20gallon Journal - Updated Daily - Indir

[indir-emir]

Since the weird looking thing on my water surface is coming from the water conditioner (damned aloe vera) would it still be safe to use once fish are in the water or would it be harmful to them?

Indir

 

[rabbut]

If you get the filter agetating the surface, the film will be broken and it will alow air in, making it perfectly safe for fish.

The source of your ammonia is likely to be just that you stired up the substrate and caursed a lot of the rotting stuff in to the water colunm. It's nothing much to worry about

All the best
Rabbut

 

[indir-emir]

Tested the water about 8 hours after i found the small amount of amonia and its back to 0.

Any ideas of when nitrites will start to drop? Been at 5+ last few days.

How would i get ammonia to 4ppm without clear ammonia (its discontinued in australia only have cloudy ammonia) so that i can test if it reduces to 0 in 12 hours?

Indir

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, we've encountered members from Aus. complaining about this before. I'm glad Thommo spoke up as I had seen his thread prior and was thinking he might be a help somehow. People say shipping of clear ammonia is even more non-existant because of similar concerns as was mentioned. Not sure what to suggest except that obviously some persistance and resourfulness might eventually pay off. You're seeing the problems with rotting fish food, its just a very out of control process, leaving you with little idea where you stand... however, that doesn't mean it wouldn't eventually get cycled, just that you would have to give it a long time and then guess somewhat at it being finished and then start stocking very slowly and lightly I guess.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah it really is just a case of adding a little each day until you start to get 0,0 readings for ammonia and nitrite, carryng on for a week to be on the safe side, doing a big water change and tank clean and then adding just a few fishand hoping for the best.

the thing is though even if it's not as measurable and easy to quanitify as a 'proper' fishless cycle it'll still be loads better than a full fish-in cycle as when you add fish the worst you'll see is a short mini cycle rather than a full month-6 weeks of daily water changes and your fish being in danger.

so don't despiar everything you do now will make it that bit easier when you do add fish.

 

[Thommo]

Tested the water about 8 hours after i found the small amount of amonia and its back to 0.

Any ideas of when nitrites will start to drop? Been at 5+ last few days.

How would i get ammonia to 4ppm without clear ammonia (its discontinued in australia only have cloudy ammonia) so that i can test if it reduces to 0 in 12 hours?

Indir

Just get the yellow pages out and ring all the Chemical suppliers and ask for 25% strenght Ammonia and that you only want a small quantity until you find someone who will sell it to you. I spent about an hour ringing all the suppliers in there until it got what I got. Like I said previously not many sell it under 4L but I did find 2 out of god knows how many who sold it in 500ml lots.

Just be persistant and keep ringing until you find someone.

Pure ammonia is deffinitly the way to go. I started using fish food as I had a hard time sourcing the ammoia. I did work but you go from a small ammount of Ammonia to a very large uncontrolled ammount in no time. Plus I is a very messy and inacurate process. The beauty of pure ammonia is you can work out the ammount to put in to get you to EXACTLY 5ppm using the calculator at the top of the forum page. (Well done to whoever built the calculator)

Just keep trying. The time and money for the ammonia is deffinitly worth it. Even if you don't use it all. You may require it down the trak when you get your next tank because fish is avery addictive hobby and you can't stop at one. Well, not without an intervention

Good luck

CHEERS

 

[indir-emir]

Yeah ive heard using fish food isnt predictable which is the reason im not using it. Trying to find ammonia at the moment and see what i can do, hopefully it wont be to hard to find one from Sydney hehe.

Thanks everyone, ill update water stats tonight.

Indir

 

[indir-emir]

Ok there is no ammonia anywhere around my area, even a while out of my area lol. Only cloudy ammonia, but that cant be used so none... Im gonna use fish food from now on. Got a few questions tho..
How am i ment to know how much to put in to reach 4ppm approx?
Also, how long does it take for the fish food to create ammonia which i can test with my kit?

I added fish food (enough for fully stocked tank) about 6 hours ago and my water stats now are:
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 5 (Why are these not going down )
Nitrate = 20
PH = Didn't Test (Can if need too)

Regards,
Indir

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's really guess work with using fish food, it takes a day or so to all release it's ammonia into the water, if you can grind the food up with your fingers so it's in tiny particles that will release into the water quicker.

 

[indir-emir]

Yeah, i grinded it as finely as i could before putting it into the tank. It sinks to the bottom almost straight away, but a small amount stays on surface for a little bit longer.

Any reasons why my Nitrites have not dropped and don't seem to be dropping?

Hehe, hoping im almost at the end of the cycle. But since i don't have ammonia in a bottle, ill stock slowly to make sure its fully cycled once nitrites drop to 0 and stay 0 for a few days (even while feeding the empty tank)

Indir

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, the reason it takes a while to see ammonia from the food is because all organic particles, like fish food, are begin eaten by a different class of bacterial species called heterotrophs (well, technically we're heterotrophs too I believe, in the more general sense ) but anyway, its these ubiquitous herterotrophic bacteria that we often see in pale milky clouds early on in a new tank and they will munch on excess food and start turning it into ammonia in about a day or so (hours, actually, but a minimum day or so in terms of us detecting stuff etc.)

As you can imagine, putting what the bacteria see as a huge amount of ammonia (the 5ppm) more or less baths them in food, whereas getting the leftovers from other bacteria eating fishfood is always going to be a smaller up and down type thing, because getting even output from -any- bacterial population is just by definition not a linear thing.

Its ok though, just hang in there, measure and try your best and eventually you will have grown bigger populations of the beneficial bacteria, it has to happen.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[indir-emir]

Heh yeah have to feed my empty tank. Does anyone know the reason the nitrites arnt dropping? Or a way i can make them drop so that i can actualy measure them, as i assume they are actualy above 5ppm...

Thank you,
Indir

 

[waterdrop]

Indir,

The reason nitrite(NO2) appears to "sit" at the highest reading of the test kit (often 5ppm) is because its actually just moving around way up high above where the kit can measure. The ammonia oxidizing bacteria (A-Bacs) produce 2.7ppm of nitrite(NO2) for every 1ppm of ammonia, so you can see that there's a muliplier effect.

Its better to just understand this and not "do anything" about it. If you do a big water change to get the nitrite down to measurable levels, you'll just have to recharge with fish food and wait again form the heterotrophs to process it which will slow down your cycle. You just have to trust that while you are in this "nitrite spike" phase, there is movement, even though you can't "see" it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[indir-emir]

Ah I see. Okay , well as long as its not stalled im happy because that means im slowly progressing towards the end so i can get me some fishies. Yay

Ill do an update of the water 2moro after my uni enrolment.

Thanks everyone,
Indir

 

[Miss Wiggle]

good luck with uni enrollment. coincidentally my other half is off to try and enrol in uni/college tomorrow to start in Sept