Cycle Question "add And Wait"

[iceprizm]

Thanks waterdrop
Great advice, i wont feel 100% confident until i get no purple when i test for nitrites. I added plants a week ago so i am already dosing with excel and flourish. My ph is currently 7.6 as I have issues getting consistent levels from my water softner. I currently have the temp set to 81F, with the plants I was afriad of having it set too high. What is the max I could do with the plants?

Everything I read implied that the A-bacs were very sensitive and if even looked at would die. From your info. they seem to be hardier than I first thought.

>>(1ppm of ammonia gets converted to 2.7ppm of nitrite, so it multiplies!)>>
Wow, who knew? Learn something every day.

In retrospect would it be better not to add more ammonia until all the nitrites are processed?

I started with some mature media and flew thru the A-bac growth. Wasnt expecting those N-bacs to take so long. I guess I shouldnt complain, I see others cycles take months I am only in 3 weeks.

 

[waterdrop]

iceprizm,

You should go ahead and crank the temp up to 30C/86F as the plants will be fine with that. They are generally not nearly as sensitive to temp range as the bacteria and fish are I believe, and anyway 86 will be fine for them. The significant thing you should consider for the plants though is a timer for the lights. All that ammonia will stimulate algae and if you are like most people and away for the day, the light will be on too long. I'm currently setting up timers to give me 4 hours in the morning, then a 4 hour siesta with lights out and then 4 hours on in the evening so we can enjoy. Setting this up during fishless cycling would be even better because of the excess algae getting started then.

To get your pH up in the 8.0 to 8.4 range that the Nitrospira like, you should consider adding some kitchen baking soda (make sure its not baking powder!) directly to the tank. Can't remember the equation but it should be readily findable with a search (I was adding between 1 and 3 teaspoons for a 28G for a fairly significant rise in KH and a smaller rise in pH) - you can start tentatively and increase slowly, getting feedback from your pH and KH measurements. There are no worries about doing this as it all "goes out with the wash" at the end of fishless cycling (then you don't do it of course once there are fish.)

Your statement: "In retrospect would it be better not to add more ammonia until all the nitrites are processed?" is wrong. The "system" we use, of adding ammonia once each 24 hours is important and works well. The only (optional) little variation is the one I described in my last post, the bit about shifting to only 2-3ppm add for a while at the beginning of the nitrite spike period. By this stage, it doesn't matter if the A-Bacs die back a little bit, as they will have formed a strong enough colony to build quickly back up when you ease the ammonia back up to 4-5ppm near the end.

Not only is there the 1 to 2.7 muliplication from ammonia to nitrite, but there is another multiplication from NO2 to NO3 by the Nitrospira. All these non-equivalents combined with that fact that bacteria are living cells with lag phases and growth phases and decline phases make the process of "predicting" what measurement levels you will get much harder than beginners imagine. I think when we are beginners, the difference between chemistry and biology is not readily apparent.

Even though you probably got the most boost from your mature media seeding during the first phase for the A-Bacs, you still may find that your N-Bac stage goes faster too. And don't forget your water changes now that you are in 2nd phase.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

just a comment on the fragility of the A-Bacs, when you have a small new colony just developing during the cycling phase it is a bit 'look at them and they die', however once the colony matures and is establishes they are significantly hardier and can take a few knocks.

I think people 'baby' the bacteria a little too much sometimes, wrap them up in cotton wool as it were.

like we say when you are cycling with fish, don't worry about the bacteria finding food, they'll manage, worry about your fish instead.

 

[iceprizm]

Followed your advice WD.
Have temp set to 87, ph is 8, right now i have a timer that is set to run the lights from 7:30 to 7:30. I know this is a lot of time but i have been running this time for 3 weeks with no sign of alage. i figured the amount of plants i have are out performing any alage. that or my lighting sucks.

I am still waiting for my nitirtes to go away on their own.
I keep doing large WC but just a little ammonia and the nitirites go thru the roof again. This is why I asked about only dosing with ammonia when nitrite level has dropped.
N-bacs just dont seem to want to do their job.


Just for the heck of it here is a pic of the tank being cycled:

 

[waterdrop]

No, you don't want to assume that about your light periods. You don't want to be running those lights the full 12 hours like that if you have a timer (hopefully a timer that can handle 2 periods.) You are in the "honeymoon" phase where the algae hasn't started yet but with all that ammonia in there you are sure to get it, so if you can program a siesta in there it is one more thing to potentially help in the almost inevitable battle with algae. (This algae stuff, all being a minor side topic compared to the important subject of fishless cycling the filter!) The amount of plants you have is actually probably not the 70% substrate coverage that is being talked about as out-competing the algae. You can check out of the "planted tank diaries" section for pictures of the type of heavily planted tanks that are being talked about for that. (I don't recommend that for you at this stage as it can make it even harder to interpret a fishless cycle.)

On the fishless cycling front, I think perhaps you are simply suffering the inevitable "patience" problem. You sound like you are in the "nitrite spike" stage and nearly everyone goes nuts at this stage thinking something is wrong! What day of fishless cycling are you on? Remember, for many (well, some!) this process takes as much as 3 months, although from the sound of yours it should be considerably faster.

I would make a microscopic adjustment to your heater knob, trying to ease down to 86F (just to give you something to feel in control about, lol.)

It helps to just try to understand what's going on here. You now have a big healthy population of A-Bacs and although you are letting them starve a little between the 12 and 24 hour mark (btw, how many hours is it taking the A-Bacs to get ammonia down to zero again?) they are still big enough to be pouring out the nitrite. They push it to between 20 & 30ppm of nitrite each day, but you can't help that because you do want to keep feeding the A-Bacs by the time 24 hous comes around. By feeding them only 3ppm of ammonia, you lessen this flood a little, but its still big and usually goes up over your test kit measurement, which is why its the "spike" and always looks so high. The slower-growing N-Bacs are indeed processing some of it and they are slowly growing, our test is just too crude to see it at this point.

Your job at this point is to be sure to remember to "recreate the soup" after each water change so that the bacteria will continue to have this optimal environment hopefully. You want to do your conditioner and temperature and then you want to tweek your baking soda to get the pH up there at or above 8 and put back in that little bit of fertilizer that has some iron. All this playing around keeps you busy and is fun I think but realize that its also not overly necessary -- its inevitable, given enough time, that continuing to put ammonia in will cycle the filter... there is no way this will not win in the end. The tweeking and playing around I'm discussing is just a way to keep things as fast as possible hopefully.

Good luck and hang in there!
~~waterdrop~~

 

[iceprizm]

well i started cycling on 7/5/08. i mostly read that a-bacs take a week and n-bacs take another 2 weeks so it would be right to today.

"I would make a microscopic adjustment to your heater knob, trying to ease down to 86F (just to give you something to feel in control about, lol.)"
I dont even get to control my heater...it is plugged into my chiller so if the water gets too cold the chiller turns on the heater.

I am willing to adjust my photo times I will try the 424 method. its just been hard to get plants to take one of my swords isnt doing too good. thought longer photo would help.

"On the fishless cycling front, I think perhaps you are simply suffering the inevitable "patience" problem."
No doubt. the worst part is everyone that keeps asking "when are you going to add the fish." Very annoying, more so that I dont have an answer. Guess you just cook it til its done.

"btw, how many hours is it taking the A-Bacs to get ammonia down to zero again?"
I have checked 5 hours later and all ammonia was processed. I will have to confirm this though.

 

[iceprizm]

ok I set my timer with the following program:
ON 10:00 AM
OFF 2:00 PM
ON 4:00 PM
OFF 8:00 PM
How does that look?

 

[waterdrop]

ok I set my timer with the following program:
ON 10:00 AM
OFF 2:00 PM
ON 4:00 PM
OFF 8:00 PM
How does that look?

Let me be clear that it depends on your favorite viewing hours and I couldn't say that 10 hours of light would be much worse than 8 really. So I have a similar schedule to you but put them on from 4 to 10pm.

More later..
~~waterdrop~~

 

[iceprizm]

I just feel that with my low lighting I should have time maxed out.

"I have checked 5 hours later and all ammonia was processed. I will have to confirm this though."
I double checked and this is accurate. after 5 hrs all ammonia was processed.

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds like you are getting close IcePrizm. Now is the time to really work on the patience and not rush things. You will start having thoughts about how close is close enough but ignore those and wait for the finish. Your future fish will be much the better for it.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah just hang in there, sounds like your almost done.

you quited earlier 1 week for ABacs then 2 more weeks for NBacs..... have to say in my experience that would be a pretty quick cycle. I normally advise people to expect 6 weeks start to finish, so if you're nearly done at 3 weeks then you're actually doing really well and going quite quickly.

 

[iceprizm]

yippeee! just tested this morning and there was only a trace of nitrite <.25ppm. so i dosed again with ammonia and ill check it in 10 hrs. i can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

 

[waterdrop]

yippeee! just tested this morning and there was only a trace of nitrite <.25ppm. so i dosed again with ammonia and ill check it in 10 hrs. i can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

And remind us again if you are still dosing at 3ppm ammonia or if you are back up to 5ppm ammonia?

The qualification test is to put 5ppm ammonia in the tank and have the filter process both the ammonia and the nitrite down to zero within 12 hours. If you pass that test then you can declare yourself "cycled" and begin your week of verifying that it can do it for one full week. Then you can "do the big water change" and get fish in there within 24 hours so that the fish can become the ones who are feeding the bacteria instead of you.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[iceprizm]

i am still dosing with 3ppm. After 11 hrs the nitrites were down to .50. so this morning i dosed again with 3ppm, hoping in another 10 hrs all nitirte will be processed then i was planning to dose with 5ppm to build up more bacteria.

 

[waterdrop]

I'd go ahead and be moving back up to 4ppm (to the extent that you can judge the reagent color, which is hard anyway) and I would also be prepared mentally for this last stage - there is often a long, long tail end where the N-Bacs will just keep only getting to .50 or .25 at 12 hours and people get frustrated. Eventually they will indeed to it however and they will do it consistently for days and you will know you can move to adding fish.

~~waterdrop~~