Dtaylor's Fishless Cycle

[eaglesaquarium]

Unfortunately it is quite common. The amount of nitrifying bacteria that are in tap water varies widely. Things are going slowly, but that happens sometimes. Sorry to be the bearer of unhappy news.

 

[dtaylor21184]

Unfortunately it is quite common. The amount of nitrifying bacteria that are in tap water varies widely. Things are going slowly, but that happens sometimes. Sorry to be the bearer of unhappy news.

ok well as long as i know it will start working soon cos it seems like i'm getting no where and i have to keep reassuring the OH that it will start working soon lol. i just couldnt figure out what i was doing wrong cos everyone elses on here started to drop after only a few days and i'm ten days in and nothing has happened

 

[eaglesaquarium]

There are a lot of variables. You could try to get some mature media. Maybe your LFS could give you a little. It would kick start the cycle and then some.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree. Think of it this way. It's not that nothing has happened, it's just that our crude little liquid reagent chemical test kits can not see things down on the level of water molecules and tiny cells. There need to be millions of cells and they need to be processing billions of molecules before our little kits will begin to take notice and show us something. The tap water coming in to your home is hopefully very clean, so very few of these specific Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira single cells would get in with the filling of the tank, but there will always be a few of them. Those handful of tiny single cells need to get pulled through the filter perhaps a few times before they happen to stick on to one of the surfaces of a bit of filter media and there they begin to secrete the chemicals that will make up a biofilm to surround the cell. After there is enough biofilm and the micro-environment around the cell is just right, the cell will divide and then those cells will secrete and build and get ready to divide.. they'll divide into 4 cells and this process will slowly go on until the cells get in to the millions, at which point we begin to see some drop in our ammonia and some nitrite being produced and so forth. Meanwhile, our little cells are now battling it out with other species of cells that also want space on the media but are not the right species and there are going to be days that "go just right" and "bad days" for them just like all of us animals have!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[dtaylor21184]

There are a lot of variables. You could try to get some mature media. Maybe your LFS could give you a little. It would kick start the cycle and then some.

already tried but they recommended getting fish which i didnt want to do

 

[eaglesaquarium]

There are a lot of variables. You could try to get some mature media. Maybe your LFS could give you a little. It would kick start the cycle and then some.

already tried but they recommended getting fish which i didnt want to do

Try a different one.

 

[dtaylor21184]

Starting to see some movement at last i can't wait to test tomorrow to see if its improving woohoo getting closer to getting my fish

 

[dtaylor21184]

woohoo eagle its started to look like i'm getting somewhere the first 10 days was hard cos i thought i was going be doing it forever lol can't wait til its over now and i can get some fish in there lol

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Welcome to phase two - the nitrite spike.


One question though - are you upping the ammonia to 3ppm every 24 hours? If you are, that's not bad, but it would be nice to know what the ammonia is before you dosed. If not, then I would recommend a nice cleaning of the ammonia test tube... I'm not sure how it would be possible to see such a drastic rise in nitrites without a drop in ammonia.

 

[dtaylor21184]

Welcome to phase two - the nitrite spike.


One question though - are you upping the ammonia to 3ppm every 24 hours? If you are, that's not bad, but it would be nice to know what the ammonia is before you dosed. If not, then I would recommend a nice cleaning of the ammonia test tube... I'm not sure how it would be possible to see such a drastic rise in nitrites without a drop in ammonia.

i think i may have put too much ammonia in to start with to be honest and i think where i have put 4ppm for the first 10 days it was probably 5ppm + so did a water change and thats when everything started to kick off but the problem is my ammonia isn't moving at all it looks about 3ppm but maybe its still over 5ppm and i'm blind think another water change might be in order what do you think, i haven't added ammonia since the first day

 

[eaglesaquarium]

If things appear stalled, a big water change is usually a good way to try to kick start it again. It could work, but may not be necessary. I think you may be fine either way. Doing a water change could be good practice.

 

[dtaylor21184]

If things appear stalled, a big water change is usually a good way to try to kick start it again. It could work, but may not be necessary. I think you may be fine either way. Doing a water change could be good practice.

i did a water change day 10 so gonna see if my ammonia comes down if not i'll just do a water change no problem

 

[dtaylor21184]

i'm gonna do a water change to get rid of some nitrates and maybe help reduce the nitrites but just wanted to know do i redose ammonia now or when it hits 0ppm

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I would redose ammonia at your regular time.

 

[dtaylor21184]

thanks redosed tonight lets see how it goes gonna do a water change tomorrow or saturday as well