Desperation

[qkingston]

OK this is getting dull, week 8 of fishless cycling and the ammonia level is still dropping slowly (4 days to drop from 6ppm to <1ppm),nitrites stuck at a stubborn 0, temp at 28deg C. Why is this not working?
In desperation!
(I had previously added this onto my last post "High Ammonia" but was getting no response so I thought I'd try again)

Many Thanks

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I seem to be a lone voice on this issue on this site. I would say the answer is simple- you are dosing too much ammonia. There is no need to ever get above 4 ppm tops and I prefer to be under that. I began fishless cycling when the methodology was based on dosing so many drops per 10 gals of water. this was later "refined" to the current dose and test regimen. I never bought into this and until last year I stuck with the drops/10 gal method.

Because DrTim's site sells ammonium chloride premixed so that dosing 1 drop/gal = 2ppm, things became a lot easier and more accurate for me.

I would suggest whatever measure you were using to get to 6 ppm you cut in half. I would also suggest you increase the tank temp another 2°C. When you see nitrites, reduce this dose by half and continue at that level until the cycle is complete. I would use that amount to maintain the cycle once completed if you can not add fissh right away. Moreover, I would only dose every other day for maintaining the cycle.

It should not take long for folks to post now saying that I am wrong. But I imagine they will be the same people who got you to the point where you are now asking what is going wrong.

 

[-Jo-]

Im on week 8 too so I know your pain and annoyance! I had a major blip in the middle of my cycle too where my motor on my filter stopped working! Luckily the bacteria didnt die! Thought I might have had to start from scratch - would not have been happy in the slightest.

Tested my water this morning and Its finally showed signs of reducing in 12 hours. I have still been on the 24 hour cycling period and I was literally dieing of impatients! so hopefully yours will start to change too!

As said above, there is no need to be doseing above 4.0ppm in the later stages of cycling. I made the mistake of doing this, I was advised by people on here to do a big water change, and start dosing to 1.0ppm/2.0ppm. I am currently adding 7 drops of the ammonia I have (Kleen off) and that takes it too 2.0ppm.

What are your Nitrate levels? I have found that on several occasions I have had too high an amount of Nitrates, and have had to do water changes as this has stalled my cycle. I also find that it occasionally effects my PH levels - and so further water changes have had to have happened aswell as this stalls the cycling too. I live in an area where I have very soft water - so this can be very annoying!

Have you had any thoughts of what you want to stock your tank with when your done?

 

[Xraymark]

Strange your nitrites are still zero. Yeah test your nitrates to see if they are going up.
Once your initial ammonia dose has dropped only redose to 2 ppm. Once they clear in 24h then you can up to 3 then 4 etc. Once you start seeing a nitrite spike you want it measurable. I.e not going so high that it is off the scale. It takes longer for the nitrite to nitrate bacteria to form so every time you dose ammonia your adding to the overall nitrite in the tank.
Check your ph. Optimum is 8.2 but as long as its above 7. Also make sure your surface is agitated to get the O2 in.

 

[the_lock_man]

I seem to be a lone voice on this issue on this site. I would say the answer is simple- you are dosing too much ammonia. There is no need to ever get above 4 ppm tops and I prefer to be under that. I began fishless cycling when the methodology was based on dosing so many drops per 10 gals of water. this was later "refined" to the current dose and test regimen. I never bought into this and until last year I stuck with the drops/10 gal method.

Because DrTim's site sells ammonium chloride premixed so that dosing 1 drop/gal = 2ppm, things became a lot easier and more accurate for me.

I would suggest whatever measure you were using to get to 6 ppm you cut in half. I would also suggest you increase the tank temp another 2°C. When you see nitrites, reduce this dose by half and continue at that level until the cycle is complete. I would use that amount to maintain the cycle once completed if you can not add fissh right away. Moreover, I would only dose every other day for maintaining the cycle.

It should not take long for folks to post now saying that I am wrong. But I imagine they will be the same people who got you to the point where you are now asking what is going wrong.

Do you want some salt and vinegar to go with chip on your shoulder?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

BHmm- lets see. I have cycled about 50 tanks or more fishlessly. I have had no issues and gotten them cycled in fewer than 8 weeks and have not lost fish as soon as they went in nor soon after.

The date on the cycling resource center here is dated 2006. that is about 5 years after I completed my first fishless cycle. So you can say i have a chip, I would say I have practical experience.

But don't take my statement that elevated ammonia levels impact the nitrification process as gospel. Instead do the research yourself. Try searching Google Scholar for information in the subject "inhibition of nitrification by ammonia": http/scholar.googl...o=2000&as_vis=0

Or lets take a look at a long standing chart of how the cycling process should work. Bear in mind the OP says he has 0 nitrites avter 8 weeks or 56 days give or take. (The creator of the chart is Stephen H. Spotte if you want to know if he is qualified.)

From http/fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-cycling.html#cycle.

Note that nitrites should appear soon after 10 days peak at about 25 and be close to zero after about 40 days. Yes is does say your mileage will vary. But no no sign of nitrites after 56 days vs being done with nitrites after about 40 are a world apart.

I maintain the reason for the OP's problem is dosing too much ammonia. Either one must argue that the above illustration is totally wrong, provide an alternative explanation for the OP's issues or else agree that too much ammonia is the problem. I am curious to hear other folks explain

 

[cynic]

I cheated and used mature media instead.

150mile drive to get it granted but after a week to be sure it was good to go i've not looked back.

If your near Northampton your welcome to some.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Just wait it out until it gets to 0, then dose it back up to 2-3ppm. It can take a while for the nitrites to start showing but when they do they will rocket sky high. Then it can take another couple of weeks of adding ammonia to 2-3ppm (eventually every 12 hours) before you see them drop but when they do it will happen quickly. I've just finished cycling my tank it took six weeks and felt like an eternity but you'll get there I promise!

After your nitrites drop watch it for a couple days to make sure it stays down and you're cycled! Do a big water change and add fish

 

[-Jo-]

what almostawesome said!

 

[FishFanatic04]

I agree. There's no reason to dose so much ammonia. Unless you are planning to put 10 Oscars in a 10g {no one do this please} There's no reason for your filter to be able to clear that much ammonia....the extra days it will take to cycle are going to be wasted when the bacteria just die back to accommodate the smaller bio-load of your fish.

 

[OldMan47]

As said in the referenced article, numbers for illustration only, your mileage may vary. In fact there are quite a large number of factors that affect the time to cycle. First is the availability of any bacteria in the original setting that can be multiplied, they do not generate out of nothing after all. Next is a common problem of a low pH. At a pH of less than about 6.4, your cycle will stall completely, even if you do everything else right. As has already been suggested, temperature and ammonia concentration can easily affect the speed of bacterial development but it is seldom the major factor involved in a poor cycle.
In my own home, the tap water pH is about 7.8 so I am good to go there, and I have mature filters I can use to jump start a cycle, again that makes things easier. The end result for me is to take that 56 days graph and compress it to about 7 days total, "your mileage may vary". It is why we have a media donor list at the top of this section of the forum. If you can find a donor near you, that is your best and fastest way forward.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

To the best of my knowledge that chart assumes no seeding. I believe it was made before the days of fishless cycling. The OP said after 8 weeks he still had 0 nitrites, 8x7=56 days. That chart suggests nitrites appear in about 10 days and peak at about 25 and are gone by about day 40.Saying your mileage may vary they are talking about a few extra days or maybe 2 weeks? The OP's tank isn't a case of mileage may vary, it is a case that goes well beyond that.

The OP did not indicate he had low pH. And btw- that nitrification stops below 6 isn't necessarily so. It is true in that it will greatly effect the cycle for most folks in the hobby. But think about this- how do folks who keep extremely acid water fish such as altum angels in tanks where the pH is under 6.0 do it. What happens to the organic wastes in their tanks? There are plenty of reports of nitrification at low pH, under 4.0 even. However, what it takes to get/develop acid resistant nitrifiers in tanks takes many months (6 or more) when done from scratch. (One can acquire them as seed material.)

If you are curious about low pH nitrification go to my old friend Google Scholar and search for "Nitrification + low pH" or just click here http/scholar.googl...h&as_sdt=1%2C33 as always here is a sample from the Journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology- November 2004 vol. 70 :

High-rate Nitrification at Low pH in Suspended-and Attached-Biomass reactors

This article reports on high-rate nitrification at low pH in biofilm and suspended-biomass reactors by known chemolithotrophic bacteria. In the biofilm reactor, at low pH (4.3 ± 0.1) and low bulk ammonium concentrations (9.3 ± 3.3 mg · liter[sup]−1[/sup]), a very high nitrification rate of 5.6 g of N oxidized · liter[sup]−1[/sup] · day[sup]−1[/sup] was achieved. The specific nitrification rate (0.55 g of N · g of biomass[sup]−1[/sup] · day[sup]−1[/sup]) was similar to values reported for nitrifying reactors at optimal pH. In the suspended-biomass reactor, the average pH was significantly lower than that in the biofilm reactor (pH 3.8 ± 0.3), and values as low as pH 3.2 were found. In addition, measurements in the suspended-biomass reactor, using isotope-labeled ammonium ([sup]15[/sup]N), showed that in spite of the very low pH, biomass growth occurred with a yield of 0.1 g of biomass · g of N oxidized[sup]−1[/sup]. Fluorescence in situ hybridization using existing rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes showed that the nitrifying bacteria were from the monophyletic genus Nitrosomonas, suggesting that autotrophic nitrification at low pH is more widespread than previously thought. The results presented in this paper clearly show that autotrophic nitrifying bacteria have the ability to nitrify at a high rate at low pH and in the presence of only a negligible free ammonia concentration, suggesting the presence of an efficient ammonium uptake system and the means to cope with low pH.​

From http/aem.asm.org/c...0/11/6481.short



​

 

[OldMan47]

For TTA:
People who have fish in a 4.0 pH, or similarly low value, do not use the nitrogen cycle to remove ammonia. Instead, the low pH makes the ammonia safer at higher values for their fish. The nominal 0.25 ppm we use here on TFF is completely arbitrary and reflects a worst case for a high pH tank. The real value for a toxic value of ammonia is entirely dependent on pH. At very low pH values, much higher values of ammonia are well tolerated by fish. The people that run their tanks with a low pH are entirely dependent on water changes to remove ammonia before it becomes toxic to their fish. If you are not already aware of it, those same people are insistent that frequent large water changes are essential for the health of their fish. That is because their fish can tolerate higher levels of ammonia but they also will see such levels. In that case an ammonia poisoning event is only as far away as the first missed water change. I prefer to use a cycled filter and not rely on how regularly I do a water change. I may want to be out of town for one reason or another for over a week at a time without losing all of my fish. That requires a cycled filter.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Oldman- I wish you were correct in this. But I am sorry to say that you are not. To do what you suggest would necessitate doing large water changes almost daily and indefinitely. The best way I could illustrate this would require that you join another site to be able to read the forums and I will not suggest that as it would violate the site rules here.

The site to which I am referring specializes in wild angels and almost all of the member there keep them. The admin restaff all keep wild angels, some have lived and worked with the fish in the wild. One is a professor with a PhD in bichemistry. There are several topics on the site which explain exactly how one goes about culturing bacteria that can and do function in acid pH. The thread is titled "Cycling A Biofilter For Use In Acid Water Aquaria". In this thread one of the site admins (who has lived and worked with these and other fish in the field in Venezuela) wrote up the reasons for needing a biofilter in low pH tanks and how to establish one. He further contacted Dr. Hovanec and asked for his input on if it was possible to and, if so, how to establish nitrifiers in low pH waters. What came back closely resembled what Admin had posted and is also included in the thread.

The upshot is nitrification can and does occur at low pH, even under 4.0. The basic method for getting the cultures established is to start by cycling the tank at a neutral to slightly alkaline pH and then dropping the pH in about 0.2 increments every two weeks or so. You do need special test kits to read ammonia in such acid waters and where to find these in the USA is included in the article. Here are a few quotes though.

For a start, acid water does not allow the presence of ammonia (NH3) and any ammonia in a non cycled acid water tank can only occur in the form of ammonium (NH4). AmmoniUM, is much less toxic than ammonIA and can be tolerated by even sensitive fish in much higher concentrations than ammonIA.
Taking this into consideration, one might ask, then why, is a biofilter important in an acid water aquarium if ammonium is so innocuous.
Well, did I say it was innocuous? No, I said it can be tolerated in higher concentrations than ammonia. And altum, are among those species, who will react even to relatively small amounts of ammonium. This reaction will be slower (compared to the ammonia reaction), and the fish will look stressed, darker, show a decreased interest in food, and eventually become symptomatic in one way or another.
In short, yes, we need our biofilters to take care of this issue.......

But the problem is that at the acid pH I recommend for keeping altum (4.5 to 5.5 range), the biofilter will not cycle thoroughly or quickly, sometimes not at all, given reasonable time.
This is because when you add nitrifying bacteria cultures to a moderately acid aquarium, most of the culture dies on contact with the water or a very short time thereafter.
So what can we do to cycle a biofilter for our blackwater, quite acid, very soft watered, altum tank?

The article then goes on to answer that question.

Let me conclude by saying last year when I was setting up to receive a batch of wild Rio Atabapo Altums, I contacted a fishkeeper I know who is an expert at keeping and breeding acid water fish. He has one of the most elaborate water treatment systems in his fish room that you can imagine. By profession he is a water treatment expert- his family has been in the dry cleaning business for decades and his job was treating the waste water from their plants. I contacted him to discuss the possibility of getting some seed bacteria from him to jump start the cycle in an acid pH tank. When I asked how he had gotten acid tolerant bacteria established he explained that, in the water treatment industry, it is possible to purchase such acid adapted bacteria to jump start nitrification in water treatment facilities where acid water is an issue and that he had acquired his original tank bacteria from such a source.

I apologize for hijacking this thread, but I think setting the facts straight benefits all fish keepers.

 

[snazy]

You guys are talking about such a low Ph that most fish will just turn belly up if subjected to. How would ammonia matter then