Fishless Cycle, Aka "the Patience Diary"

[Zia]

Glad to see such support for fishless cycling here! I am on day 36 and am still figuring much of this out. Here's my cycle to date -- I missed a huge pH/KH drop but am hoping a 75% WC last night will fix that. I've also turned off my hood and am raising the temp up to 82 degrees. I've got a 20 gallon tank with 2 HOB filters (I switched from an uncycled 10 gallon and just kept both going). I also misread off-the-chart NitrIte readings on my API liquid test kit for ~2 weeks. I'm using NH3 from the hardware store.

I seem to be stalled. Any input appreciated. I have an anxious 4 year old hoping to get pet fish instead of pet water.

Day 37
NH3 0
NitrIte .5
pH 7.8
+ 3 mL NH3 to bring level to ~3 ppm

Day 38
NH3 .5
NitrIte off chart
Nitrate 100?
pH 8
GH 1.4
KH 1.1
Chlorine 1 (what??!)
Added 2.5 mL NH3; turned on air stone

pm
NH3 0
NitrIte 2
NitrAte 30
Added 2.5 mL NH3

Day 39
NH3 .5
NitrIte off chart
ph 8.4
10 gallon water change

pm
NH3 0
NitrIte 2? (This is **the most** frustrating result to read!)
Added 2.5 mL NH3

Day 40
NH3 0
NitrIte 1 ?
pH 7.4
Added .5 tsp baking soda (paranoid about pH crash, despite efforts to dismiss paper strip readings which (ahem) showed KH at 2 today)

pm
NH3 0
NitrIte 1? (nice, light fuchsia - heartening!)
pH 7.4
Added 2 mL NH3


Day 41
NH3 0
NitrIte 1 ?

pm
NH3 0
NitrIte 1?
pH 7.4
Added 1.8 mL NH3

Day 42
NH3: .25
NitrIte: 1?
Chlorine .75
pH 7.3
Added 2 tsp AquaSafe, .5 tsp baking soda (as buffer)

pm
NH3: 0
NitrIte: 1?
pH:7.6
Added 30 oz bottle of Nite-Out directly to filter (yes, yes I did!)
Added 3 "purple waffle" plants

Day 43
NH3 .25
NitrIte 1 ?
Added 1.6 mL NH3
Added .5 tsp baking soda

pm
NH3 0
NitrIte 1?
pH 8-sih
Added 1.2 mL NH3

Day 44
NH3 0
NitrIte 1 ?
Added 1.6 mL NH3, seeded media

pm
NH3 .75 (may have been adding too much ammonia
NitrIte .5 and dropping

Day 45
NH3 .25
NitrIte 1
pH 8

pm, after 50% water change
NH3 .5
NitrIte 2
!?!

 

[plecostomus-mad]

i always posted my water stats as follows...


PH-7.0

Ammonia-0ppm

NitrAte-0ppm

NitrIte-0ppm


if you keep them in this order / format it will be easier for people to read
any questions just ask

mark

 

[Zia]

I have been using Excel. In the future, I will do it your way. I just had lots of data.

Hope this works for you!

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Zia and Welcome to TFF!

[Mark, you gotta be kidding! I'd probably give Zia the highest mark for clarity and readability of fishless cycling data of any first-time post I've ever seen here! A vertical scan of each test result that stays in its column is exactly what we need. Zia, what spreadsheet did you use, how did you get the sheet out in .jpg form and how did you put it into your post?]

Your fishless cycle looks to be progressing. I'd raise your temp to 84F and try to keep it there. Also, we generally communicate about KH and GH in degrees (german degrees, so divide by 17.9 if you had it in ml/g or ppm.) From the looks of it you are crossing (well, not really because you were just diluting your spike I see now) from the second phase (nitrite spike) to the 3rd phase (after nitrite spike, lol) and once your nitrite begins dropping to zero within 24 hours you can settle in to watching to see if it can get down to doing it within 12 hours. Once both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) both reach zero ppm within 12 hours from when ammonia was dosed, you are ready to start your qualifying week.

Let's see, 4 yrs old.. How about a family color drawing contest (against M&D if no siblings) where you draw different "bacteria" (if you make the contest go day after day, the bacteria can get wild and mean and all sorts of looks) and meanwhile you just keep tying it in to the picture of the nitrogen cycle (in BTT's article or on Wikipedia etc. although they've got the species wrong there) and maybe occasionally go on a "field trip" to look inside the filter and see how the filter media now has brown stains on it that are the bacteria. You could also have him/her do drawings of the filter with arrows showing how the water goes through. As parents the thing to remember is that explaining what's going on with cycling and the empty tank is actually easier than explaining why the new pet fish died because its water was ready yet! Once those ammonia and nitite numbers come in with solid zeros for a week you know the fish are going to love the new aquarium!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[plecostomus-mad]

waterdrop, that chart was posted after my reply

 

[Zia]

Yes -- I accidentally hit "post" and published gibberish the first time! I keep my data in an Excel spreadsheet. For this, I took a screen shot and saved it as a .jpg.

Late last afternoon, I stabilized the temp at 84 and added 4 mL NH3.

29 hours later (I am off my normal testing schedule today...)

Ammonia 0 (was 1 ppm @ 19 hours after adding NH3)
NitrIte .50-ish

I am wary of the .5 nitrIte reading, as I went for many days thinking I had .5, when the reading was actually off the charts. But this appears to be a true light purple, although my API drops still turn bright purple when I first drop them in.

So: still slogging along.

Thanks for the very creative suggestions on keeping my 4 y-o engaged. She understands this will help us avoid another Molly tragedy, but she is still very jealous of her brother's (living) gerbils! I just hope this really works! (The Molly deaths were pretty traumatic.)

 

[Zia]

Hrm, playing with the calculator tool. I think -- by adding 3 mL of NH3, I am bringing the level up higher than I want to -- to 4. Those test strips can be so hard to read!

Should I be aiming for 3 ppm at this point in my cycle?

 

[BettaBoysGirl]

Hrm, playing with the calculator tool. I think -- by adding 3 mL of NH3, I am bringing the level up higher than I want to -- to 4. Those test strips can be so hard to read!

Should I be aiming for 3 ppm at this point in my cycle?

Good luck!

 

[Zia]

Also: should I add a little baking soda to bring my pH up to 8? I had a big KH/pH crash before...

 

[plecostomus-mad]

84 is abit high. bacteria you want to grow do better at lower temps. try 78

 

[Zia]

Hmmm, I saw in another thread that waterdrop said, " 84F/29C is the best temp." I've seen that in other places, too. I just raised it, and things definitely seem to finally be picking up.

Thoughts?

 

[Zia]

Day 38: frustrating testing session -- fool me once, fool me twice

I have a bad feeling about the direction my tank is heading. After once again thinking my NitrItes were dropping to .5, tonights testing has brought a reality check: they are once again off the charts. And along with that -- once again -- comes the weird reading on my test strip for Chlorine -- 1. What? I'm trying to dismiss it because it's *just* a test strip, but it worries me, nonetheless. I treated with AquaSafe when I did my water change and tested after -- no chlorine at that time. Added a capful of AquaSafe to clear things up.

pH increased from yesterday to over 8, which, if history serves me right, means there may be a crash in my future.

And my KH has dropped to nearly 1, and that's a generous reading. (This reading is test strip, not API liquid, as have all KH readings in my cycle.)

I'm tempted to put in Sodium Bicarbonate to raise the KH, but I'm worried that will push the pH too high.

I just did a 75 water change 3 days ago! Should I do another one? And I have nitrates a plenty.

Desperately need help here... start to loose faith in the cycle, or that my nitrItes will ever drop.

(And to top it off, I'm doing this all with my head whirling from the flu! Bleh!)

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Zia,

Looks to me like you're doing just fine. I like to divide the fishless cycling process into 3 phases (before, during and after the nitrite spike) and the period of transition from 2 to 3 (when the nitrite spike is trying to end) is a period when our feedback always gets hard to understand and unpredictable a bit - yours looks a bit that way to me now.

The two chemolithoautotrophic species we are trying to encourage will grow fastest at about 84F/29C (too warm for most tropical fish but great for bacterial growing soup!) and a pH of about 8.0 to 8.4, but there's not an urgent need to optimize this as the fall off down to around pH=7 does not all that much difference in the growth rate. Either water changes or bicarb or both are fine for helping to optimize this.

Most of us consider any sort of reading from a paper strip to be worse than useless as it can be misleading and sometimes lead to wrong actions. I, like many others, keep my original bottle of paper strip tests around thinking I'll use it for some sort of emergency but the truth probably is that I should have just tossed it in the trash. Most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit.

A fair number of fishless cycles can have each of the 3 phases take more than 20 days, so don't worry, your number of days is not out of line with what we've seen around here.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Zia]

Thanks for the encouragement, waterdrop. I need it right about now. I guess I was hoping to be a fast cycler... alas.

I know the test strips are wildly inaccurate, but even so, I'm definitely seeing a trend with a KH drop immediately preceding my nitrItes flying off the charts. While the results may not be accurate, it's still a change from the baseline I'm seeing with the strips, and I think there must be something to it. I guess I just need to buy a liquid test to prove my (still developing) theory.

I'm going to lower my daily NH3 dosing slightly for a bit and see if anything changes.

My ultimate stocking goal is 6-7 danios. I don't think they produce that much waste, and I have moved all fish food out of my *helpful* child's reach. May add some oto's or shrimp much, much later.

Still, actually having fish in the tank seems like a dream right now!

 

[OldMan47]

The KH drop often reflects a rise in NO3 that is consuming the KH. That is good news as you are going through what WD would call the third stage after nitrite peak values. It means that the second group of bacteria, the nitrite processors, are getting their act together and moving significant amounts of nitrite through to nitrates. If they keep doing that, you should soon see a drop in nitrites and a rise in nitrates.