46 Gallon Tank In Cycling Stages

[waterdrop]

Sounds like a good plan. In my area the tap water is pH 7.4 but the KH is zero, so the little percentages of the nitrate(NO3) that are in the nitric acid state caused the pH to easily drop to 6. I used baking soda during the fishless cycle and it was very effective (Its for during the fishless cycle, not after that as you don't want all that sodium going in with the fish.) The baking soda goes out with the big water change.

So I agree, big water change, recharge to the correct ammonia concentration and use baking soda to raise your KH/pH to something the autotrophic bacteria like better. You also need to raise your temp to 84F as I think it was only 80 in your top post.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BryceHockey]

Thanks for the confirmation waterdrop. I have the temperature at 84 degrees now, and it looks like after getting the pH higher, the bacteria is already doing excellent (though crossing my fingers)! It was very close to 0 ppm when I tested the ammonia this morning, 12 hours after adding the ammonia. So I will test for everything tonight, add the ammonia, then check 12 hours later the next morning.

 

[BryceHockey]

Good news, the ammonia has been processed in 12 hours (or less)! However the nitrite is still very high, around 4.5 ppm. From what I read it will stay high and then suddenly drop one night and the tank will have been cycled. Of course I plan to wait a few days and continue adding ammonia before adding fish, to be sure that it consistently produces 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite readings.

Now I will wait not-so-patiently and hope the nitrite drops.

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds like you are well on your way to being cycled. Try very hard to hang on until it is done.

 

[BryceHockey]

It sounds like you are well on your way to being cycled. Try very hard to hang on until it is done.

Yep no worries, I would never add a fish into the tank if it wasn't stable.

 

[waterdrop]

Good news, the ammonia has been processed in 12 hours (or less)! However the nitrite is still very high, around 4.5 ppm. From what I read it will stay high and then suddenly drop one night and the tank will have been cycled. Of course I plan to wait a few days and continue adding ammonia before adding fish, to be sure that it consistently produces 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite readings.

Now I will wait not-so-patiently and hope the nitrite drops.

Yes, this understanding is correct. Once you have finally achieved zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) within 12 hours after adding 5ppm of ammonia, you are ready to start your "qualifying week." All that week you should be able to add 5ppm daily (at your "add time" of the day) and watch it achieve "double-zeros" at the 12-hour test point (then add ammonia again at the 24-hour point.) If the biofilter can consistently hold the double-zeros all week then you are ready for the big water change and first fish stocking on the weekend!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BryceHockey]

It appears that my nitrite may have dropped to 1.5 ppm in 12 hours, but I honestly cannot tell. Based on the hue of the liquid it looked to be 1.5. I'm around 50% sure that it's 1.5.

Maybe this means that tomorrow would bring the first double-zero results. I just want to have something to look forward to on a Monday (other than the MNF doubleheader).

 

[waterdrop]

The phase of fishless cycling near the end where people are often waiting for nitrite(NO2) to drop to a clear zero reading within 12hours is often one of the longest and most frustrating. Sometimes its longer than the "nitrite spike" phase.

But of course, like all of fishless cycling the length of this phase is quite unpredictable, so one must just settle in, keep good logs and keep an eye on the pH and eventually the N-Bacs will reward you with a solid zero at 12 hours.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BryceHockey]

The Nitrite is dropping rather slowly, I hardly noticed any difference between yesterday and today's readings, though I believe it was slightly lower. Nonetheless, at least it's dropping.

Once I have double-zeroes, does anyone think that 5 days is too few to "qualify test"? I know everyone says a week but if all 5 days were perfect double-zeroes then I would think it's fine to add my fish.

And one more question while waiting. If you were in my situation and had the tank fully cycled, how many fish would you add first and which ones (see my stocking list in this thread)? The filter may have enough bacteria to support all of the fish but to avoid losing a lot of money if something went wrong, is it better to add fish slowly? The problem I see with this is if I only added half of the fish, and waited 2 weeks to add the other half, I would think that some bacteria might die off. I'm just curious what the best option is. No matter what I do think it is best to wait and add the Bolivian Rams last, since they are the most expensive and the more mature the tank is, the better.

 

[waterdrop]

The idea of the "qualifying week" came about because a lot of fishless cyclers here would "hit double-zero," give a big cheer, do the big water change and stock the fish. Then suddenly they would find they had a mini-spike on their hands. At the time, BTT, MW and I were commenting on a lot of these cases and by encouraging the "qualifying week" idea we saw a pretty clear pattern of being able to "fork" the "not-quite-cycled" cases apart from the "completely-cycled" cases. There just seems to be this stubborn subset of maybe 30% of the cases where you'll see the first double-zeros but then start getting traces again and this usually shows those up quite clearly.

Using the term "qualifying -week-" was never meant to hardcode in 7 days or anything, it was just the idea that when you got your first double-zero at 12 hours you should hopefully finish out the longer part of a week and then get your first fish on the weekend. We were sort of thinking of the ideal case being where you saw your double-zeros on a monday or tuesday so you "qualify watched" for 5 or 6 days and got fish on the weekend if it continued to do the drops perfectly the rest of that week. Obviously its random when you end but that sort of gave a good picture of what the thinking was. So its really just the more days you verify it the better, up to a week or so and its up to you.

As to your stocking plan and first introduction, if I were you I'd stock all the rasboras and corys definately in the first go and even possibly the blue dwarf if you felt you must, but definately leave the Rams and probably the blue dwarf too for a significantly later introduction. This is what most people do. You stock as many of the hardy ones as possible at teh beginning to take advantage of the big 5ppm bacterial populations you've built up but as soon as a few weeks have gone by, the bacterial populations will have dropped back to match the bioload of that first introduction and so from then on you need to only do small 2 or 3 fish type introductions to give the bacteria time to catch up with each addition of fish. Don't forget that actually -finding- the exact fish you want at the -time- you want them can be a significant headache, so its good to be out there talking to your LFS places to try and be ready.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BryceHockey]

Thanks for the explanation Waterdrop, that helps a lot! Your last point about the LFS not having the fish I need is a good one, I am confident that I could get most if not all 12 harlequin rasboras as they always have a tank full of them but I have never seen more than 4 Julii corys in there in one visit. May have to get the Gourami and/or snail if they don't have enough of one fish.

Today the nitrite hardly dropped, just like yesterday. It's most likely because of the pH, which dropped down to 7.2. I added 1 tablespoon of baking soda, this should boost the pH up pretty high and get this rolling quicker.

 

[OldMan47]

If you don't see enough trilineatus have a look at the paleatus cories. They grow to about the same size, are tough as nails about water quality and are quite attractive in their own right. They are at least as active as the trilineatus and among the larger cories are one of my favorites. Most LFS have a bunch of them almost all the time. Unless you have a fortune to spend, real juliis, instead of the look alike trilineatus, are too dear to buy. The trilineatus are often marked as julii at the LFS because they just don't know any better. The appearance is quite close.

A trilineatus
A julii
A paleatus

 

[BryceHockey]

Thanks for the idea OM, I do like the peppered cories as an option. I actually was aware that what my LFS had were trilineatus, but it's much easier to just type Julii since they are very similar. I'm not a big fan of most catfish but the Julii and three-lined cories are cute and don't give me shivers.

So if I could get at least 3, preferably 4 three-lined cories and then 2 peppered that would be great. Again thanks for the idea!

The nitrite went down .2 or even a little more today! The pH was up to 7.9 so it seems that this sped up the bacteria growth again. I'm crossing my fingers that maybe the nitrite will drop to 0 tomorrow. Depending on how qualifying testing went, my LFS gets shipments in late Thursday so it could work out well to get the hardy fish at that point (not jumping the gun though, believe me I won't buy until it's 100% fully cycled).

 

[OldMan47]

The different cories won't shoal together as well as a group of all one kind but they won't bother each other either so they can all live together fairly well. I just added 5 of the panda cories to a tank that I was using for 13 hastatus and they are all doing fine with no aggression. Any one of the pandas probably has as much body mass as 6 or 7 of the hastatus though.

 

[BryceHockey]

Ah from what I read from some members on here I thought that they would shoal together, if not I'll hope they have quite a few three-lined cories.

Today the nitrite was .45 ppm. Does anyone have a clue to why it might have been higher? Yesterday it was getting very low, near the .15 range. This is the first time since the ammonia hit 0 that the nitrite reading increased rather than fell. It's pretty frustrating but I just want to figure out the cause.