Fishless Cycle 10 Days In

[Stonefish]

Hi Guys,

I'm 10 days into a fishless cycle.

My water readings are

Ammonia 0.25

Nitrite: 1

I added ammonia to the water to start the cycle off and have just topped up with fishfood to give the bacteria to eat.

How does everything sound so far?

One thing that is puzzling me is the water turned cloudy after day 2....which was a bacteria bloom....the water cleared and on day 7 had turned cloudy again...so i think it maybe another bloom.....is this normal??

 

[ox5477]

yep, everything appears to be going great. You are correct that the cloudy water is the bacterial blooms and you had two so far because you have two types of bacteria to ingest the ammonium and the nitrite. You should see nitrate forming now since you've had the second bloom. Keep adding ammonia and once the ammonia drops roughly 4 to 6ppm per 24 hours, your completely cycled

 

[waterdrop]

Jeez, only 10 days and already seemingly getting the second bacteria population? How can some people be so lucky? Stonefish, did you put some mature filter media in or something?

What do people think? Is it just a matter of luck that the water and/or air sometimes have some of the right bacteria to start?

 

[Stonefish]

Hey Waterdrop,

Everything was brand new when i started.

Im hoping in another week or two i might be able to start adding fish to the tank.

 

[waterdrop]

You are just lucky, man! Either that or I should call you Stoneface (holding back laughter) instead of stonefish, lol.

Seriously, don't forget to give it an extra week of watching it drop the Amm,no2 to zero each day - some of the experienced ones say that extra week has been important for getting past surprise spikes.

 

[ox5477]

waterdrop makes a key point. well worth waiting an extra week to make sure than worry about hurting your stocking.

 

[Amunet]

Everything looks ok so far, but why did you start using fish flakes instead of ammonia like you did the first time?
Fish flakes are ok, but the ammount of ammonia that's going to be produced by them will vary greatly causing ammonia readings to be all over the place. If you just kept adding in the ammonia, you would know exactly how much you need to be adding and know exactly when you would have to top it off w/ more ammonia (if you're doing the add and wait method) since the ammonia readings would be consistant and reliable.. if that makes any sense?

 

[Stonefish]

Hehe Stoneface is fine....most people settle with Stoney

I'm in no rush to stock it with fish...my greatest fear is stocking when im not ready....i want to give the fish the best possible start.

As for switching from ammonia to flakes.....stupid i no but it didnt feel right pouring ammonia in to the tank....so i started putting flakes in as it felt more naturel a way to do things. I will switch back to ammonia if it gives a better result though.

 

[OldMan47]

I'm not sure the ammonia will give a better result but having fish food decaying in my tanks is something I usually try to avoid. The smell can be petty bad. The ammonia will let you control the dosing precisely which is a good thing to be able to do.

 

[waterdrop]

I'm not sure the ammonia will give a better result but having fish food decaying in my tanks is something I usually try to avoid. The smell can be petty bad. The ammonia will let you control the dosing precisely which is a good thing to be able to do.

Speaking of which, oldman47, what is the reason that more than 5-6ppm ammonia during the first phase of fishless cycling is supposed to be bad? Nobody's answered that for me yet.

 

[twistedlink]

QUOTE (OldMan47 @ Mar 5 2008, 06:03 PM)
I'm not sure the ammonia will give a better result but having fish food decaying in my tanks is something I usually try to avoid. The smell can be petty bad. The ammonia will let you control the dosing precisely which is a good thing to be able to do.

Speaking of which, oldman47, what is the reason that more than 5-6ppm ammonia during the first phase of fishless cycling is supposed to be bad? Nobody's answered that for me yet.

In bacteria there are 4 phases

Phase 1-Log phase
Phase 2-forgotten
Phase 3-Lag phase
Phase 4-forgotten.

The point is bacteria are like anything else when it comes to food, if theres too much it will simply not be beneficial, they can only respire at a certain rate, and 5ppm ammonia is the amount fish most likely make as an average, so you can colonise just the right amount of bacteria, you could use more in theory after 4-5 days of a bacterium bloom, as they would populate more-so and you would get more ammonia fixing and nitrite fixing bacteria.

But as soon as you add the fish the ammonia levels will go down, and so the bacteria will simply die from lack of ammonia, and youll be left with the same amount youd have when using around the 5-6ppm stage lol.


Im new on fish but ive started microbiology at uni and that was a quick 5 minute introductory talk they gave us on bacterium growth etc.

 

[waterdrop]

QUOTE (OldMan47 @ Mar 5 2008, 06:03 PM)
I'm not sure the ammonia will give a better result but having fish food decaying in my tanks is something I usually try to avoid. The smell can be petty bad. The ammonia will let you control the dosing precisely which is a good thing to be able to do.

Speaking of which, oldman47, what is the reason that more than 5-6ppm ammonia during the first phase of fishless cycling is supposed to be bad? Nobody's answered that for me yet.

In bacteria there are 4 phases

Phase 1-Log phase
Phase 2-forgotten
Phase 3-Lag phase
Phase 4-forgotten.

The point is bacteria are like anything else when it comes to food, if theres too much it will simply not be beneficial, they can only respire at a certain rate, and 5ppm ammonia is the amount fish most likely make as an average, so you can colonise just the right amount of bacteria, you could use more in theory after 4-5 days of a bacterium bloom, as they would populate more-so and you would get more ammonia fixing and nitrite fixing bacteria.

But as soon as you add the fish the ammonia levels will go down, and so the bacteria will simply die from lack of ammonia, and youll be left with the same amount youd have when using around the 5-6ppm stage lol.


Im new on fish but ive started microbiology at uni and that was a quick 5 minute introductory talk they gave us on bacterium growth etc.

I'll bet that intro talk is very correct for one population in isolation but what about your very own thread "What The.." where Colin and BTT gave very interesting answers? I felt like the explanation from BTT got farther into it than I've heard before.