Cycling Advice Needed (Pls Help)

[chris30uk]

ahh! how long will it take to get my nitrites to 0? still at 3-5ppm everyday. im on day 23 with a seeded filter, is this normal?

Ammona - 0 (in 12 hours)

Nitrate - 3-5

Nitrate - ? (not tested)

pH 7.6

Will a water change help as iv not changed my water from the start?
Iv read about seeded tanks finishing in 1 week so what am i doing wrong?
should i take the stockings filled with mature gravel out of my filter to help increase the filters flow?
please help

thanks

chris

 

[waterdrop]

You are in the 2nd of 3 phases (the "nitrite spike" phase) of fishless cycling. The nitrite spike phase is usually longer than the first phase before the nitrite spike, sometimes twice as long. You're doing fine! Its good for a cycle to be somewhat slow. It means everything is going ok usually and you'll have a good strong filter when you finish.

The whole reason we fishless cycle, even when we have a heavily "seeded" (meaning mature media added) filter is because of exactly what is happening to you. The level to which the bacteria "take" varies a lot and you wouldn't want to just be flying blind, thinking that it was safe for your fish when it wasn't.

If your pH is good and you're keeping your temperature on 29C/84F and you're not dosing more than once each 24 hours when the (assuming the ammonia has dropped all the way to zero ppm at some point within the previous 24 hours) then you're doing the right stuff. Its true that especially after you move into the 3rd phase, a kickstart water change can be helpful more often but at this stage you don't want to disturb the colonies too much unless your pH has crashed.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

A water change should not have any effect in theory but that does not match our experiences here Chris. We have seen plenty of cases where a water change, a really big one, in the middle of a nitrite spike would help get things moving again. Both WD and I have been mystified by it but sometimes it seems to help the cycle move forward.

 

[chris30uk]

Thank you OM and WD. Your help is much appreciated as always. Ok for some reason my pH keeps very slowly dropping so i have been slowly dosing bicarb of soda but only very occasionally and in small amounts. Maybe i should have left the two stockings filled with gravel in my filter but tonight i took them out to allow the bio rings to function and colonize on their own rather than letting the bacteria colonize mostly on the gravel. My worry was i would fully cycle the filter then take out the stockings with gravel and be back to 15 days into a cycle again. As my ammonia has been cycling in 12 hours and iv been trying to get my nitrites down to a readable level to see where they are at, i have lowered the ammonia dose to 2.5-3ppm per 24hours for two days and today my nitrites showed up as 0.50ppm. I take it this shows that i do indeed have N bacs doing their best and nearly succeeding! I hope im doing the rite thing in using bicarb of soda to maintain my pH and removing the gravel bags. Iv taken out an inch of water from the top to allow my filter water output to fall into the tank like a waterfall to help push oxygen into the water. Tonight's tests are as follows:

Day 26

Ammonia - 0
Nitrates - 0.50
pH - 7
Nitrates - not tested

Any thoughts WD or OM? Hope im doing rite.

Thanks

Chris

 

[waterdrop]

You're looking fine.. you could probably tweek your baking soda dose up a little since you'd like to be closer to 8. Once the spike ends and nitrite starts dropping daily then the odd complete water change (with baking soda and ammonia redose) will help things. WD

 

[chris30uk]

Do you think removing the mature gravel from the filter was a bad idea? i have exactly 10days until my fish arrive. im panicking now.

 

[waterdrop]

I understand why you did it. Hopefully they've already given your cycle some boost. If your fish arrive before the fishless cycle has ended then you don't have any choice except to switch over to performing a fish-in cycle, which has completely different goals and steps to carry out. I forget what size tank we're talking about and how well you're set up for water changes...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chris30uk]

Hi WD, its 375 liters plus an 8 liter external filter. What are my chances of success with 25 2-3inch fish? Im very worried now.

Can you point me to a thread advising on a fish in cycle? One BIG question that springs to mind is if you have to keep the ammonia and nitrites near to zero with a fish in cycle, is how can a filter mature without ammonia and nitrites? (very confused on that question) Please get back to me on that one as im going to have to learn asap. What levels are acceptable with a fish in cycle?

Thanks

Chris

 

[OldMan47]

Please don't panic Chris. The fish will arrive whenever they do and you will either have a fully cycled tank or one that is close enough that you can get through the remaining cycle as a fish-in cycle. I cannot begin to count the number of times that I have ended up in that position and all has always gone well for me. A fish-in cycle can be a bit stressful for the fish keeper, but if you enter into that situation with your eyes wide open the fish will do fine. The fish will not recognize that you might have done better and will instead respond fine to your efforts to improve the water that they are swimming around in.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with OM. If you can't stop the shipment, you will be putting about a 50% stocking in to the big tank. That's quite a bit more than ideal for doing fish-in cycling, to understate it I believe, but panic doesn't help. Instead, let me ask whether you have a Python or other hose system for performing water changes? To my mind, this would greatly help matters. (Python is an american company you can find on the web and see picture of their "no-spill" product.) Its not all that hard to make a hardware store equivalent using garden hose and I believe BTT got an article pinned somewhere on doing it. What these things do is double as a very long drain hose for the out-siphon from your gravel-cleaning out of the tank water and then reverse into a filling hose from the tap. You dose conditioner directly to the tank at the same time the tank is getting re-filled with temperature adjusted tap water.

The goal (from your point of view) in fish-in cycling is completely different from fishless cycing in that you focus on optimizing the water to save the fish, not to grow the bacteria. You want to find the percentage and frequency (and that may mean large daily changes) of water changes (using good technique) that keeps both the ammonia and the nitrite(NO2) within a narrow band of concentration between zero ppm and 0.25ppm until you can be home again to change water. The water will want to try and creep above 0.25ppm concentration of one or the other poison and it will do it rather suddenly (seemingly, since you can't test all that often and still have a life.) Its better to do large changes that get it quite close to or looking like zero ppm so that you have a lot of creeping-up room before the next water change.

The water changing technique needs to be good in the sense that each water removal is done with gravel-cleaning (this is not so much to remove debris as to remove more nitrite and nitrate) and the return water should be treated with a good conditioner and roughly temperature matched (your hand is good enough for this.) I recommend Seachem Prime for this sort of thing mostly because it is so concentrated but also because its ability to neutralize things is helpful in these situations.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chris30uk]

Thank you WD and OM. Iv been working all hours so iv not had much time. Its going pretty bad rite now. Ammonia is taking 16-18hours to cycle and Nitrite is holding at 5 ish (never should of removed that gravel) its a bloody mess so in 4 days when my fish arrive im in trouble. i four see a lot of water changes on a massive tank . Any advice for this fish in cycle is much appreciated. I will be using a hose pipe to drain and refill. not good eh. Iv re dosed every day and yesterday i did a 90% water change. 1 day after the water change(today) i noticed my pH was 6.6? iv bi carbed the water to raise it. what can i add to my filter/tank to raise my ph once my fish are in?
p.s i took your advice and bought some seachem prime on ebay as no one near me sells it. thanks

Chris

 

[waterdrop]

OK, when you get the fish and switch over to the fish-in cycle, you'll need to know to treat the tank at the time of each water change with conditioner dosed at 1.5x to 2x (not more than 2x) based on the *volume of the entire tank* (not the volume of water being added back.) The reason is complicated but it has to do with organics in a fish-in tank causing the conditioner to be less effective than it would be when added to plain tap water.

Don't worry about the pH after the cycle is over. It is important not to judge your pH situation based on things that happen during the cycle. A cycle creates lots of unusual pressure on pH and once its over and things stabilize, the situation should be re-evaluated. Often a tank that needed bicarb during the cycle will maintain a stable pH just fine using only the normal weekly water change, even if KH is low.

~~waterdrop~~