Cycling Advice Please (technical Stuff)

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LauraFrog

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Basically, this pertains to my breeding setup. Basically 4 x 16 gal tanks and a 10 gal sump. The four tanks are on a table and they have overflows. The overflows pour the water over a wet-dry bit (sump is about 3/4 full) and then two powerheads pump the water back up through the tanks (one powerhead per two tanks). I already have the sump set up, but the overflow valves are not yet installed.

I have two weeks of school left to go, then I'm ordering in a big pile of fish from the internet for myself and to restock a tank where I work. I'm intending to quarantine the lot and de-parasite them before passing them on. It will save me a lot of ammo lock if the setup is already cycled. I have a large quantity of cycled filter media I can use to speed my cycle time, as well as some filter additives that actually work. And - treasure trove indeed - I just laid my hands on a bottle of surfactant free ammonia.

The obvious thing to me seems to be start fishless cycle ASAP. But the problem is the setup is nowhere near finished. The holes for the overflow valves aren't even drilled. Is there any way I can fishless cycle anyway, even though the volume of water will be far, far smaller than the intended volume the filter has got to process?
 
Basically, this pertains to my breeding setup. Basically 4 x 16 gal tanks and a 10 gal sump. The four tanks are on a table and they have overflows. The overflows pour the water over a wet-dry bit (sump is about 3/4 full) and then two powerheads pump the water back up through the tanks (one powerhead per two tanks). I already have the sump set up, but the overflow valves are not yet installed.

I have two weeks of school left to go, then I'm ordering in a big pile of fish from the internet for myself and to restock a tank where I work. I'm intending to quarantine the lot and de-parasite them before passing them on. It will save me a lot of ammo lock if the setup is already cycled. I have a large quantity of cycled filter media I can use to speed my cycle time, as well as some filter additives that actually work. And - treasure trove indeed - I just laid my hands on a bottle of surfactant free ammonia.

The obvious thing to me seems to be start fishless cycle ASAP. But the problem is the setup is nowhere near finished. The holes for the overflow valves aren't even drilled. Is there any way I can fishless cycle anyway, even though the volume of water will be far, far smaller than the intended volume the filter has got to process?

You could fill your tanks halfway and use cycled substrate. That will get the bacteria growing in your tank while you have ample time to finish your overflows :) By the time you get the whole setup wired, you should have no problem.

-Dave
 
I did think about that... the problem is they aren't exactly accessible with power tools... maybe I could use a different tank? As in feed water from another source through to help cycle...
 
well yes what you've got to remember is you're just cycling the new filter media. you could take the media and pop it all in one tank, get some water circulation in there and just cycle it in the tank then when the rest of the set up is ready move it all over to it's ultimate home.
 
So do I need to allow for the fact that it's dealing with a lot less ammonia? I mean, it won't take it too long, using all the bacteria I can spare to seed the colony, to persuade that much media to remove 5ppm ammonia from 10 gallons of water in a day. But then to immediately take it and ask it to deal with that much ammonia from around six times that?

Should I be increasing the quantity of ammonia I expect it to be able to process before I consider it 'cycled'? Normally I'd cycle the media and stock really slowly, but that's not an option when ordering off the internet... shipping isn't cheap and they can only ship to the airport which is an hour and a half away. Obviously I can't expect my parents to make that trip more often.

This ammonia I've got is majorly scungy. It's black and gold, which is like a cheap supermarket brand. Most have surfactants - I've been through hell and back trying to find one I can cycle with. Apparently, black and gold are too tight to put detergent in, the recommended dilution is 'put x of this in a bucket with five squirts of dishwashing liquid or floor cleaner'.

It's cloudy, like off white, but it doesn't foam - the bubbles burst immediately. Also, the other 'cloudy ammonia' I have seen has been almost opalescent.... the cloudiness swirls in the liquid. Not this one - it looks like non-fizzy lemonade. Judging by the label and the physical properties I'd say what I have is pretty pure... I've just done the maths on it, it's only a 2% solution... but it will do. I'll just go through a lot of it.

Is there any limit on the time you can store ammonia? Cause if there's not, I might lay in a supply while I can get it, especially since the solution is so weak.
 
hmmmm OK, if you try to cycle with more ammonia to make up for the extra water volume you could scupper yourself, above 8ppm of ammonia the bacteria colony can stall it's cycle and die off, so while you could cycle with maybe 6/7ppm of ammonia that wouldn't be enough to make a tangible difference really.

however the more mature the bacteria colony is the quicker it can grow on and double. a mature colony is said to be able to double in 24hrs. So if you fishless cycled with 5ppm in the biggest volume of water you can manage now and then keep adding ammonia daily for the next few weeks while you might get a short time of fish-in cycling while the filter catches up it shouldn't be too awful. basically the longer you can fishless cycle it for the shorter any fish-in cycle period would be. I don't think it'd quite be as simple and linear as that but you get the drift anyway, the longer you fishless cycle the safer it is.

when are you getting the fish and when do you think the set up will be finished?

could you bodge together something temporary with a larger water volume, like get a big garden tidy tub and fill that with water and fishless cycle the filter on that?
 
I agree with MW. Its a mistake to slip into the thinking that levels of ammonia somehow effect the speed of a cycle. The experience of many fishless cyclers confirms that as you get up around 8ppm of ammonia, you create a situation where your cycle process seems to be moving right along, according to the test feedback you're getting, but once you realize you're level is too high and you drop it down, it then stalls out and you have a big delay in the fishless cycling process. There is now some potential evidence that these observations make sense from Tim Hovanec's experience where he found that at 8ppm a different species of bacteria is selected for and becomes prominent in the media, out-competing the bacteria we want. This intruder bacteria then promptly dies off as soon as the ppm level is lowered (whether by you during fishless, or when fish are introduced and produce below 5ppm, which they will of course) and you are left with the media still not cycled! So, moral of the story: fishless cyclers should always use testing to ensure they are following the recommended 5ppm (with option of 3ppm during nitrite spike stage but then back up to 4-5ppm) and certainly not trust a "ml" amount or calculator until its proven correct in *their* tank and they should stick to these tried and true type levels and not venture above or too far below.

Here's a thought, probably won't work out for you, but just a thought. Might it be possible to grab some tubing and U-bends and I guess you might need one of those little HOB style overflows or such... and throw together a temporary way to run the sump on one of the 4 little tanks. Seems like that way you'd at least be doing standard fishless cycling and hopefully getting the bacteria in all that nice mature media you have to spread over to the new media in the sump. I'm just thinking it somehow might buy you some time to be working on the drilling etc.

My overall impression reading this is that the timeline is a setup to be dissappointed. Cycling of media has a way of "laughing at you" and confounding the most dedicated plans, as the little bacterial beasts are very contrary little animals and can be difficult babies. Your effort is worth the attempt though and hopefully you will out-do the odds and be successful in the 2 weeks!

Good Luck! ~~waterdrop~~
 
So if I were to just put all the cycled media on top of/mixed in with the new media in the sump, and then use all the powerheads I've got to maximise water flow over it, it would be well on the way to being cycled? I get the fish in about 3 or 4 weeks. If the bacterial colony is large enough that it will cycle in a few days after adding fish, I should be fine.

Edit: Oops, setup will be finished in 1-2 weeks. HOPEFULLY. All four tanks are empty of anything, water/decor/fish, and pretty much have to stay that way until my father gets time to cut the holes. Then I can silicone in the overflows and set up the plumbing.
 
so what i'd suggest you do now is start cycling the new media along with seeding from the old media in the sump, then in 1/2 weeks when the set up is finished move the media over, fill it all up and carry on with the cycle. as ever there's no guarantee that you'll be completely cycled in time for the fish to arrive a couple of weeks later however you'd certainly be well on your way to cycled and would then just have a short cycling with fish phase. you may be lucky and it cycles in time but that's quite a big 'if'.
 
Laura, I would strongly suggest that you do not use all the flow that you can generate. Here is the problem, the bacteria do not act in an instant when they are presented with food and oxygen. They take a finite amount of time to actually take in a molecule of ammonia, or nitrites at that stage. Because of the time element involved, filter experts will not only talk about flow and pressure differences, they also consider contact time. You can think of contact time as the time that the ammonia needs to be near the bacteria to actually have the bacteria act on them. If the flow is too high, the contact time is too low and you don't get the interaction. A robust flow that doesn't have flow racing through your media is probably the best in terms of using the bacteria for conversion and exposing enough water to the bacteria that it all ends up being exposed. You are looking to have a biological process remove a chemical and contact time is an important factor in the effectiveness.
 
Okay, I'll just use the two powerheads that will be running the actual setup then. Or should I just use one since the turnover will be a lot faster in such a small area?
 
I would just pick a flow that makes you think your custom filter is behaving in a similar fashion to the commercial filters you've owned and have experience with (ie. not to hard, not too soft) It'll be a guess, hopefully an educated guess, on your part.

Just saying that because I think one of the problems you've got is that trying to do something that's kinda new on a tight schedule is just pretty unpredictable. Filter designers probably start off with some basic principles or with a previous design and then tweek it a bit when they come out with a new model. We as consumers wouldn't see it but its probably pretty much a certain amount of trial and error and probably the judgement of someone experienced.

OM47's comments are really good and we'll all be wishing you good luck in your project! You should have really good possibilities on your side, using that mature media, so we'll try to have positive thoughts for you! Let us know how it goes.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Okay, started last night. I totally miscalculated the sump volume, I forgot to allow for its shape (duh!). It's actually about seven gallons, and I have five gallons of water in there. I measured the water as I added it. I added 5ppm of ammonia last night and let it run with one of the powerheads only (the way it's positioned is providing more than enough flow, it will be totally different when this is finished) and this morning it was reading 5ppm. (It was somewhere between 4 and 8 I think... that's the hardest of the colours to tell apart.)

So I added as much cycled media as I could dig up - four bio rings each from the 6 gallon tanks, which are overstocked because of their huge (10x/hour) filters. Then about 3/4 of the biological media from the 23 gallon tank, because that's got a cycled undergravel in it and it's currently only about 1/3 stocked anyway.

I'll go and test the level now, about 12 hours after adding the cycled stuff.

I'd show you what it all looks like but my parents nicked off with the camera - later tonight! The technical stuff is, I swear, harder than the mucking around with chemicals...
 
Sounds good. Good that you double-checked what ammonia ppm you really got. What's your pH? N-Bacs seem to like 8.0 to 8.4 as supposedly their fastest growing environment.

~~waterdrop~~
 
I might increase the pH a bit then, I think it's about 7.6. Is it worth stuffing with it?

I think I just shot myself in the foot a bit and I'm not sure what to do. I've been cramming for a maths test all day, got no sleep, you get the picture, and i totally hate maths now so it's no surprise I just screwed some up. I tested the water and got 3ppm ammonia, 0.25ppm nitrite (YES!!! Nitrite detected, it's moving.) So I managed to miscalculate the amount of ammonia to put in and I ended up with about 8ppm. Should I change some of the water (removing some of the nitrite that's been processed) or just leave it?
 

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