Cycling Advice Needed (Pls Help)

[chris30uk]

hi oldman47, does it really? im v happy to hear that! i just hope it continues in the rite direction and in truth were all impatient but more to the point i jumped the gun when i won my tank on ebay and ordered my fish which arrive in 3 weeks. you see i owned a 3ft tank about 10 years ago which i had for 5 years but back then the internet was just getting going and i didn't own a pc. the information available now to then is light years away and fish shops were always happy to sell and tell you very little in terms of filter maturity ect so i had no idea. in fact when i got my matured media i traveled to 3 shops and asked for some gunk from the filters and i ended up with a bag of gravel from two shops as they only used under gravel filters and a bag of black water strained in front of me out of a very mature tank filter sponge. what supprised me was they all knew about maturing a tank but all 3 owners knew nothing off ammonia and keeping the bacteria alive and all adamant that the bacteria would just establish on its own. i call myself a newbie as i now realize i knew only part of the story. will post my water results after 9pm when i do my daily test (fingers crossed).

thanks

Chris

 

[chris30uk]

Hi this evenings water tests are as follows:

Ammonia - 0.25

Nitrite - 2

Nitrate - 0-1

Ph - 7

the ammonia is defiantly going down the colour was a lot lighter than last night, the nitrite seems to be going up steadily. the nitrate might be at 0 im not 100% as the yellow on the card for 0 is a much lighter yellow but basically the same as last night and the pH seems to be holding its own rite now and i hope it continues to as any lower than 7 wouldn't be helpful if what iv read is anything to go by. any feedback welcomed.

thanks

Chris

 

[chris30uk]

Here are the results of tonight's tests but last night before bed i added some bacterlife. today i read that this stuff will slow down the cycle process? i thought by adding it i would be adding to my bacteria to help it along but someone wrote that it will just reduce ammonia/nitrite so giving the new bacteria i want less food but i don't know. anyway

Ammonia - 0

Nitrate - 0

Nitrite - 0.25

pH - 7.0

(tonight i re dosed ammonia to 4-5ppm and air pump is on 24h)

i was chuffed till i read that article but ammonia seems to be moving down each day before the bacterlife. im not
sure if the nitrite is down because of the low ammonia or bacterlife. pH is the same as is nitrates. Any thoughts on this would
be off great help.

Chris

 

[OldMan47]

I just went to the Challs location that is referred to on the back of your ammonia bottle and it seems it is nothing but ammonia in water, which is exactly what we wanted. The readings are now becoming confusing to me. Are you shaking the chemicals and the sample at least as much as it says on the directions for your nitrates? That test can give a false low reading quite easily if you don't get thorough enough mixing. One of the ingredients in the test can even settle on the bottle bottom and need a bit of banging the bottle on the counter top to break it loose before you shake it to mix it. What we would see in an ideal world is about 2.7 ppm of nitrite for each 1 ppm of ammonia and resulting in 3.6 ppm of nitrates for each 1 ppm of ammonia. With a starting point of 5 ppm ammonia and no nitrites, I would be expecting something around 18 ppm of nitrates, not zero. A slight drop in pH would not be unexpected because the ammonium hydroxide solution you added is slightly basic and the nitrates are slightly acidic. That means the pH can drop over time if all that is happening is an ammonia conversion to nitrates. The zero for nitrites is encouraging because it points to the possibility that you have managed to get a decent clone going.

 

[chris30uk]

hey om thanks for your reply. yea i thought that but the ammonia on the challs website is Max ammonia which isn't the same i don't think going by my phone call. also you were totally rite about shaking the nitrate solution (didn't read that bit fully ) so tonight i have nitrates . ok here is how it went but i tested two hours later than usual as i was late getting home.

Ammonia - 1.5

Nitrate - 20

Nitrite - 1.5

pH - 7-7.2

so in 26 hours the bacteria has feasted on 3.5ppm of ammonia, nitrate is up 1.75. the pH is holding its own and my nitrate is 20 but as this is the first time iv recorded any i cant really compare it. the biggest gains in development i can see is my a bacs seem to be getting stronger so all seems to be developing well i think. any feedback more than welcome.

thanks

Chris

 

[chris30uk]

tonight's test results as follows:

Ammonia - 0

Nitrite - 1

Nitrate - 40

so the ammonia cycle is slowly improving, nitrates seem to be holding back with no spikes as of yet and nitrates have doubled. a question:are the nitrates going up because of nitrites being cycled or because of the ammonia cycle? im still learning and not fully sure. any help appreciated.

re dosed to 3.5 - 4 ppm

thanks

Chris

 

[waterdrop]

Since you have some mature media in there (I think) you are probably somewhat farther along in the fishless cycle than you would be without it. So you have some of both types of bacteria and a fair amount of the ammonia you are putting in is being processed by the first type into nitrite(NO2) and than that is being processed by the second bacteria type in to nitrate(NO3.) That should be why the nitrite(NO3) reading is slowly going up.

Ammonia should be added no more than once a day and always (if possible) at the same hour out of the 24 hours (you are probably already thinking this but just wanted to confirm.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chris30uk]

hey waterdrop, thanks for your help. last night was a rough one. i tested my ammonia early on (5 hours early) just to see where it was up to and it was down from 4ppm to 0.25 so i was . at 9 o'clock i was sure it would be time to dose more ammonia, so when i tested and it was still 0.25ppm i was a bit surprised. i then did my other tests and the problem was clear. PH CRASH at 6.0. i went straight to asda and bought some bicarbonate of soda. i read how much others had used and took a guess so i used 5 and a half table spoons. since others had said it might take up to 24hours to show in a test i thought i would have to wait until today but it registered 1 hour later. it seems to have gone to a pH of 8 so im happy with that. my question is: how much has this stalled my cycle? anyways, last nights results before the addition of bicarbonate of soda,

Ammonia - 0.25

Nitrite - 1

Nitrate - 40-80 (hard to tell colors as they were so close)

pH - 6

will just have to see how it goes today
thanks for taking the time to help out guys.

Chris

 

[waterdrop]

I read a quote from a microbiologist recently: "Bacteria are like teenagers. How much of something they do or when they do it is unpredictable."

There are two things - the bacterial colonies are in the process of producing biofilms and the scientists now know that the biofilms have structure (tiny channels and tunnels on a microscopic level, that sort of thing.) It may be that the supply of things like Calcium, Magnesium and other trace mineral elements are needed both for the cellular bodies and for the biofilms and the available supply of given elements from the point of view of a given set of cells may vary rather highly from moment to moment, complicating the end result of biofilms and materials processing that we are observing from the outside. The second thought was just that they are living things, so they have rather dramatic time schedules they are observing. They must take in substances and build up supplies, then go through a complicated process of cell division and then enter a resting state before building up and reproducing again. They have plenty of variations to contend with and of course when we make a major environmental change for them it can alter their state of processing for hours and days. We are the creators of "weather" in a sense

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chris30uk]

thanks waterdrop good info but had to read twice to get what you wrote lol. ok since my cycle had stopped and earlier in the day is better for me iv changed my daily tests/ammonia add time to 5:30pm. i double checked my pH and ammonia at 1pm and my pH was steady at 8 and ammonia at 0. at my new test time, my test results are as follows:

Ammonia - 0

Nitrites - 0

Nitrates - 35-40

pH - 8


im not sure if my cycle has fully kick started again but in 12 hours the bacteria has consumed 0.25ppm of ammonia and 1ppm of nitrites. at 5:30 i dosed 3.5-4 ppm of ammonia. my air bubbles (400 liters per hour) are on 24 hours a day and my temp is at 30 Celsius / 90 Fahrenheit as i read the slightly warmer water promotes quicker growth as long as you add oxygen i.e an air pump (bubbles) as the warmer water looses more oxygen. all i can do now is wait until tomorrows test to see how far it has progressed. any feedback more than welcome.

thanks
Chris

 

[waterdrop]

90F and 30C are not the same temperature. I recommend 84F/29C as the ideal fishless cycling temperature. You already have the perfect pH, 8.0 is as good as it gets.

Looking at the test results you get over 3 days to a week tells you more than looking at any particular single day. Knowing how many days you've been fishless cycling and being able to see the string of numbers and how they change helps to show more about your progress. That's why you see the log style listings in the first post of many fishless cyclers as you read their threads here in the beginners section.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chris30uk]

hi guys, ok i think my cycle hasn't been affected too much by the pH drop (i think). Ammonia is down to 0 in 24 hours. my nitrites are staying low at 1ppm, the nitrates are between 100-130 but colors are hard to be exact). the pH has stayed at 8 . i think my nitrites must have been fairly well developed from me seeding the filter but still not at 0 as of yet so i will keep waiting. just got to keep waiting now and let the process progress in its own time. a question: at what point will i need to do a water change to lower the high nitrates? also do high nitrates slow down the cycle and at what ppm does this start to affect bacteria growth if at all? any feedback is very helpful OM and WD as you guys help so many newbies. anyone else welcome to comment too. thanks guys

p.s you were rite WD, i meant 86F not 90F

Chris

 

[OldMan47]

As long as you recovered the pH fairly quickly, you should start recovering the cycle where it left off.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, seeing the time it takes to drop ammonia and nitrite is the main thing. Any water changes to lower nitrate can be worried about later. Sounds like things are going to be moving again. WD

 

[chris30uk]

thanks guys, yea the cycle seems to be as normal again. here are today's tests:

Ammonia - 0

Nitrite - 3-4

Nitrate - 100+ (i think)

pH - 8

so nothing really to report except the nitrites have risen 2-3ppm in 24 hours. i suspect the amount of ammonia being cycled is slowly building up and the N Bacs are taking a longer to grow in numbers but im sure the A Bacs are only just getting the ammonia down in roughly 22 hours going by an early test i did the day before the pH crash. i was hoping the cycle would be a bit further along with seeding the filter but i am impatient lol. i hope my nitrates are lower tomorrow but will have to wait and see .

thanks

Chris