Dipsys First Ever Fishless Cycle

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

As of day 8 the ammonia appears to have gone up. I'm trying to test at the same time every day in the same location in the house so it gets the same ammount of light to reduce errors.

The ammonia may not be 4ppm it may be less; however I can't conclusively say until it reaches 2ppm.

I don't think what I am seeing is normal . I'll keep going for a few more days and see how I go, if there are any changes and I'll report back again

 

[waterdrop]

For some people, it can take a few weeks before the very first inital dose of ammonia drops all the way to zero ppm. Until then, you are just reading various shades of green (on the API test anyway) and it will be hard to really determine if much has happened. Once ammonia *does* start dropping to zero more quickly, it will usually quickly begin to drop to zero each day! That will be much more obvious and less confusing.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

My ammonia seems to be dropping now; I'm measuring nitrite as well but I can't quite tell what it is; I'm not that bothered what it is; as I know it's only important when it is zero (once it's dropped back down).

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

I seem to be stuck at around 1pmm; we've been at that level for 9 days at least...

Is there anything I can do to help it along, temperature increase? Water change? etc.

 

[PDSimon]

Increase temp to 29 degrees C will help optimise conditions

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

Increase temp to 29 degrees C will help optimise conditions

thanks; the heater is set to 28 celsius; it's 28 at the back of the tank and those measurements I record are at the front (I'll crank it up again and see what happens ).

 

[waterdrop]

How's the cycle going dipsy?

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

We are up to day 32; I've upped the temperature (2 days ago) and we have 0.5ppm amonia GRR.

I'll update it; I just need to remember to bring my book with it all written down in. We went to about 0.5ppm ammonia about 3 days ago; but we hovered around 1ppm for almost 10 days! It's taking FOREVER to get somewhere.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

ARGH; I am aware I haven't updated in a while. I'm not up to the early 30days; I measured it last night and I had 0.5 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate; ARGH what happened to my nitrite (it was between 2 and 5ppm); Normally when my drops hit the water it turned purple; but last night it just stayed blue

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

I’ve updated this with the last 20 or so days.

It appears my nitrite is reading 0 (constantly) after being about 2-5ppm; and my nitrates are low still…they aren’t as high as 5ppm.

I keep my tanks fairly clean but I don’t seem to get a high nitrate reading on any of my tanks; I’ve measured my other two small tanks and they measure about the same (however there isn’t much in the tanks so there is only a tiny bio-load). I’m going to measure my goldfish tank and see what that says as IF I am doing the test right then I should definitely be getting a reading. I’m just a bit paranoid that I’m doing the nitrate test wrong (API liquid freshwater test).

The tank is a 7.4 gallon tank and I’m only going to be putting one betta in it, so it’s not like there is going to be a high bio-load in the tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, are we still working on the very first dose of ammonia? (sometimes I feel like small tanks don't want to work the same way.. ugh!) If you get inspired, why don't you gravel-clean all that water out of there, replace it with fresh conditioned, warmed tap water and redose back up to 4ppm or so.

WD

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

Yup the FIRST ammonia still. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Although it's almost 0ppm.

The nitrites have decreased from 5ppm back to 0ppm, my nitrates are there but only in a small ammount.

I tested my goldfish yesterday as I thought if any of my tanks will have a lot of nitrates it'll be them (they needed cleaning) as all my other tanks are well below any stocking levels; anyway I put the drops in, shook for about 2 second and it turned colour; so I am definately doing my testing right .