Big P H Drop On Cycle. Help!

[degsod]

I would not worry about the sand at the moment it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Keep on adding your ammonia every 24 hours and start testing every 12 hours. We are now looking for the ammonia to be consumed within the 12 hour period.

 

[andy_sheff]

okidoki, what about the nitrites, should i monitor that at this stage or no point?

 

[fatheadminnow]

As soon as you start seeing your ammonia drop, you can start to monitor your nitrites about every 24 hours.

-FHM

 

[andy_sheff]

with the amonia gettin processed faster than nitrites and me adding amonia daily, is it not gonna end up with crazy amounts of nitrites in there

 

[waterdrop]

The idea of the baking soda (sodium bicarbonate aka bicarb) is that it, like any number of things, its something to help add a little optimization to this "bacterial growing soup" as I've been calling it. It "buffers" the water. Sodium bicarbonate is one of the bicarbonate salts that's very soluble in water, so the HCO3- ions separate off and are quite available to quickly combine with any H+ ions (protons) to help the overall system resist moving in the acid direction. When cycling, the end product of nitrification includes a certain percentage of nitric acid which is what's driving things in the acid direction in the first place.

Baking soda can create very quick changes to the water chemistry. It will add to the buffering (also called total alkalinity (a word meaning buffering, confusingly not the same as the work alkaline, referring to a subset of the bases!)) and will, after some delay also increase the pH to a point. Since it makes quick moves and doesn't bother the bacteria, its great for fishless cyclers, but its not as desirable for when you have fish, something to keep in mind. All this water will go down the drain prior to getting fish. If we have to raise pH after the fish are in there then we'll choose to use crushed coral in bags in the filter because that will raise pH much, much more slowly and will last much, much longer. But that's not something we'd like to have to do, so its a decision only arrived at if one has to.

I know you don't need all this detail, I'm just being complete cause lots of people read these sometimes. Back to the bacterial optimizations then. Besides a pH of 8.0 to 8.4 being fastest and us wanting it not to go too far down in the 6's, there's the temp, ideally 84F/29C and we'd like our water to have some minerals in it, particularly some of the calcium one gets with some hardness (you've apparently got that) and the bacteria will also use a little trace iron of which there will probably be plenty since you're going to have to feed those plants.

Speaking of those nice plants. You're probably going to want to start with only 4 hours of your lights on, perhaps 2 each, morning and evening when you're there. Gradually later, you'll increase that amount but you don't want algae and all the ammonia from fishless cycling is going to encourage it. You're going to want to investigate fertilization and dosing of carbon.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[andy_sheff]

thanks waterdrop,.
ile do that with the lights.

ive got some plant stuff that you put in once a week, as for carbon, ile have to read up!
aslong as the ph stays ok and the amonia is gettin processed ok were going well yea?
is the tank not gonna get over run with nitrites that the bacteria cant process yet??

Andy

 

[degsod]

At some stage the nitrites will rise until the nbacs catch up then they should fall as they get process and then the nitrates will go mad.

Once your ammonia is getting processed in 12 hours is when I would start measuring the nitrites.

 

[andy_sheff]

is it not a worry then at this stage that there will be a backlog of nitrites in there?

if amonia is going from 5ppm to 0 daily and nitrites isnt, there will be a lot of nitrites in there? is a water change at some point a good idea to bring that amount down or will the high amount be fine?

thanks for your time by the way, and waterdrop, your help is appreciated a lot.

Andy

 

[degsod]

is it not a worry then at this stage that there will be a backlog of nitrites in there?

if amonia is going from 5ppm to 0 daily and nitrites isnt, there will be a lot of nitrites in there? is a water change at some point a good idea to bring that amount down or will the high amount be fine?

thanks for your time by the way, and waterdrop, your help is appreciated a lot.

Andy

I am just coming to the end of my fishless cycle (I hope the nitrites arn't listening). So if I ca nhelp in any way I will (albeit limited)

The nitrites will be getting consumed, just not as fast at the moment. I would not do a water change yet as you have only recently done one.

Maybe you can start posting your measurents for us to look at in the format of

Day 30 24 hours
NH3 0
NO2 10

Then we will be able to see a trend
NO3 5

 

[andy_sheff]

update. I added my amonia at 9 this morning, and now 12 hours later its all processed, nitrites are off the scale and nitrates are between ten and 20. There is some big patches of bacteria growing on sand surface, shall i remove or leave? No good cycling then removing surely? Also. Shall i wait til 24 hours to put amonia back in

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, when you're fishless cycling its good to pick a regular time of the evening or morning to be your "add-point" of the day. That's the hour of the day when you'll always do your ammonia additions. The trick is to pick a time of day where the matching hour, 12 hours later, is -also- a time of day when you'll be home. So if you're home, for example, at both 7am and 7pm, then you could add ammonia at 7pm and at 7am before you went off for the day you could perform and record your "12 hours tests." You see, what you want is a nice set of "12 hour tests" and "24 hour tests" recorded line after line in your aquarium spiral notebook so you can look back and see a trend in your numbers.

OK, so now that you've picked an "add-point" time of day, I can answer your question about when to add ammonia. Even if you tested ammonia, say at 7am, and found it to be zero ppm at your 12h test, you'd still wait till after the 24h test and add ammonia at your "add-point." It won't hurt the bacteria at all to go without ammonia for the better part of 24 hours. Instead it will help to keep the nitrite spike stuff a little more understandable by not building up even more excess nitrites. By not adding ammonia "early" you also get a cleaner 24h reading of the nitrites since they won't have started receiving even more processed nitrite from the latest ammonia-add.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[andy_sheff]

yea, i thought that was the case, its going well, can ya tell me about weather to remove the bacteria off the sand?

 

[waterdrop]

That kind of stuff will get moved around and gravel-cleaned out once you finish cycling and begin performing more regular maintenance. It'll all be part of you getting the feel for what sorts of maintenance will keep your aquascape looking acceptable to you.

~~waterdrop~~