Fishless Cycle, Aka "the Patience Diary"

[Zia]

OldMan47, thank you! This was part of what I was trying to understand. And then the lower KH would lead to the pH crash I had, which in turn slows down nitrIte processing. Still trying to understand why I'd see traces of chlorine during those crashes (and I'm not alone; I've seen mention of this on other forums). This article gives me a few theories to contemplate... but nothing concrete.

But. Onto 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. I MUST BUY A LIQUID TEST KIT or I'll slowly go insane...)

pm
NH3 0
NitrIte 1? (nice, light fuchsia - heartening! But still dark drops initally.)
pH 7.4
Added 2 mL NH3 with target of 2.5 PPm

Of note:

My first 0 NH3 morning (after adding 2.5 mL NH3 12 hours before) since day 27! I think I have been adding too much ammonia, so I'm only bringing it up to 2 ppm tonight.

I am finding the API nitrIte liquid test kit results almost impossible to read. A fuchsia looks every shade, depending on the light. And my faith in the .5 readings is completely shot.

This is starting to feel like the time I went 16 days past my due date, except then I knew I'd have a baby eventually. If it weren't for this forum's faith that this tank will cycle, I'd be throwing in the towel! I'm eyeing Tetra SafeStart online, but hanging in there as long as I can... Today seemed better, with the NH3 processing in under 12 hours, and the NitrIte looking fainter.

 

[Zia]

Day 41. Yawn.

No change since yesterday. My NH3 continues to drop to 0 after 12 hours, and I am no longer taking an evening reading.

As for my nitrItes, no change there, either, unless I try reading the card under different lighting for fun.

Here they are in the morning:

And underneath the moon in one room:

And in another, same test sample:

I really can't seem to match the colors perfectly some my nitrIte readings are a complete guess. As long as they're not through the roof, I'm not unhappy.

Tomorrow's my 6-week mark. Sigh.

 

[OldMan47]

That article addresses using ammonium chloride rather than ammonium hydroxide as the ammonia source. Every time you break the chemical bond with ammonium, you would be releasing chlorine so it would almost certainly end up creating some small amount of chlorine, although as they say the chloride would more often bind to metal ions.
Those readings look like somewhere between 0.5 and 1.0 to me. I find that I get the best definition on the colors with a strong light over my shoulder and the test tube laying against the white space on the card.

 

[Zia]

Well, I'm definitely using Ammonium Hydroxide, but this morning woke up to...

NH3: .25 (not processed overnight as previous 2 nights)
NitrIte: 1?, as indistinguishable as always

Because of the unprocessed chloride, I dipped a quick strip and found

Chlorine: ~1

Treated with 1 tsp AquaSafe, and added .5 tsp baking soda as a buffer.

I keep getting into this little cycle -- what's happening?

Grrr.

 

[waterdrop]

I can't tell you how many cycles have taken 60 to 80 days to complete (dozens) and most of those looked more or less like yours for the number of days you've been. In the near term, your pH is a little lower now, so the processing will be a little slower. But overall it looks pretty normal, if on the slow side.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Zia]

Well, I have been out cold (or, errr, hot) with the flu, but there's not much to report.

My readings really haven't changed much. But, I did find a little $4 bottle of Nite-Out at a LFS. Ingredients: Nitrosomonas sp., Nitrospira sp. and Nitrobacter sp. Yes, I know I am going to get scolded, because I did add it. I probably wasted my money, but it won't hurt. I've been adding smaller amounts of NH3 every 12 hours to keep the bacteria fed, but will go back to my regular schedule tomorrow.

Stuff hasn't made a difference yet. It has been 24 hours.

Ordered some Tetra SafeStart. Also found out my friend has an established, filtered goldfish tank. May ask for some filter squeezings. I visited a nice LPS (non-chain) whose owner gave me some gravel from the bottom of his tank, but it's sat in the bottom of my closet for 24 hours now. Too paranoid about Ick, etc., since I don't know him or his fish that well.

And that's it.

 

[waterdrop]

I've come to think of those products as sort of buying a more complicated ammonia. So you just basically compare to the price of your bottle of ammonia, as you're buying the same function. But in the case of the bottled bacteria product you won't know the ammonia level as quick or be able to read the test result feedbacks as reliably because you don't know how long its taking the heterotrophs to break the bottled organics down into ammonia.

Its possible that its not all wasted extra expense as you do eventually want a varied population of heterotrophs in the well-balanced aquarium but the thing is, we've just never seen the presence of heterotrophs to be a problem. There always seem to be more than enough of them whenever they are needed. Just put some fish or dead plants or any other organic in the tank and boom!- you've got ammonia almost with magical quickness - that's the heterotropic bacteria the permeate the tank water!

Remember, a slow cycle, even if it jumps around confusingly, is a good cycle. Better to have your patience tried a little than to have a record-quick cycle like Nork just had and then find that it was just faking you out! Its like the nine-month pregnancy, not really something you can or want to speed up, right?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Zia]

Hmm, no this wasn't the product with heterotrophs. It was bacteria-only. In that spirit, I did drop in a couple of live plants. They are not dead yet. Give them time, though. My track record with plants is no better than with fish!

Today's morning readings: unremarkable.

Around noon, I dropped some gravel from my friend's goldfish tank (LOTS of algae, but a healthy fish) into my filter, along with some filter squeezings.

Tonight:
Ammonia: .75 -- highest I've seen in a while, but not too worried because...
NitrIte: a low .5 -- and a real .5, not a .5 wearing my optimism goggles!

Hopefully that NH3 will be down by tomorrow.

I delivered 16 days past my due date... probably the wrong person to be talking to about "not [wanting] to speed up."

 

[waterdrop]

No, what I'm saying is that all of the bottles of "bacteria in a bottle" consist of a bunch of organic matter and dead bacteria (the two species we need can't live without pretty much constant fresh ammonia and fresh water and fresh oxygen, that's why it takes us two months to raise them in a fishless cycle) so when we dump it into our tank, like all dead things it becomes just organic waste. Any organic waste in the tank will be attacked by the heterotrophic bacteria that are omnipresent in water (these are the heterotrophs I was referring to) and turned into ammonia. So buying "bacteria in a bottle" is just an expensive, indirect way of buying ammonia!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Zia]

Ah. So that may be why my NH3 is still at .25 this morning -- 24 hours after my last addition! Argh!

Nitrite has returned to the ever-constant 1... no permanent damage done, hopefully. It was worth a try.

 

[Zia]

Day 45... during which I inadvertently slay my cycle

This morning, ammonia down to .25, nitrIte at .75, pH an 8

This evening, NO CHANGE

So, I do what I always do in times of being stuck... my 50% water change.

After the water change,

ammonia RISES to .5 and nitrIte to 2 (!!!). Note: tap water tests 0 for nitrItes.

Aagh. My punishment for... 1) Nite-Out 2) aglae-rich goldfish media 3) adding plants ?

Did I kill off all my ammonia-hungry bacteria?

V depressed.

 

[waterdrop]

You're correct that its a little hard to comment as its not one of our normal ammonia-only fishless cycles. I'm not sure if some of the different sorts of things you've done have made the readings a little harder to understand but I suppose that is possible.

The thing about a fishless cycle though is that if you just simplify it and keep going at it, it will succumb in the end.

Its not clear to me why you carried out a 50% water change? Normally, "percentage" water changes have no real meaning in a fishless cycle. People hold water changes down to less than a full change just for the sake of fish. In the case where its only bacteria we're trying to raise, its more useful to make as total a refresh of the "bacterial growing soup" as possible whenever we decide to disturb the bacteria.

So what we normally want to do is perform a deep and thorough gravel clean and take the water all the way down to the gravel. We're trying to maximize the removal of both nitrite(NO2) and nitrate(NO3) both of which can slow the bacterial growth when they are in higher concentrations. Then we recharge the ammonia and the baking soda if we're using that. Sometimes the bacteria will respond by shutting themselves down for a day or two after a water change (this is why its kind of a decision whether to "disturb" them during cycling) but other times they will "kickstart" and begin performing the cycle even faster.

Remember, all that's needed for a good fishless cycle is nice clean well-oxygenated chlorine/chloramine-free tap water with a concentration of about 4ppm of cheap household ammonia running through a filter that has plenty of biomedia at a temperature about 84F/29C and a pH ideally closer up to the 8.0-8.4 optimum. When anything seems bad to you just go back to trying to create these conditions and taking and recording your tests regularly.

~~waterdrop~~
edit: spelling

 

[Zia]

I did the water change because I heard it helped with a stalled cycle. Because I had the flu and a 102 degree fever and couldn't think clearly after being with my children all day. Because I really want to get the tank cycled so I can enjoy it with my daughter instead of constantly being distracted by it. Because I had an oscar tank in college and never lost a fish and am absolutely puzzled why it's so much more difficult this time around and am about to lose my mind.

But my Tetra SafeStart arrives tomorrow morning... over and out!

 

[waterdrop]

Totally understand! I have a bad back and sometimes when I'm gravel cleaning the water out my back starts to hurt so much that I just cut the water change shorter than I had wanted it to be. Also, I didn't mean it to sound harsh, was just using it as an attention-getting memory technique as probably lots of people just skim our answers.

Sorry it feels complicated, its really just a way to save all the water-changing that's done in a fish-in cycle and to give the fish good parameters at the start. I'm guilty of being one of those who enjoys the process as much as the result and as that kind of hobbyist I'm sure I communicate too much complication.

Its true that fish can live through uncycled tanks and some fish don't even show stress symptoms clearly. Our ability to detect pain or illness in fish is just really lousy. Besides that it varies a lot by species. Oscars might be like some catfish who are really quite ok with high levels of ammonia and other things that might kill other species.

Good luck with your next bottled bacteria attempt. In the more distant past there were indeed sporadic reports of success with a couple of products, Bactinettes and BioSpira, in cases where the packets were kept frozen through the full transportation and distribution path. In your case it wouldn't be a test from day 1 but we'd still be interested to know if it seems to help or hurt your fishless cycle. Good luck!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

You were completely right that a large water change followed by an ammonia addition will often get a stalled cycle started Zia. The most common thing that happens to stall a cycle is a precipitous pH drop. By doing a large water change, the pH is raised to where it had been before and the cycle moves forward. WD himself often recommends a large water change in that situation. I try hard, as he does, to actually analyze what is going on rather than give a pat answer that says "stalled cycle, do a water change". It is the reason that we enjoy more success getting people back on the right track than forums where people know only the canned answers and not the science behind them. The safe start, along with the other additives you have been using, will probably do no harm. Unfortunately there is no magic elixir that I am aware of that will make a cycle move faster except a sample of live bacteria added directly to a filter. I do that by cleaning a filter from one of my other tanks in the tank that I want to cycle. Once the new filter has had a chance to take on the bacteria that are released by a filter cleaning, I add the ammonia for a fishless cycle and find that my cloned filter is usually ready for fish inside a week. The bacteria in a bottle products would be great if they were made from functional filters and were sold the day they were bottled. That is in essence what I do by treating my new tank as a filter cleaning bucket. It is a bit messy looking, but fish placed into the tank within just a day or two do quite well. If I have the time to carry out a full fishless cycle, it gets finished in the first week in every case so far. Now that I have said that, the next one will take a month.