Cycling Question

[waterdrop]

Hi Chris,

Its not surprising for fishless cycling to drop the pH. I think someone said the bacterial blooms themselves cause acidity. If you are adding ammonia up to 4ppm and then seeing ammonia and nitrites drop to 0ppm within 10-12 hours then something is going right regardless of what pH and nitrates do.

How large are the water changes you are doing? During my fishless cycle when my pH has dropped to 6.0 I have done a large water change (down to just above my filter inlet grill so I don't have to turn it off) of very roughly 75% and the re-filled with dechlored, warmed water and added ammonia back to 4ppm.

Our situations are somewhat similar: My tank is about 28 US gallons, yours about 30 US gallons. I started fishless cycling Feb 19 and I think you started about 5-6 days later. You got your nitrite spike much faster than me, mine hadn't happened at 19 days when I did my first big water change with ammonia recharge, which may have helped me get the nitrite spike that then came at day 21. I've now been 15 days since that, including another water change, and my nitrites are still above 5.0 (day 35 of whole process.) So yours seemed very fast to me but I just figured you were lucky and had more of the right bacteria floating around when you started!

Plus of course you have the plants, which the experts say are not plentiful enough to be eating up all the nitrates, but they could still be somehow complicating things. They like ammonia, so they are an added factor in those measurements we can say.

Perhaps the above will spark an idea for you. I would be patient and perhaps RDD, MW, BTT and the dozens of other nice experts will be along with new questions and suggestions!

~~waterdrop~~
ps. I'd be impatient too, your tank looks nice and you've been doing the right stuff from the sound of it

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Chris,

I think you have done the right thing waiting another week. That way you can be totally sure that everything is as it should be. Remember you will need to keep adding ammonia every day or your bacteria will start to die off. I see no reason you should have to strip the tank down and start again, as you seem to have performed a very successful fishless cycle.

Can i ask how old your test kit is? It is impossible for the ammonia and nitrite to be processed by the bacteria and not produce nitrate, and old test kits can be very unreliable. Otherwise, as stated already by the other posters, your plants may be using the nitrates (although i agree with Wiggly that the amount of plants you have would not use the amount of nitrate you should be producing), or this may sound silly, but are you sure you are performing the tests correctly? Check the instructions as a small thing like not shaking a bottle can produce false results.

Anyway, if you are processing 4ppm of ammonia overnight, it sound like you are cycled, and the drop in pH is also indicative of nitrifying activity. I would advise that you should change more water to bring your tank pH back up to 7 in line with your tap pH. If you can't get it exact don't worry, it is normal for the pH to play games with you during the fishless cycle. Try to at least get it up above 6. As you say, the bogwood may reduce your pH but not to that extent.

It sounds like your tap water may be quite soft and in the long-term you may have to buffer it to enable it to hold a stable pH, but you can cross that bridge after you have completed the cycle.

Hope that helps a bit for now. Don't give up and start again because it sounds like you have already done the hard work. Give it until the weekend and if ammonia and nitrite are still processing overnight, get yourself to the LFS for some fish.

Keep us updated over the next week so we can help with any problems or reassure you that everything is fine.

Cheers

BTT

 

[chrisn20]

Thanks for reassuring me guys. Decided to test hourly today to see if I could see what was happening instead of waiting for tonight.

Did 50% water change yesterday to try and up the ph.

Readings after adding ammo at 9 o clock this morning were:

ammonia = 4.9
nitrite = 0
nitrate = 0

ph = 6.5 (tap water is 7)


readings at 10 o clock

ammonia = <4.9
nitrite = 0.1
nitrate = 5


readings at 11 o'clock

ammonia = halfway between 4.9 & 2.4
nitrite = 0.1
nitrate = 10


readings at 12 o'clock

ammonia = 2.4
nitrite = 0.1
nitrate = 20


readings at 1 o'clock

ammonia = 2.4
nitrite = 0.1
nitrate = 10

so something is definately happening, the ammonia is being processed and I have had some nitrates. Could the latest drop of nitrates be down to the plants?

I will keep going on the hourly testing for the rest of the day until the ammonia gets down to zero.


Incidentally, I have done 2 seperate ph tests, one with the nutramin master test kit purchased when i started cycling. It showed tap water at 6.

The other was done with a tetra ph test which I had from previous set up and it tested at 7.
This was the one I have always used in the past without problems.

Both tests showed a drop of about .5 when in the tank

 

[waterdrop]

Chris, That trend in numbers makes it sound even better than you were describing before. Its also very interesting to see these on the hour - great that you went to that trouble - it sure looks as if you can see the filter behaving exactly as these guys describe for fishless cycling.

I sure find myself wondering if perhaps one or more of the particular plants you have just really happens to be able to process a lot of Nitrate. If the nitrate thing is not due to that I have one more comment - my close relative who is a chemist more than confirmed what the forum members here say about the Nitrate tests in particular.. they are notoriously inaccurate - all that shaking is because it is very easy for these reagents to give poor readings or for the reagents to simply fade in effectiveness.

Anyway, your process is sure going faster and better than mine!
waterdrop

 

[chrisn20]

This is interesting stuff.

next batch of readings:

2 o'clock

ammonia <2.4
nitrite = 0.3
nitrate = 10

3 o'clock

ammonia = <2.4
nitrite = 0.3
nitrate = >10 but <20

4 o'clock

ammonia = 1.2
nitrite = 0.1
nitrate = >20

 

[chrisn20]

Everything going according to plan. I am going to bite the bullet and get some fish on saturday.
Just one thing though, is it ok to add all the fish together. I want to add a pr of german blue rams and someone told me that they need an 'established' tank. Will they be ok?

Other fish hoping to get are group of pygmy cories, shoal of spotted rasbora (or galaxy rasbora if lfs has any in stock) and maybe some (black) neon tetras.

Tank is 96L and I obviously have soft water.

Anyone see any problems or offer an alternative stocking idea.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hold off on the rams and pygmy cories for a few months, they do need a 'mature' tank, which leads onto the obvious question, what's the difference between a cycled tank and a mature tank

there's lots of opinions and i believer there are some detailed threads on this topic in the scientific section if you watn further info, however my personal view is this

the cycling process is just one of the chemical reactions going on in the tank when you first set it up, it's one hell of an important reaction but it's not everything.

if you have new gravel, plants, rocks, wood, decor, equipment etc etc, then a lot of them will have some effect on the chemical balance of the water, for instance some rocks will raise pH, bogwood will generally lower it. a lot of these things have a finite effect, so they will only leach into the water for a set period and then the effect will stop and the water will stabilise. so for the first few months all these reactions are all over the place, we fishkeepers test for a limited number of substances but if we tested for everything else in the water i'm sure you'd see these levels all over the shop. after 6 months or so you'll find most of these reactions have finished and as such you'll have a nice stable tank.

when you are told fish need an established or mature tank, what they actually need is a stable tank, so you need to leave it for a good few months for all the other chemical reactions in the tank to settle down before you add these fish.

just my opinion though, there are other theories, but just about anyone will tell you if you put pgymy cories into a newly cycled tank they'll die fairly quickly so best avoided!

 

[chrisn20]

Thanks for that, will wait on the rams and cories then.

Heres a couple of shots of the tank now with new plants and all ready for fish. Hope it works this time.