First fishless cycle in a while...

[Wills]

Hello! After quite a long hiatus without a tank, 2 weeks ago I set up a little 100 litre tank and started the fishless cycle. I'm running into some problems that are confusing me so I decided to come home

First issue is I'm 13 days in and I dont have any nitrites showing up yet. Second issue, I measured the ph in the tank and it has shot up to 8.2. My tap water is 7.0

Just as some more info on the tank and my water. The tank is a Aquascaper 600 100 liter with an Oase Biomaster Thermo 250, I have taken out most of the media and sponges provided and replaced them with Seachem Matrix as its a much more efficent media than the sponges provided and does not affect the water. My tap water is 7.0 and hard and stable - I've not got hardness tests to hand but from my water company it is classed as Very hard and the average is 128.3mg/l calcium.

If anyone can throw up any help it would be much appreciated.

Thanks Wills

 

[Essjay]

It took 21 days for my nitrite to show up, though with your water being hard that should help. 128.3 mg/l calcium = 18 dH and 320 ppm for those not usedto mg/l Ca.


I know I'm saying everything you already know but if I don't ask someone else will.
Have you tested a sample of tap water that's been allowed to stand for 24 hours?
There's nothing calcareous in the tank?

 

[Retired Viking]

You may want to consider looking into Tetra SafeStart Plus to jump start you tank. It has the right bacteria and cuts way down on the time to cycle your tank. I used it on my bother-in-laws tank and it worked very well. I personally do what is called a silent/planted cycle.

 

[Wills]

Thats interesting - do you think my ph spike will be an issue? I'm more than happy to be patient with this tank. The tank when I did this test was totally empty, I've since added my wood in to get it to sink - its wood from my old tank so it just needs to water log as the tanins are long gone Is it worth doing a water change to get the ph down and then topping up the ammonia?

My plan for the tank is to do a high tech planted tank with a big school of galaxy rasboras and some red eye red tail puffers. I've been looking at a couple of products like you suggested @Retired Viking but I've always been really sceptical of them but there seems to have been some developments since I last looked at them ATM Colony looks particularly promising.

 

[Essjay]

Tetra Safe Start is the one that's usually recommended. If you remember TwoTankAmin's research, that and Dr Tim's One & Only are known to contain the correct species of nitrite eaters.

But if you are going to have a high tech planted tank, you don't need to do a fishless cycle, the plants will take of the ammonia. Just do a silent/plant cycle. Remove the ammonia in there now (water change), plant the tank, then when you are happy the plants are growing get the fish.

 

[Retired Viking]

If you are looking at doing a planted tank than I suggust you look at doing a planted cycle. If you add fast growing floating plants like hornwort, moneywort, water sprite and anacharis that you can "plant" or let float or pure floating plants lite frog bite or salvinia . You will have plants that absorb ammonia at a high rate. No need to worry about having bacteria to break down the ammonia because the plants will absorb it. Plants like Jave ferns absorb at a much slower rate so they are not much help. I have done planted cycles on all my tanks except RES Turtle tank.

 

[Wills]

hmm you've peaked my interest now... so Im planning to use Tropica Aqua Soil as the substrate as well as a layer under that of the Tropica Substrate. Both of which can release ammonia when its first added to the tank so my idea was to do the fishless cycle then add in the soil, let it leech off what ever it needs to (I'd add the plants at this point too).

I'm planning on planting some quite delicate species of plants like Monte Carlo so I just want to reduce my risk of algae blooms as much as possible so I dont waste money on plants. I've got quite a powerful light with a Twinstar SM II that at 100% will give 66 watts in a 100 liter tank so Co2 is going to be essential. My tap water also has quite high nitrate at 30ppm out the tap so again combined with any ammonia spikes I just want to get that balance right.

The first fish I add will probably be the Celestial Pearl Danios and I could always add them in 5's I want to end up with about 20 of them plus 5 of the puffers (depending on dynamics). So with the plants adding 5 half inch fish at a time would probably work. I am planning to do some fast growing plants Cardamine Lyrata in particular which should shoot off nicely in this tank.

I've just done a quick roughly 60% water change now so going to retest the water and top up the ammonia if I need to.

thanks Wills

 

[Wills]

Ok so water retested Ph is down to 7.4 so at least it is measurable now. That is what I dont understand the most is why my ph has shot up like that.

 

[Wills]

I now have nitrites only .25 but I'll take it!

 

[Essjay]

The cycle has definitely started

 

[Wills]

Nearly a week later and the tank still hasnt moved ammonia sitting at about 3ppm and nitrite at .5. At this point I think I am going to go down the silent route with plants, I think the ammonia I am adding is raising the ph too much.