Tropical_Fish]

I've got nothing to compare it to - so it wouldn't be very useful.



Tested 02/08/2009

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0.5ppm
Nitrate - 160+ppm

Bit closer today but still not quite 12 hours

 

[Tropical_Fish]

Tested again at 12.30 - nitrate now 0ppm - so it processing the nitrite down to 0 in under 15.5 hours.

I've gone for it and re-dosed with ammonia at 12.30 - just means I've got to do the next test at 00:30.

 

[Tropical_Fish]

Tested at 00:30 last night and it was still a bit purple so not fully processed. Retested at 9.00am this morning and it was 0ppm.

Re-dosed with 3ml of ammonia to bring it up over 4ppm

So from the previous test. I know that it is processing in about 15 hours. Tonight I will test at 9.00pm, then every hour after to see as close as possible how many hours it's taking to process the ammonia.


Now for the question....

As I'm not planning on fully stocking my tank straight away is it close enough for half stocking the tank? I'm only planning on putting about 5 inches of fish in to start with which is 1/4 of it's capacity.

My ammonia is processing in well under 12 hours
My Nitrite is processing in about 15 hours

If it's best to leave it I will - just wondered

 

[Tropical_Fish]

9.00pm test - still a show of nitrite

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0.xx less than 0.25ppm

pH - 7.0 <---- this is strange as it's always been 7.6 in the tank (7.0 out of the tap)

is the lower pH due to the Nitrates getting too high?


Tested at 10.30pm again:

Nitrite - 0ppm

So it's processed it all down to 0 in 13.5 hours so getting closer each day!

Re-dosed with 3ml of ammonia to bring it back up to over 4ppm. Will test again at 10.30am to see if it's managing in 12 hours yet!

 

[OldMan47]

If you want to rush the stocking, not a great idea, make sure that you can get say 3 ppm to zero in under 12 hours and it might turn out OK. After all this time why would you want to rush the last few days of getting your cycle?

 

[Tropical_Fish]

I'm not rushing - just wondered as there is obviously a fair bit of bacteria.

I think it will be processing both in 12 hours either today or tomorrow. So will probably get some fish at the weekend.

I would have thought it would already process 3ppm down to zero in 12 hours.

It processes the ammonia in just a few hours, the nitrite at the last test took 13.5 hours to process 4.1ppm (from the calculator)

Next test is in 25 mins to see if it's managing in 12 hours

 

[Tropical_Fish]

Test at 10.30am

Showed:

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0.25ppm
pH - 6.6
Nitrate - off the scale