Fishless Cycle - Advice Needed

[alexpb22]

Hi,

I'm currently in the middle of a fishless cycle and not sure how best to proceed.

I set the tank of up two weeks ago but my ammonia only arrived last weekend. I originally dosed the ammonia up too high for the first few days (8ppm) but then did a water change on Monday and have been dosing ammonia to around 4ppm ever since.

This has all been fine and now I'm at the point of having really high nitirites (api test show very luminous bright purple colour) and the nitrates have been also very high although not off the scale. I would say around 80ppm but I find it quite hard to read. The nitrates though have stayed the same for several days now and other than the ammonia dropping everything else seems to stay the same, high nitrites and same nitrates.

I'm not sure whether I should just be patient and wait for everything to eventually drop or whether I should do a PWC. I did change the water about 50% a couple of days ago so dont really want to do that again but will if need be.

I'm just not sure if my cycle has stalled or whether I am being impatient.

PH has remained steady at around 7.6-7.8

Any advice would be great.

 

[Mamashack]

It's not a good idea to do water changes during a cycle unless it's to reduce an accidental overdose of ammonia. You are maybe aiming a little too high and too frequently with your dosing. 3ppm is the current thinking as it leads to lower nitrates being produced. Very high nitrate levels can stall the cycle.
Normally you'd wait until the nitrites start to drop on their own - seems like ages - but suddenly they will drop and then you are on the home stretch I've just completed a fishless cycle in 26 days using the method linked at the end of my signature and at the top of each page called Cycling a Tank and some gravel from a mature tank..
If you haven't seen it before, check the link - it's a really good and highly recommended way to do a fishless cycle on this forum.

 

[alexpb22]

Thanks for the advice and I'm going to read that article now.

I was cycling as per instructions on another site and they were saying to dose up to 4ppm each time hence my high ammonia. Hopefully I haven't mucked it up.

 

[Mamashack]

Chances are you haven't but have a read - there's a chart which shows how to work out what % water change to do depending on the starting and desired ppm ammonia in case of accidental overdosage.
If you want to read my just-completed micro tank set-up journal the link is:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/432894-12l-micro-tank/
 
Good luck and let us know how you are getting on.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The biggest danger in is not nitrate, its nitrite. The reason is simple. When you hit 16 ppm on your nitrite test kit, you are stalling the cycle stay there or go higher and you are doing worse things.
 
What your test kit doesn't go that high for nitrite you say? And that is the problem.
 
The fishless cycling article here is designed to make it impossible to have nitrite rise to such a level as long as one follows the directions to the letter.
 
Just as an fyi, 1 ppm of ammonia can become as much as 2.55 ppm of nitrite. So 4 ppm can become 10.2 ppm. Add 8 ppm and you are well into the fatal zone if the nitrite oxidizers have had no decent chance to build up some to prevent it.
 
To further illustrate, that same 1 ppm of ammonia, if it works its way all the way to being nitrate, becomes 3.46 ppm. So work backwards. If one has no nitrate in their tap and wishes to hold nitrate at a max of 80 ppm during a cycle, put fewer than 23+ ppm of ammonia in all told. My point is that the fishless cycling article here suggests you will need to add a total of 13 -16 ppm of ammonia to get a tank cycled. Nitrate should rarely be an issue either when one follows the directions.
 
It is possible to test for nitrite even when your kit reads the maximum which can mean its actually much higher. Read the section of this article which explains how to do diluted testing http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/433778-rescuing-a-fish-in-cycle-gone-wild-part-il/

 

[alexpb22]

It makes sense what you're saying but I guess the problem for me is that I've been following another cycling guide to the letter. Not sure if I am allowed to post the link here so will err on the side of caution. In it it says that nitrites and nitrates will at some point go off the scale and at that point to do a water change.

With the fact that my nitrites are so high though now, is it best I lay off the ammonia for a couple of days at least until the levels start to come down or do you think that that won't happen?

 

[Mamashack]

Sorry, alex I guess you'll have to decide which method to follow and ask the corresponding forum members what to do.
My recently completed cycle took 26 days and only 7 additions of 3ppm ammonia. I did have the benefit of mature gravel which would affect how long it takes, however the number of ammonia doses should still be around the same (6-7)
My cycle stalled for a week in the first instance because I misinterpreted one of my results and added more ammonia when it wasn't necessary so I started again with fresh water and I followed TwoTankAmin's protocol to the letter. (He is the author of Cycling a Tank).
Not saying you should do the same but it's food for thought.
Good luck!

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I will simply tell you that the cycling method I laid out was designed to be idiot proof if followed to the letter. Using my method makes it almost impossible to have nitrite get too high, so you do not have to worry when it goes off the scale.
 
Whatever method you are using can not say the same so you must either bring down the nitrite so you can read it, which will slow your cycle some or else do diluted testing as I laid out in the Part II article I referenced for you.
 
I based the cycling method here on that suggested by Dr. Hovanec. However, I adapted it to work with API types kits and then further to make nitrite not be an issue. In the end, using either method you will add roughly the same amount of ammonia in the end, just in slightly different amounts and times. His method necessitates doing diluted testing, the one here does not.
 
Whatever method you want to follow is up to you. But clearly the method you have been following is not working out so well for you?

 

[yinyangpete]

Hi. It's awesome to hear that you are doing a fishless cycle. With a fishless cycle, if things get wonky and weird, you won't kill fish. You are already ahead of the game.
 
The fact that something has/is going wrong, does not make you an idiot.
 
I think it is important, however, to follow one method from beginning to end. After awhile you will develop your own recipe that works for you and your tanks. But in the beginning, trying to combine multiple recipes often leads to disappointment.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I was not calling anyone an idiot. That is a phrase that is used to describe a process made so simple to follow/use that it should always yield the intended results. It is often written as a single word, idiotproof or hyphenated, idiot-proof.
 
Google the term and you will see:
 
Idiot proof - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_proof

Wikipedia


In modern English usage, the informal term idiot proof or foolproof describes designs which cannot be misused either inherently, or by use of defensive design ...
 
Idiotproof - Merriam-Webster Online
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiotproof

Merriam‑Webster


id·i·ot·proof. adjective \ˈi-dē-ət-ˌprüf\. Definition of IDIOTPROOF. : extremely easy to operate or maintain. First Known Use of IDIOTPROOF. 1976.
 
idiot-proof adjective - Cambridge Dictionary
dictionary.cambridge.org/.../i...

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary


idiot-proof adjective - definition, audio pronunciation, synonyms and more for idiot-proof adjective: extremely easy to use:
 
 
In this case it means that ammonia, nitrite and even nitrate levels should never get high enough that they work against the cycle. There is never a need to do diluted testing. I am sure of one thing here. The method from another site which Alex has been following is not idiotproof.
 
pete- I will just chalk your comment up to not knowing what this expression meant rather than an insinuation that I intended to insult or demean alex in any way.
 
alex- I sure hope you did not think I was implying anything by the use of the term.

 

[alexpb22]

Thanks for all your comments regarding this.
TwoTankAdmin, I totally took your idiotproof comment as it was intended,so no offence was taken there. You meant that it was easy to follow and designed for anyone with any level of knowledge to achieve.

I'm going to re read your cycling method when i get home from work and go from there. This morning my ammonia was at 1ppm so i added a little bit more just so that it didn't dip below that whilst I was at work.

I may just start dosing up to 3ppm instead of 4ppm but will read the guide later.

I have only been cycling with ammonia for just over a week now maybe I'm also just being a little impatient. Having not done this before I don't really know the time scales of each stage and as I also seeded it first I realise that things can happen faster.

 

[alexpb22]

Just done a test of my parameters and thought I'd test the Nitrates which I wasn't going to do, but they have now suddenly dropped to very low levels! They were at around 80ppm yesterday and now they are seriously though, like the lowest possible. Everything else has stayed the same except my ammonia which is back down to 1ppm.

Why would the Nitrates drop or is that a good thing?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

 A few things. For a start the nitrate tests stink, they are often the least accurate. Next, they work by converting nitrate to nitrite and then reading that. So any nitrite that might be in a tank adds to the reading some. If you do not shake things hard and long enough, the results are meaningless.
 
alex- in the method here one only adds ammonia to the tank 6 or 7 times over 5-6 weeks and one of those times the amount is 1/3. The bacteria do not need ammonia every day or nitrite either. Too much ammonia becomes way to much nitrite which is what stalls or aborts most cycles. That is the idiot-proof part of the method here. Since you cannot measure nitrite above 5 ppm on an API kit and the danger level is just over 16 ppm on that kit, one would have to do diluted testing to know where things stand. For new fish keepers this is one more task and one more thing that could go wrong. So the method here is designed so that nitrite can't get too high since there will never be too much ammonia. And the key to is all is to follow the directions as written.

 

[alexpb22]

Thanks TwoTankAdmin, I was looking at your post but it's titled Fish In Cycling whereas I'm doing it without. Does it all still relate exactly the same?just want to make sure I am reading the correct part.

 

[alexpb22]

I just bought some deionised water and did the tests again as per TwoTankAmin's sticky.

For my Nitrites I got about 32ppm, had to literally water down so many times but eventually got a reading I could work with.

With Nitrates though, I guess this is what you meant TwoTankAmin by it being inaccurate, I tested it with the diluted solution and got a reading of around 120ppm but I tested it again with just the tank water and it came up as zero!

I'm really concerned with this level of Nitrites.