RCA

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This question is in relation to the Fishless Cycling of an aquarium.
 
  • Approach taken from: Fishless Cycling, using the add and wait method
  • Aquarium being cycled: Juwel Vision 180 - details of tank set-up and filtration are in this link.
  • Using Pure Ammonia 9.5% solution and calculating via the TFF Calculator
 
The TFF Calculator states that for this aquarium of 180 Litres it requires 9.47ml of Ammonia Solution, based on 5ppm which was my knowledge at the time.  I know there is talk of amending the Fishless Cycling with the latest knowledge whereby it is believed the correct does of Ammonia is more in the 2-3ppm.  However, in the meantime the clarification that is required is this...
 
On 4th June I set up the two filters with some mature media as stated in the Juwel Vision Project, as linked above.  The next day I added the Ammonia at that time based on the 5ppm.  However, on testing the Ammonia Levels they are off the scale at greater than 8.0ppm.  
  1. Does this mean that the cycle may have potentially crashed?  
  2. Do I need to do a Water Change to reduce the amount of Ammonia within the aquarium, as I am sure the bacteria will struggle with this concentration?
  3. Have I missed something I should/should not have done?
Thanks in advance for any insights.
 
MODS: I have posted this in the New to the Hobby for the benefit of others, however if you think it needs to go in the Scientific Section please move and advise accordingly.
 
Definitely do a 50% water change to get the ammonia under 5 ppm.
 
I would assume somehow the measuring of the ammonia was done incorrectly or something along those line. I suppose the ammonia could have gotten stronger, but I normally time weakens not strengthens ammonia. Also, double check the dates on your test bottles to be sure they are not expired.
 
Cycled media should have given some support here and I am not sure why it did not. Dosing levels during fishless cycling, to some extent, are tied to seeding the tank with bacteria. The more seeding one can provide, the more ammonia it becomes safe to add.
 
Using that 2-3 ppm level is designed to make the cycle go faster because it should guarantee one should not mess up the process by adding too much ammonia which is the single greatest cause of fishless cycling to run into problems.
 
The calculator desired level can be adjusted to whatever ppm you wish so try that next time. It only recommends 5ppm but you can alter the desired level manually.
 
On 4th June I set up the two filters with some mature media as stated in the Juwel Vision Project, as linked above. The next day I added the Ammonia at that time based on the 5ppm. However, on testing the Ammonia Levels they are off the scale at greater than 8.0ppm. 
 
 
 
The JBL aqua soil you've used. Mine was full of wooden chips and organic material. It was very tiny pieces but they'd definately decay and cause some ammonia.
 
TwoTankAmin said:
Definitely do a 50% water change to get the ammonia under 5 ppm.
 
I would assume somehow the measuring of the ammonia was done incorrectly or something along those line. I suppose the ammonia could have gotten stronger, but I normally time weakens not strengthens ammonia. Also, double check the dates on your test bottles to be sure they are not expired.
 
Cycled media should have given some support here and I am not sure why it did not. Dosing levels during fishless cycling, to some extent, are tied to seeding the tank with bacteria. The more seeding one can provide, the more ammonia it becomes safe to add.
 
Using that 2-3 ppm level is designed to make the cycle go faster because it should guarantee one should not mess up the process by adding too much ammonia which is the single greatest cause of fishless cycling to run into problems.
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TTA and sorry for the delay in my response.
 
I did the 50% WC which has sorted out the problem.
 
In respect to dosing as I mentioned I put in the recommended amount based on the calculator for 5ppm, but am now dosing for less.  The only thing I can think of is I did not allow for the substrate etc., in my calculation.
 
The test kit is new so the Ammonia has a few years left on it yet, but thanks for the heads up.
 
The bacteria are now clearing 5ml of Ammonia overnight and have been doing so for a few days now, this morning I put in 6ml.  The Nitrites are at 2ppm so I am now waiting for these to drop.
 
Please let me know if there is anything I should be doing to assist the Nitrite bacteria in getting established.
 
 
Mamashack said:
The calculator desired level can be adjusted to whatever ppm you wish so try that next time. It only recommends 5ppm but you can alter the desired level manually.
Cheers, I had noticed that but originally thought it needed to be 5ppm, now dosing less :)
 
snazy said:
 
On 4th June I set up the two filters with some mature media as stated in the Juwel Vision Project, as linked above. The next day I added the Ammonia at that time based on the 5ppm. However, on testing the Ammonia Levels they are off the scale at greater than 8.0ppm. 
 
 
 
The JBL aqua soil you've used. Mine was full of wooden chips and organic material. It was very tiny pieces but they'd definately decay and cause some ammonia.
 
Thanks for that, interesting to know.
 
Definitely is going in the right direction, just need the Nitrites to drop now, I know the bacteria for breaking this down can take longer to get established.
 
You need not dose ammonia daily. In fact, daily dosing and/or dosing to much are the most common causes of stalled cycles from creating too much nitrite.
 
Thanks, TTA, so what should I be doing re: the Ammonia?  As in the article on fish-less cycling on the TFF it states:
 
"Add and Wait" Method - this is the one I was using
"Continue to add ammonia daily as you must feed the bacteria that have formed or they will begin to die off."
 
"Add Daily" Method
"Continue to add the ammonia daily and test for nitrites."
 
So now I am unsure 
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A lot of today's problems with cycling really originated many years ago. The earliest reference I can find on the net relating to fishless cycling are from about 1996. The author who pushed it to the fore shortly after we entered the 21st century was a Ph.D. chemist Named Chris Cow. It was his article in a now defunct online magazine sponsored by a now defunct site where I was a Mod that got me and many others, started.

In the early days fishless was done like this: For every 10 gals of water one would add about 5 to 6 drops of store ammonia to a tank each day. This was a fairly low dosing level and given the variability of of the strength of bottled ammonia it was not hugely precise. The minute one saw nitrites, the dosing level was reduced to 3 to 4 drops and that daily dosing level continued until the tank cycled.

The next change that came along reflected the uncertainty of ammonia strength issues and the dose and test method came to the fore. It would not matter if two different bottles of the same ammonia were of different strengths. Ammonia was added, one tested and adjusted by dosing more or changing water to get a 5 ppm reading. This is where the 5 ppm idea originated. But at that time fishless cycling was mostly being used by more advanced aquarists. Among this group the use of plants was common as was the practice of having many tanks. A big part of the early process, one which was made a central issue, was the use of seeding with bacteria from established tanks. And back then seeding was done copiously. The way it was suggested was to seed as much as possible.

When one starts with both live plants and a good amount of bacteria, adding 5 ppm of ammonia does not have the same effects. The ammonia gets processed faster and there is no huge nitrite spike either. And this worked quite well for most of the people doing fishless. The one thing they did notice back then was that sometimes the cycle would stall and they figured out it might be from too much ammonia. But there were not certain nor did they know what level might cause this. The authors of both those two early articles on fishless cycling have since revised their advice and lowered the ammonia dosing level suggested.

The problem is that old 5 ppm number seemed stuck in everybody's mind. The two articles were no longer used as the aquatic community on the internet took over things. You never saw much about the reduction in the recommended dosing levels suggested by the early writers on the topic- it got lost in the shuffle. Hence, you see the type of cycling articles on this and other sites that are now outdated. The problems started to become more and more frequent for one simple reason, most fish keepers can not get a sufficient amount of bacteria to seed a tank to support that 5 ppm dosing level.

At the same time Dr. Timothy Hovanec and his colleagues were doing their research into tank bacteria. Much more research on ammonia levels and nitrification was being done by many others whose interests were in aquaculture and, water treatment- both waste and drinking This included cycling related issues. So instead of chemists suggesting the dosing, it was now the province of microbiologist who studied it from the bacterial side of things. And this resulted in the understanding that different bacteria would be the dominant processors depending on ammonia levels.

Today we know that the bacteria are much hardier than previously thought, We know that the tank bacteria are the type that work best at lower ammonia levels which is where the warning not to exceed 5 ppm ammonia-n or nitrite-n during the cycle came from. Doing so impedes the bacteria and then starts to kill them if we do. The other risk was that too much ammonia attracts the wrong kinds of ammonia oxidizers, ones that thrive at higher ammonia levels which are not normally seen in tanks. The fact that the bacteria do not need to be fed daily, that they go dormant, that they can recover changed things as well. It is why there are now commercial bacteria starter products that do work being used in aquaculture, public aquariums and in the hobby.

So RCA here you are today with too much ammonia being the likely reason for having problems. My bet is you did not have enough seeding to handle 5 ppm of ammonia. But your experience here illustrates why that 5 ppm level is not advised. If one makes a small mistake you can end up over 5ppm easily. We can accidentally dose too much, we can have issues with test kits etc. This is especially true for the new fish keeper who is dealing with a lot of things for the very first time. It takes time to learn anything and to eliminate those mistakes that come from being new to something.

The problem isn't usually the ammonia level itself, it is with the nitrite. The ammonia bacs can reproduce faster than the nitrite ones. So what is happening in many tanks is folks dose to 5 ppm, then keep topping up levels, often daily. They test for ammonia and see it come down and they assume this makes things all OK. Then some nitrite shows up and that is also a good thing, it is what is supposed to happen. And then things all derail.

The average hobby test kits do not test in the same units as the scientists use. Above I used the terms ammonia-n and nitrite-n. These are measures that only look at the nitrogen component of ammonia and nitrite. But there are more things than nitrogen-n involved and the hobby kits are also measuring these. Both measures are perfectly accurate, but they are not the same- think if it as measuring how fast a car is going in mph vs kph. Both measures are accurate but yield different numbers. However, most hobbyists are not aware of these differences despite how relevant they are during the cycle.

Without getting overly technical, beyond how much I have already done so, it boils down to this. To translate that 5 ppm of nitrite-n into the equivalent reading on the scale used by your nitrite test kit, 5 ppm of nitrite-n = about 16.5 ppm nitrite without that- n. The amount of nitrite has not changed, only the measurement scale. And this is the heart of the problems so frequently experienced. Our hobby kits do not read nitrite levels high enough. They usually stop at 5 ppm.(Fortunately, the difference between the -n and the non-n readings for ammonia are much much smaller due to the chemistry/physics involved. So using the hobby kits gives fairly similar results to the scientist's scale- 5 ppm ammonia-n using an API kit should read 6.2 ppm)

Now lets back up a bit to see what happens when one is dosing ammonia to a 5 ppm level and is dosing too often. Even lower ammonia amounts added every day can have the same effect. Initially one's ammonia level sits fairly high because there are very few bacteria converting it. This means little nitrite appears. But the ammonia bacs are reproducing and increasing in number and as they do so more nitrite gets created and faster. But there are no nitrite bacs around to handle the second phase yet, so nitrite starts to build. The nitrite bacs are slower to reproduce than the ammonia ones, so the nitrite eaters struggle to keep up. And the poor fishkeeper with his trusty kit soon has no clue how much nitrite is really in their tank. The kit stops at 5ppm but nitrite should get way above that during a cycle.

So for the new fishkeeper here are nitrite levels off the scale and no way to understand where they might be. Despite this they continue to add more ammonia in the mistaken belief the bacteria will die off without it. Besides, they can see the ammonia levels drop and nitrite never reads over 5.0, so everything must be fine.

Hopefully my explanation has been done well and clearly enough for many readers to have an epiphany here- too much ammonia, which you can measure and see drop, can actually produce much more nitrite than is needed or wanted. The high but unknown, nitrite levels climb way too high and that stalls things or even reverses them. All of a sudden the mostly simple process of cycling without fish has become a nightmare and a 5 to 6 week (or less) process drags on and on and on.

For this reason this site is revising its cycling section. The goal is to have the new fishkeeper use both a lower ammonia level and a less frequent addition schedule to insure the above issues do not occur. Hard as it may be to believe, by doing things that way almost all of those threads saying "My cycle stalled" will start to disappear from the forums.

Its easy to get people to change the amount of ammonia being dosed- the recommended level on the site is being changed. The bigger challenge is teaching folks that the bacteria do not need to be fed daily to thrive and ammonia does not have to be dosed daily. For the average cycle, from start to finish, there will end up being as few as 3 additions of ammonia and there should not be more than 5 very often. The key is to wait for ammonia and nitrite levels to drop before each subsequent ammonia addition. Neither ammonia nor nitrite levels can reach the point of being counterproductive this way, but your tank will still cycle fairly fast.

The goal of the new beginner cycling articles coming down the pipe, among other things, is to create a simple yet precise set of instructions that can be followed by folks new to cycling and which is as close to mistake proof as possible. One which states both a good dosing regimen and the actual numbers one should see on an API (or similar) test kit. There will be no confusion about what numbers should be or translating between the two different scales. As long as the user follows the directions and doesn't let the pH or KH drop through the floor, it is almost fail safe.

RCA- I am sorry for such a long winded reply, but hopefully you now understand what happened in your case. As for the answer for what you should do. You wait and test every other day. If at any time that you test and the ammonia reads under .75 ppm and nitrite is clearly under 2 ppm, its time to add more ammonia. Add enough ammonia to be a 3 ppm level amount. Use the ammonia calc to know how much ammonia this should be. Now you should begin testing daily for both ammonia and nitrite.

Now, whenever you test and ammonia is .25 ppm or lower and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, it is time to add ammonia again. Add the same amount you did above. Continue to test daily for both ammonia and nitrite.

If ammonia and nitrite both read 0, you are cycled. Do a large water change, be sure the water is the proper temperature, and add fish.

If they do not read zero, continue daily testing and whenever ammonia is again at .25 ppm or less and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, add the same amount of ammonia you did the other times and test again in 24 hours. Follow this pattern of testing and adding until both tests give a 0 reading. It should not take much longer for this to happen.
 
That's a long but nice explanation by TTA.
Honestly, when I started doing fishless cycles, I never followed any 5ppm articles and dosed as low as 1-2ppm depending on which stage of the cycle I was.  When doing my latest several fishless cycles I have not dosed ammonia sometimes for days until the nitrite goes down to a reasonable level and like that during the nitrite spike. I had noticed in my first fishless cycle that keeping ammonia at 0 for a couple of days had no affect on the ammo bacs productivity once I dose. I've since extended that period, so I think daily doses aren't necessary, not even to keep low levels of ammonia, but if one wants to keep them at 0.25-0.50, they can.   I never had an issue with the ammo bacs starving/dying and stalling the cycle from not dosing daily. Then once the nitrites start going down and nearly clear up,  I'd do a few days in a row more regular doses to make sure both nitrite and ammonia are clearing up fast enough.  This way it takes less than 3-4 weeks max from scratch and I haven't had any problems after I stock the tank so it seems low doses like that are enough and the cycle finishes without any issues.
 
If your tank is going to be planted, then even better.
 
I apologize for my verbosity. I have been doing a lot of writing lately and have been bitten by the bug. It just sort of came out on its own. I am going to request the mods remove every 3rd word to shorten it up, the it will look like this:
 
A lot today's problems cycling really many years. The earliest I can on the relating to cycling are about 1996. author who it to fore shortly we entered 21st century a Ph.D. Named Chris. It was article in now defunct magazine sponsored a now site where was a that got and many, started.
 
tongue2.gif
sorry my silly gene, but it was shrt.....
 
My understanding is that with the dose and wait method you add the initial ammonia then test regularly and wait until the ammonia level drops to just above 0 then dose again. When the nitrIte appears the ammonia levels should be reducing nicely even if not within 24 hrs. When both are reducing to 0ppm within 24 hrs for several days it's ready or is that too simplistic? 
 
A lot today's problems cycling really many years. The earliest I can on the relating to cycling are about 1996. author who it to fore shortly we entered 21st century a Ph.D. Named Chris. It was article in now defunct magazine sponsored a now site where was a that got and many, started.
 
 
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No, Mama, that is not the way it really goes. There is a little math and chemistry involved and then the nature of our test kits. Understanding, these will help to clarify this situation.
 
Given the atomic weights of NH3/4, N02 and NO3 and the fact that out test kits measure total ions: 1.0 ppm NH3/4 becomes 2.6 ppm of nitrite which becomes 3.5 ppm nitrate (I rounded here).
 
So, if one puts 3 ppm of ammonia into a tank it will eventually create a total of about 7.8 ppm of nitrite. So what happens after that 3 ppm goes into a tank.? The bacteria that convert it to nitrite start to multiply. The are converting some small amount of ammonia almost right away and multiplying as fast as they can in response to all that good excess food being available. So lets wait a few days or a week and test ammonia again. For the sake of this discussion lets say the ammonia dropped from 3 ppm to 2 ppm. Where did that 1 ppm go? It became nitrite.
 
The process of converting ammonia and nitrite is not instant. The Abacs don't have a storage facility for nitrite so they can wait to release it all at once. In goes ammonia and out comes nitrite. And for that 3 ppm of ammonia to be mostly gone, it means about 7.8 ppm of nitrite were created.
 
My point in my post above is that what stalls the cycle in most cases is high nitrite. It is rare that folks overdose ammonia to the point of stalling things, the test kit catches this. If one accepts that high nitrite is the culprit in many cases, then they should agree it was ammonia which produced it. That is why, when fishless cycling, you need to see more than the ammonia drop before you dose again.
 
Lets assume for a minute we see that 3 ppm of ammonia is down to about .25 ppm. One should have nitrite in the several ppm range because there are nowhere near enough N-bacs to handle things yet. If one doses another 3 ppm of ammonia here what happens next? Since there are now a decent colony of A-bacs built up, they go to work on the new ammonia and pretty quickly its almost gone and there are another 7.8 ppm of nitrite created to be handled handled on top of most of what nitrite was already there when the second ammonia dose was added. So now the nitrite can be approaching a number as high as even 12-15  ppm on the API kit. But this kit won't measure that, so the odds are good one has no idea of where nitrite levels are.
 
If you have watched the vid I like to link showing of Dr. Hovanec testing for nitrite using an API,  Nutrfin and lab grade Hach test kit, you know that the first two kits can and do read 0 or low nitrite in the presence of actual high nitrite levels well above the scales on the hobby test kits.
 
For that reason seeing ammonia drop to almost 0 is not a reason in and of itself to add more. One needs to know that nitrite levels are low enough not to be a problem.
 
There really are only two effective methods for doing a normal fishless cycle. I say normal because there are situations re cycling where is it possible and advisable to be dosing way more ammonia than is usually suggested. But those are the exceptions not the rule especialy for folks new to the hobby.
 
Dose and test involves adding "higher" amounts of ammonia all at once several times during tre cycling process. The dose and test term came from the days before ammonia calcs etc, and because of the variability in the strength of different ammonia sources. So you dosed and tested until you reached the desired ppms. Testing itself is done during cycling to know where things stand at any given time no matter what method is used.
 
Daily dosing is a method no longer used very often which involved adding much lower amounts of ammonia every day. This method is actually more similar in how the numbers produced compare to a fish in cycle. This was the original methodology for fishless cycling before the dose and test came along. I did about 65 tanks this way.
 
The thing about both of these methods is they should be done in such a way as to prevent the undesirable buildup of ammonia or nitrite which can stall a cycle.
 
Unfortunately, over the years from the urban myth system on fish sites the methods got all get mixed up and suddenly there is a method of dosing daily to get back up to a level somewhere between 3 and 5 ppm.The problem is there are not many fishless cycling situations where there this method wont spell doom.
 
One way to understand the difference between the fishless vs the fish in cycles in terms of how the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate behave is in how they would look on a chart. here is the traditional graph for fish in:
n-cycle.gif

 
In fishless the nitrite curve looks basically the same as above, but the ammonia curve is totally different. In the chart above the ammonia curve starts at 0 peaks and drops to 0. Note- the nitrite appears before the ammonia even tops.
 
But in a fishless cycle that ammonia curve looks way different. It starts at 3, makes a curving dip close to 0 and then suddenly spikes straight up to 3 again and then drops  in a curve towards 0, only much faster than the first time. Then you add ammonia again and up it spikes to 3 and drops even faster than the last time. The nitrite curve, though it will have a somewhat similar shape, will top out at a much lower ppm reading than during a fish in cycle. (Please note that chart ppms are in -n readings, not total ions)
 
For the person just getting into fish keeping the process of cycling should be as simple and straight forward as possible, It should be designed to minimize the potential for having things go wrong. Over dose 3 ppm of ammonia by 1/3 and its 4 ppm. Do the same with a 5 ppm dose and its 6.65 ppm (API kits) and that is enough ammonia to stall the cycle. Make a mistake in the opposite direction and under dosing by 1/3 means you are at 2 ppm and the tank will still cycle.
 
Nor do I understand the concept of having to reach 0/0 in 24 hours for multiple days in a row to know one's cycle is done. Either a tank can do it or it can't. If you are concerned your test kits might be wrong, no number of times will fix that. If you are a super cautious person maybe do it twice. But there is no reason I can imaging for doing it for a week (either 5 or 7 days).
 
One can shorten the period involved if you also reduce the dose involved. On the surface 12 hours and 1/2 the dose sounds good, but it isn't quite that simple. A tank normally produces more ammonia during the day when everything is more active. Waiting 24 hours using a full dose is more reliable because it encompasses a complete light and dark cycle. I would suggest if one wants to be safest using a 12 hour test done during the day that about 60% of the full dose would be more appropriate.
 
I hope this helped to clarify things.
 
 
 
Remember, the way to cycle faster is to pedal harder........
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TAA 
thanks.gif
so much for the explanation, it has been extremely helpful.  
 
The bacteria is now clearing the Ammonia and Nitrite, I believe overnight, but I will confirm that after the next test.  I am now adding 4.5ml, the calc says 5.68ml for 180L at 3ppm, however, there is a lot of substrate and ornaments so I am allowing for less due to this.  Feel free to advise if I need to up it to 5ml, which I may well do next time if it clears quickly. 
 
I believe this topic and your explanation may be worth pinning, as it helps to explain what is happening in the fish-less cycling process - mods?
 
I came across this article following your guidance for searching.  I have yet to read it in detail myself but here it is:
Nitrite Poisoning or "Brown Blood" Disease. A Preventable Problem (2008) by Chappell, Jesse A
 
TTA what a brilliant write up and thank you, very simple to understand. going to be using this on a mates tank he has just bought. Makes total sence now.
 
Kind regards
Jack
 

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