First Five Days...

[MikeO]

Have you started testing at 12 hours?

-FHM

I started testing the ammonia at 12 hours today and it was at 0. Nitrite was back up to 1.6 at 24hr point today though

 

[fatheadminnow]

Your getting there!

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

Hi MikeO,

Did you start out with any mature media or anything else that might have provided a large number of bacteria? It makes no sense that several aspects of a fishless cycle would play out within a week if the cycle was started from scratch. Unless your tap water was somehow quite contaminated or you had wood with a lot of biofilms on it or some odd thing like that then its quite hard to find an explanation for the rare occurance of both ammonia dropping and nitrite rising so much within the first 6 days or so.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[MikeO]

I used some "Nutrafin Cycle" for the first few days.

The nitrite is up to 3.3 today. Should I start to see this dropping soon?

The LFS have asked me to take a water sample in this weekend with my shortlist of stock, but I dont see the point in taking a water sample yet - unless they just want to test pH, but I have already done this anyway.

 

[llamalord305]

Wow, those products are usually said to not work. I suppose this is a rare case of it working.

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, those products are usually said to not work. I suppose this is a rare case of it working.

There were 2 products that we used to mention as sometimes working in a minority of cases where the package had stayed within a refridgerated pathway from manufacturer through all the transportation stages to a dealer who had a refridgerator also, without any loading dock delays. They were Biospira and Bactinettes. I believe there has been some discussion that Nutrafin Cycle is a successor to one of these products and so may also sometimes work when all the stars align.

I think I remember also that sometimes the kickstart that happened from these would cause the "process" of the fishless cycle to be different, in that we would get signs we were going really fast but then there might be setbacks. So in MikeO's case we'll need to keep steadily going along and watch out for this sort of thing. It makes it harder to say "where" you are in the process. (which simply means you have to just keep on adding 4-5ppm ammonia on the "add-hour" of any day where ammonia dropped to zero ppm within the previous 24 hours and you need to just keep watching for "double-zeros" in 24 hours and then in 12 hours. (hopefully I'm not using too much lingo)

This does explain the unusual results though, I think.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. I agree with you that there's no point yet to taking in a water sample as the pH and everything else can be completely different during fishless cycling as opposed to after the big water change.

 

[fatheadminnow]

I used some "Nutrafin Cycle" for the first few days.

The nitrite is up to 3.3 today. Should I start to see this dropping soon?

The LFS have asked me to take a water sample in this weekend with my shortlist of stock, but I dont see the point in taking a water sample yet - unless they just want to test pH, but I have already done this anyway.

Did you add the Nutrafin Cycle before adding ammonia?

If so, this is what may have happened.

Nutrafin Cycle, does indeed contain live bacteria, well in the beginning anyways, but after a short while they die off because there is a limited amount of food and oxygen. So what happens is, by the time you get it, the bacteria are already killed off and you are instead adding ammonia (from the dead bacteria) into your tank, and not the live bacteria.

So, if you added this days prior to your ammonia adding, then I think that initial ammonia you added from the Nutrafin Cycle has actually started the fishless cycle.

-FHM

 

[MikeO]

Yes, the cycle went in on day one and the ammonia started on day 3.

I wont bother taking the sample in this week - Will just wait until I know its ready.