Chigwell's Confusing Cycle

[chigwellhammer]

Tank - Aqua one 60L
Heater - HT850 50w
Filter - (came with the tank same make as tank)

Tap water is 10ppm nitrate



Day1 In Chigwells tank 15/6/10
PH 7.6
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 2.0ppm
Nitrate 10ppm
added 5ml Biomature

Day2 in Chigwells tank 16/6/10
PH 7.6
Ammonia 0.50ppm
Nitrite 2.0Ppm
Nitrate 20ppm

 

[PDSimon]

Hi chig,

to avoid confusion you might want to refer to what that 10ppm 'tap water' is (I know its nitrate but others may not). You may also want to put what 5ml of biomature equals as ammonia e.g. does it equal 5ppm of ammonia like it should.

Now if that 5ml is 5ppm you have got yourself of to a good start.

I would also recommend raising that temperature to 29 degrees, this helps optimise the conditions for the bacteria you are developing in your filter.

 

[chigwellhammer]

Hey, Just thought i would give an update and say (please dont moan).... Im going to buy 3 - 4 guppies Saturday and start a fish in cycle, Ive read up about it and know it is going to be harder then a fishless but i dont mind, I find it less confusing then a fishless tbh.

 

[Liverbird36]

Hey, Just thought i would give an update and say (please dont moan).... Im going to buy 3 - 4 guppies Saturday and start a fish in cycle, Ive read up about it and know it is going to be harder then a fishless but i dont mind, I find it less confusing then a fishless tbh.

I may be incorrect (apologies if so) but I think you may need something a bit hardier than Guppies to cycle your tank with like Danios.

 

[Kellz]

Hi,

I started a fish-in cycle before joining this forum and reading any info (on the advise of LFS).

I lost my first fish last night! If i had the information available to me i would of done a fishless cycle. Please ensure you read up and are prepared to lose fish!

 

[chigwellhammer]

Hi can i ask for your fish-in cycle how many fish did you first add? and did you do a 50% water change everyday?

 

[chigwellhammer]

Day 4 17/6/10

PH 7.6
Ammonia 2.0ppm
Nitrite 2.0ppm
Nitrate 20ppm

 

[Harlequins]

With those readings i would advise NOT to add fish,even for a fish in cycle,those levels would kill the fish within 24 hrs,in theory having 2ppm of ammonia even doing 50% w/c daily that would only take it down to 1ppm which is lethal,then you'd have to do another w/c soon after to bring it down even more.
Plus you have 2ppm nitrite also,if you want to kill the poor guppies then carry on...

You may end up doing several 50% w/c a day depending if the stats are above zero.

Has liverbird said if you did add fish then danio's or very hardy fish may live through a fish in cycle.

Sorry if i sound harsh,but i don't see the need of harming or shortening a fish's life due to not listening to advise.

In theory a fishless cycle may take time,but believe me its ten times easier than doing a fish in,w/c and losing fish along the way...

 

[chigwellhammer]

But surely anyone doing a fish-in cycle would stick fish straight in and they would most probable have basically the same readings as i have now.

 

[PDSimon]

Of course not, why would they put poison in the water and then add fish? Even when people have killed fish, there readings weren't that high. You would add fish straight away to water with 0 ammonia and nitrite and do waterchanges when it got to 0.25.

 

[Harlequins]

I agree with PDSimon,even a novice wouldn't get readings that high without losing all their fish first..

Any ammonia or nitrite is lethal to fish,it burns their gills and causes a very sad poisonous death.keeping it below 0.25 in reccommended whilst doing a fish in cycle,but even this can kill fish,thats why stats must be zero,it may not kill them straight away but will lead to a shortened life if they get through small amounts.

 

[the biffster]

Of course not, why would they put poison in the water and then add fish? Even when people have killed fish, there readings weren't that high. You would add fish straight away to water with 0 ammonia and nitrite and do waterchanges when it got to 0.25.

agreed

i do fish in cycling i have always done
it that way fresh dechlorinated water
with no amoniea nitrite or nitrate the trick is to water changes so that the fish never
is in a high concentration of any of the three i have seen me do three water changes a day while fish in cycling i also keep feeding to a minimum as well when cycling
to keep ammonia production to a manageable amount

 

[waterdrop]

So I guess the problem here is that the tank being considered for fish-in cycling has quite a high ammonia level currently because of the Biomature? Or some other ammonia source? I think I remember that we've discussed biomature in the past as basically being like pouring a fair amount of ammonia and nitrate in to the tank.

Unless the plan is to get the levels down to zero, this tanks looks like it would kill fish pretty quickly, especially guppies, which would definately not be on the hardy cycling fish list.

~~waterdrop~~