Cycling Or Not Cycling?

[itonlyrains]

Hi everyone!

I'm in the process of cycling (or at least hoping to) my first ever tank. It's 150 litres tropical tank with 9 plants (I'd call it semi-heavy planted). I have the following fish to start with - 3 guppies and 5 platies (of two varieties), plus 6 Amano shrimps (that I got a week later than fish). Temp - 25.5C (78F), filter - external Eheim 2224. Feeding - twice a day with flakes mostly, sparingly I'd say as fish always seems to be a bit hungry after feedings. Water changes - weekly (~15%).

It's been up and running for 24 days now and ammonia and nitrites always been zero. I used stripes tester kit for the first two weeks and then thought it must be wrong, so got liquid kit instead. First, thought Ammonia went up to 0.25 but three days later it was still the same with no nitrites, so searched on the web (for API kit ammonia tester) and confirmed its actually zero as its the same colour as with sample of bottled water.

So it is normal that I have 0/0/10 readings (ammonia/nitrites/nitrates) at this stage? I can't believe its cycled without any ammonia/nitrites spikes...

Thanks!

P.S. The fish seems to be doing very well - I got some fry (not sure from guppies or platies yet) and what looks like a couple of more pregnant fish already!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Well, it is possible that you went through what is called a "silent" cycle. Ultimately, plants can use ammonia straight from the water, without having to go through the whole nitrogen cycle. They can't always get all of the ammonia out of the water, but it would leave far less for the bacteria colony to have to deal with.


What type of plants do you have? Are they fast growing stem plants? That's the norm for a "silent" cycle. It is possible. Did you get ANY ammonia readings at all? Are your plants thriving?

 

[itonlyrains]

I have different plants. Not sure exact names but 4 of them are probably stem plants (googled some pictures and they do look similar to what I have) and yes they almost doubled in size in two weeks!

From what I tested I never had any detectable ammonia (my first strips test kit had 0.5 as lowest level and never reached that and now liquid one not detecting anything at all, but I only started using it after first two weeks).

So if it went through "silent" cycle can I start increasing the bio load then? I take it it should done be slower than after normal cycle as more bacteria still needs to be build up?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It all looks good, but I am a bit more cautious than some others. I would wait another two weeks, with double zeros each day.


The standard rule of thumb is to not increase your bioload by more than 50% at a time. So with your 8 fish, you could add 4 more next. If you do increase the load, just continue to check the levels for a full two weeks and be prepared for a water change at any time.

 

[itonlyrains]

That's great news. Thanks! I can't get any fish before the weekend anyway so will wait a bit longer.

Now, the real problem I'm having is with algae. My tap water is quite rich in phosphates(2.5-3), so I knew it's going to be an issue and within first week brown algae appeared indeed. I understand that it's normal for new tanks, but since I have such high level of phosphates I got rowaphos to help dealing with it. Within few days it got back down to zero, but not before all my gravel was covered in brown stuff. It's been 6 days since my phosphate levels are zero, so I wonder how long does it take for it to disappear? Also will my gravel ever look near as clean as it was in the beginning ( I have rather whitish gravel)? A couple of my red plants are struggling as well with same algae on them ( the rest are fine).

As I said I have 6 amano shrimps, but the task is definitely too tough for them. I was thinking about getting a dozen more plus may be 4 otos. Will that speed things up? Thanks.

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Morning.

If you have a NitrAte reading of '10' i would be inclined to think your tank is nowhere near cycled. A reading of '10' can quite easily be the amount of NitrAte in your regular tap water, have you tried testing this?
If i was you, i wouldn't think of getting any more fish in the near future, i would continue to do daily tests and water changes. Do you know of anyone with a fish tank? If so, there is always the option of asking for some of their 'mature media' from their filter, which if put in your Eheim would, theoretically, give you an instantly cycled filter.

But anyway, best of luck with it, and keep us updated

Terry.

 

[itonlyrains]

If you have a NitrAte reading of '10' i would be inclined to think your tank is nowhere near cycled. A reading of '10' can quite easily be the amount of NitrAte in your regular tap water, have you tried testing this?

Yes, I have actually. My tap water is indeed around 10 for nitrates. Whats more interesting is that when compared side by side with the tank water it seems to have more nitrates, so it looks like the plants are really consuming it currently...

 

[Tizer]

If you have a NitrAte reading of '10' i would be inclined to think your tank is nowhere near cycled. A reading of '10' can quite easily be the amount of NitrAte in your regular tap water, have you tried testing this?

Yes, I have actually. My tap water is indeed around 10 for nitrates. Whats more interesting is that when compared side by side with the tank water it seems to have more nitrates, so it looks like the plants are really consuming it currently...

9 plants in 150 litres of water isnt really anywhere near heavily planted, if you do add more fish, do it very slowly and keep testing the water. gluck.

 

[itonlyrains]

It didn't look heavy planted to start with, but now some plants are almost full height (50cm), so it does look a bit crowded. Now that I know that they help cycling I'll hold off trimming them until I'm sure the filter is ready to take the load.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

^^^ - Which is why I suggested waiting another two weeks to confirm that there is no spike coming.


I agree that 9 plants isn't really much for a tank that size, but neither is the 8 small fish in that tank. They aren't producing much ammonia, and the plants could very well be using the ammonia in that form, rather than waiting for it to be converted to nitrates. Having the plants double in size is a good indicator that the plants are being well fed. Ultimately, we have no idea what the true nature of what is going on with the tank. All we can do is go by the information provided, and based on that, everything looks good so far.


There are a variety of reasons for algae growth. One of them is actually ammonia. So, the algae growth may be the reason that you haven't gotten readings for ammonia. If i were you, I would post this question in the planted section. Those folks are truly genius when it comes to dealing with algae.

The first things that they are going to want to know about your tank are:
Tank dimensions (not just volume):
Filter:
Lighting set-up (brand, bulb wattage, and length of time turned on):
Phosphates:
Nitrates in tap:
pH:
fish stocking:
other stocking:
Plants (Be as specific as possible. If you can't be, then post a picture of the plants you have):


Best wishes with it all.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with Tizer and Eagle, I'd be very cautious. It's possible the biofilms in the big 2224 just haven't really kicked in yet to start a real nitrite spike stage. You have a good balance between tank volume, fish bioload and plants and keeping it that way may keep you from seeing problems. Adding more fish too soon might upset that. Extreme slowness is usually the friend of the good fishkeeper.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[itonlyrains]

Thanks for all the feedback. I will post in the planted section about the algae problem (although the most of it is on the gravel). My question still though - once it goes away (lets assume that), will the gravel look like new again or it would need to be cleaned somehow (can't imagine how - may be with otos etc)?

P.S. I've noticed that large stones are turning green now. I assume green algae is taking over. I don't see brown algae growing anymore (either due to silicates/phosphates removed or tank maturing).

oh and I just did another water test and nitrates have dropped below 5 - plants (or algae) are definitely consuming them at a good rate...

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Sorry, I can't answer your question. Ultimately, I don't think that it will go back to as nice a white without manual cleaning, but it might.

 

[waterdrop]

By far the main control you have for algae is light, not phosphates or anything like that. You need to make sure you are not pumping too much light into the tank (you want to be down around 1 watt/USgallon, not up closer to 2w/g and certainly not at 2w/g or above. Given that you are at a good brightness like 1 or 1.5w/g then the next issue is the number of hours. If you are getting algae then you want to drop the number of hours significantly until you get a result. The problem is that vascular plants need to follow a good rule of thumb that you must give them 4 hours minimum of continuous light so they can get their "machinery" up and going. Less than 4 hours will not help the plants but instead will encourage the algae which have no such machinery limitation.

So you know you want at least one 4-hour photoperiod (period where your lamp timers run the lights) and possibly you want to make it 6 or 8. If you are getting algae I'd think 6 might be a better possibility than 8. If the algae goes away (and you need weeks to find this out of course, it's all very slow) then you can slowly up your photoperiod until you get algae again and then back it off a tad. People often just can't bring themselves to believe it is the light hours but that's what it nearly always is.

Oh, and of course you don't want any direct sun or too much natural light nearly like that or you will quickly be out of control with respect to algae.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[itonlyrains]

Hm... This is a bit confusing for me now. From what I understand brown algae is diatoms that actually need more light as opposed to other types of algae and it us almost always present in new tanks. I'm (yet) to see any significant problems with any other type of algae.

As for my set up - I have 2x35w juwel lights with reflectors running 12 hours a day. The ratio seems to be 1.8 in my case, which I thought would be on the low side for a planted tank. That plus my understanding of high light requirements to keep diatoms down led me to having it up for 12 hours( while it was 8-9 during first week when there was no brown algae visible ). I can certainly reduce that and probably remove reflectors if needed if I knew that was going to help...

Ultimately if that is a problem in every new tank - shall I need to wait until it matured before I can say that I have issues with something or it's best to do certain things right away?