A Month Into My 1st Fishless Cycle...

[MattM1124]

I am currently doing a fishless cycle using the 'add and wait method' It's been about a month and I'm at the stage where every time I add ammonia into the tank to raise it back up to 5 ppm the bacteria is working and getting the ammonia back down to 0 in less then 7 hours. My nitrites and nitrates are still very high though.

My question is, should I keep adding the ammonia every time it goes back down to 0 until the nitrites drop? Like should I keep adding the ammonia back up after it reaches 0 even if it means raising it back up to 5ppm 3 or 4 times a day? Or should I just do it daily now even though it may go back down to 0 during the afternoon?

 

[Corleone]

Only add ever 24 hours - it's sometimes suggested to scale back to once every other day at this point to keep the nitrite spike from getting too high. At this point, the ntirite buildup will be sitting there to be eaten, so you don't need to add ammonia to produce more, only to keep the ammonia bacteria alive.

 

[MattM1124]

Only add ever 24 hours - it's sometimes suggested to scale back to once every other day at this point to keep the nitrite spike from getting too high. At this point, the ntirite buildup will be sitting there to be eaten, so you don't need to add ammonia to produce more, only to keep the ammonia bacteria alive.

Ok, so what your saying at this stage is to just add enough ammonia once a day to get it back up to 4 or 5 ppm. Then when the nitrite drops and the bacteria can convert them both within 12 hours then do the 90% water change? Correct?

 

[waterdrop]

Agreed. You only add ammonia once every 24 hours, no matter whether the A-Bacs have dropped it to zero within 7 hours or however fast.

At this stage of the very high nitrite spiking, you can ease back to only 3ppm rather than 4 or 5ppm but once the nitrite starts dropping to zero within 24 hours you should ease back up to 5ppm, which is the the add-amount you want to finish with.

And yes, the test you are trying to pass is when you've added 5ppm of ammonia and then both ammonia and nitrite have dropped to pure zero in 12 hours or less.

I suspect that if its taken you a month to get here then your pH must be lower than the 8.0-8.4 that the bacteria grow fastest at. Be forwarned that the last bit of waiting for nitrites to drop within 12 hours can seem like forever. Also, now that you're in the nitrite spike phase its ok to start doing large water changes on the weekends and topping back up with ammonia. This will clear the nitrites and nitrates out of there and give you some practice doing gravel cleanings and water changes and it won't hurt the progress of the fishless cycle (there will be plenty of nitrites (NO2) still in there for the N-Bacs to grow on.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[MattM1124]

Thanks for the information Waterdrop! To be honest though, after I first added the ammonia in I really didn't check it again until a few days ago. So the ammonia could have dropped but I didn't test it to know. Even though I didn't check it for about a month after initially adding the ammonia should everything still be on track or should I do something more now to get it right after not testing it for a while or adding in more ammonia in the past month?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ummmm it depends really, we'd need a bit more info on how well it's processing, what i'd suggest you do is this

start out with a massive water change, like 90% of the tank water, test the levels after doing this, you should have low ammonia, nitrite and nitrate at this point, if it isn't then do another change until they come down to ammonia and nitrite being under 1ppm and nitrate under 10ppm (ish).

then add your 5ppm of ammonia, test for ammonia and nitrite 12 hours later and record the results
24 hrs after adding the first lot of ammonia test the water again and record the results, then add 5ppm of ammonia, again record the results after 12 hrs.

if you can do that and let us know what your results are at each test then we can get a better idea of where you are and then advise accordingly.

 

[waterdrop]

Agreed, you can go ahead and follow MW's suggestions and we should be able to know better where things stand.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[MattM1124]

ummmm it depends really, we'd need a bit more info on how well it's processing, what i'd suggest you do is this

start out with a massive water change, like 90% of the tank water, test the levels after doing this, you should have low ammonia, nitrite and nitrate at this point, if it isn't then do another change until they come down to ammonia and nitrite being under 1ppm and nitrate under 10ppm (ish).

then add your 5ppm of ammonia, test for ammonia and nitrite 12 hours later and record the results
24 hrs after adding the first lot of ammonia test the water again and record the results, then add 5ppm of ammonia, again record the results after 12 hrs.

if you can do that and let us know what your results are at each test then we can get a better idea of where you are and then advise accordingly.

Ok I had to do two 90% water changes today to get the Nitrite down to about 1. The ammonia was at 0 both times I did the water changes and then tested it right after adding the new water. Here are my readings after doing the two water changes before adding the ammonia......

Ammonia - 0
NitRITE - on the high side of 1.0 (I'm using the API liquid tests for all of these.)
NitRATE - Between 5 and 10
PH - 7.6

So what does this say so far about my progress with the Nitrite still being high after both water changes? I'm going to add the ammonia in now and post my results tomorrow morning.

 

[waterdrop]

It just says that the nitrites were very high to start with, which just says that the N-Bacs are not a very big colony in the filter yet, unlike the A-Bacs, which have grown quite well.

Most people test ammonia, nitrites and pH twice a day (morning and evening) during fishless cycling and note them in a line with the date and time in their logbook. Its the trends you see by looking back at these readings that tell you more sometimes than any individual results. I'm not saying you have to do this, but you were at the other extreme and now as you get farther into the second stage of fishless cycling you'll want to certainly increase your testing some. Nitrates need only occasional testing out of curiosity.

Your pH is pretty good, but often a slower cycle like you're having may indicate that your KH is 3 or below, which slows the N-Bacs somewhat I think. I'd keep a close eye on pH and if it tries to drop below 7.0 then you may need to think about starting to test for KH (Carbonate Hardness.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah basically that tells us that you had a whole heap of nitrite in the first place!!

fine though, add the 5ppm and do the tests at 12 and 24 hrs and let us know how they are, the more readings we get the better a picture we can build up, after a day or two of regular testing and addition of ammonia we can get a much better picture.

with water readings the trend is nearly always more important than any one set of readings which just give a snap shot

 

[MattM1124]

yeah basically that tells us that you had a whole heap of nitrite in the first place!!

fine though, add the 5ppm and do the tests at 12 and 24 hrs and let us know how they are, the more readings we get the better a picture we can build up, after a day or two of regular testing and addition of ammonia we can get a much better picture.

with water readings the trend is nearly always more important than any one set of readings which just give a snap shot

Ok, here are the water results 12 hours after adding the 5ppm ammonia:

Ammonia - 1.0 - 2.0
Nitrite- It's either 1.0 or 5.0 (tough to tell since the colors on the chart are very close in color)
ph - 7.4

Water results after 24 hours:

Ammonia - .50-1.0
Nitrite- It's either 1.0 or 5.0 (tough to tell since the colors on the chart are very close in color)
ph - 7.6

So what do I do now, wait until the ammonia is down to 0 and get it back up to 5ppm or just add the 5ppm ammonia in now?

Also when I did the water changes I didn't add the tap water conditioner to remove the chlorine until after I added the water into the tank. Could that have caused some of the chlorine in the new water to kill off some of the bacteria in the filter? I usually add the drops into the water before adding into the tan but didn't this time.

Also what's the difference between A-Bacs and N-Bacs?

 

[waterdrop]

no no no, you don't add more ammonia until the ammonia test shows that it got all the way down to zero and even then you only add ammonia on the 24 hour mark. So if you are a person who added the ammonia, say, in the morning before work then if it got to zero some evening you would wait until morning to add the new dose of 5ppm. If you are a person who does your adds in the evening then you would always do it in the evening. Eventually, the ammonia will be processed in -less- than 24 hours and then this will make sense because you don't want to add ammonia more than once a day.

OK, and by the way.. Hi Matt! (Is Willie Parker really that fast a runner? Kills me that UNC sat him on the bench..)

Back to bacteria! Don't sweat it about the conditioner. Its not important at all whether you added it before or after, the important thing is just to remember to do it since we're beginners here and we're keeping things on the safe side (some of the pros don't use conditioner at all sometimes but that's because their bacterial colonies are on steroids after all these years, lol)

OK, last question: The terms A-Bacs and N-Bacs are for "Ammonia eating bacteria" and "Nitrite eating bacteria". These acronyms were coined because some other acronyms for them had some unfortunate associations for some of the members. These of course are the two good species we grow to "cycle" our filters.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

In other words when you say NOB's us UK guys and girls with the sense of humour of a 12 year old have a subtle snigger behind the computer

www.urbandictionary.com if you're not sure of the slang meaning!

 

[waterdrop]

Oh for heaven's sake MW, and here I was trying so hard to be subtle
Where is BTT to admonish you???

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i'm about as subtle as a brick through your window