Fish Less Cycle

[Rangermatt]

Just added pure ammonia to take the reading between 4.0 ppm and 8.0 ppm

What do I do now?

All help appreciated

Thanks matt

 

[HayzH]

firstly do a waterchange about 50%?? this will bring it down a bit.

secondly ...in the beginners section there is a calculator...(also above on the blue bar at the top) Ensure you are dosing the right ammount for your size tank...(allowing for substrate and decor)

 

[Rangermatt]

I've been doing the fish less cycle and it has been going very good so far I think.

This morning it's reading 0 ppm ammonia which I added ammonia last night to get it back up t o 4-5 ppm. My nitrite is 5ppm. How do I get this down?

How long am I away from getting my fish ?

Thanks

Matt

 

[HayzH]

The Nitrite part of the cycle is "normally" twice the length of the Ammonia part. Is it processing in 12 hrs?
If it is then you can now bring the Ammonia dose you add down to 2-3ppm level. To give the bacteria time to breathe a little and catch up.
if it IS processing Ammonia in 12 hrs, then you have entered stage 2.

 

[Rangermatt]

So I should add more ammonia now the?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Rangermatt]

?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

add 2-3ppm ammonia every 24 hours. Congrats, you are in phase two! This phase will get frustrating. Just stay patient, it will happen.

 

[CezzaXV]

What I did to keep me sane was do enough water changes to keep my nitrate below 5ppm. This meant that I could see from day to day how much nitrite was processing, plus if you're only adding 2ppm of ammonia on each dose, the nitrite shouldn't be above 5ppm anyway). It's also the case that if the nitrite gets too high you can end up growing the "wrong" type of bacteria (I'll leave the sciency explanation to someone else) so it's a good idea to do.

Have you been keeping a record of your readings? Alot of people like to start threads on here to use as journals so they can keep track and get advice from other members.

 

[Rangermatt]

Hoping that I'm fully cycled now. I'm gonna supply my reading from the last test I done.

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm

The 2 above are going back down to 0 within 12 hours of adding pure ammonia.

Nitrate - 80 ppm

Should go down when I do a water change if I'm right?

And I have a PH of 7.4

Does this look like I'm fully cycled?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Yes, it appears that way. How many ppm have you been dosing? How many consecutive days of double zeros at 12 hours do you have? General consensus here says that a rough week of double zeros is necessary to confirm that you won't have a spike once stocked.

Also, yes the large water change (all the way down to the gravel) will remove the nitrates in the water.

What fish are you thinking of going with?

 

[Rangermatt]

I've had double 0 for 8 days now so I think I am fully cycled.

I think I'm going to go and get some fish tomorrow but what I want to know is should I o a water change tonight and add more ammonia or wait until I have the fish then do a water hange before I add the fish

Thanks for all the help.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You can do the water change tonight, and add the fish tomorrow morning/afternoon. The bacteria will be fine for 12 hours.

 

[Xraymark]

Excellent.