Fishless Cycle Almost Complete Few More Questions

[Jeff Lange]

Ok, I think I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
After I was processing ammonia for 3 days in 8-10 hours and my PH went to 6.4.
I did a 90 percent water change as ( backtropical ) suggested. Boosted PH back to 7.4 or so and have been adding 2 ppm ammonia daily.

Readings today were Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 40-80 hard to tell with api test kit. PH still holding @ 7.4 or so.

So this morning I have added back 4ppm ammonia to my 65 gallon tank. Takes approx 8 tbs of ammonia not Drops.

Anyway I will now continue to add ammonia of 4ppm daily again correct ?
And I am now w8 for my ammonia and nitrite to read 0 after 10-12 hours ?

When it does reach 0 then I will do another 90 percent water change.
Do I then let my tank sit for 24 hours and not add any more ammonia ?
My blue filter sleeve has gotten dirty durring this process. Has brown fungus stuff on it. Should I clean it under cold tap water or some water I remove from the tank when I do my last 90 percent water change.
I will not touch the media basket that is full of carbon at that time as I don't want to loose any bacteria.
My filter is the Magnum 350 w/ the carbon media and the blue filter sleeve on the outside.

Will I be able to add all my fish to the new cycled tank. I am moving them from my 28 gallon.
3 medium Angels. 2 albino Corey's and 2 Clown Loaches.
I also saw some small Marboro Discus at the LFS. Are these compatible with the fish I now have? I have heard many people say that they have them with Angels and it is ok, and others say it is a no no?

Thanks everyone for your assistance in this long process and the patience you have had with me.

 

[ox5477]

well a cycle is complete when your ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 24 hrs, not 10 to 12. So if your doign that now, do a big wc to remove most of the nitrate, bring the water to temp and then you can add your fish. The brown gunk might actually be the bacteria forming if you don't have a sponge in the filter. This magnum have a biowheel? Cause it seems weird that they would only give you a single carbon insert for your media. usually its a sponge and a carbon together or a sponge, carbon and some sort of ceramic media together....


And the pH thing, during cycling, your pH will shoot all over the board as the quick changes in chemical % in the tank can cause the drastic jumps

 

[backtotropical]

well a cycle is complete when your ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 24 hrs, not 10 to 12.

I disagree. It is obviously much safer to be able to process the ammonia and nitrite quicker, and i would always recommend that the filter is cycled when it processes ammonia and nitrite to 0 in 12 hours or less, not 24.

I'm not saying you are wrong, 24hrs may be sufficient, but it will depend largely on the proposed stocking of the tank. I would always err on the safe side.

I believe 12 hrs is also what RDD1952 recommends in the pinned fishless cycling article.

Jeff, it's up to you!

My advice is to continue to add 4ppm daily, but no more than once per day, and yes, you are aiming to raise ammonia to 4ppm, then test 12 hours later and get results of ammonia 0 nitrite 0.

Once you have achieved this, i would recommend keeping adding ammonia for at least a few more days to check everything is as it should be. If you are consistently processing 4ppm ammonia to ammonia 0 and nitrite 0 in 12 hrs or less, i would consider that you are cycled.

You should then do a large water change (90 - 95%) to remove excess nitrate, and move your fish in straight away (obviously allowing time for the water temp to acclimate etc). You can easily move all your fish at once. If you plan to add any more stock, this is an ideal opportunity as the filter is trained to cope with a lot more ammonia than your fish will produce, so adding extra fish at this point wouldn't create ammonia / nitrite spikes.

With regard to cleaning the filter, i'd leave it just now until you have the fish in and you are happy everything is ok. Then you could clean the filter in old tank water, not tap water.

I have no experience with Marlboro Discus, but they are lovely fish. I too have heard that Angels and Discus shouldn't be kept together, but my belief is that it is an old wives tale. The only reason not to keep them together would be aggression, but you probably have enough space to house maybe 3 or 4 Discus in with your current fish.

Lastly, i would advise that you should add more corys. They are schooling fish and are much happier in big groups. I'd recommend at least 6 to a group, but 8+ would be ideal.

Good luck and keep us updated.

Cheers

BTT

 

[waterdrop]

I agree with the 10-12 hours as the filter-speed test. While working on some of my pH/KH issues, I went out on the internet and worked on reading as many other fishless cycling articles as I could find and in the end I felt that the rdd1952 article was a very good distillation of the best things of these articles - most of the others were more out-of-date than the one here.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Jeff Lange]

Ok guys I will keep you updated. Hope I can get this cycle done by early next week and will let you know how everything turns out. But I am sure Im on the right track as my nitrites came down to 0 this morning with the 2 ppm ammonia so hopefully I am in the last stage now. Whoot.

 

[OldMan47]

You are definitely on the right track Jeff. If you can process the ammonia in 12 hours you are doing better than I usually am when I start stocking fish. 4 ppm is an enormous bioload so I figure if it can handle that in less than a day it will take any stocking I'm likely to throw at it. I never seem to have any problems but I tend to go with light stocking as an "old hand" from the days before liquid test kits were readily available. Light stocking levels that then build slowly will almost always keep you out of trouble.

 

[Jeff Lange]

Yea, well yesterday I was processing the 2ppm of ammonia and also the Nitrite in 12 hours
After I upped it again to 4 ppm for the last time I processed the ammonia, but not the Nitrite. Guess It will be a few more days to process the Nitrite before I can do another 90 percent water change and add fish. Will just have to w8 it out. Ammonia does not seem to be a problem to process just the Nitrite and of course the Nitrate is like 80 ppm.

 

[rabbut]

well a cycle is complete when your ammonia and nitrite drop to zero within 24 hrs, not 10 to 12.

I disagree. It is obviously much safer to be able to process the ammonia and nitrite quicker, and i would always recommend that the filter is cycled when it processes ammonia and nitrite to 0 in 12 hours or less, not 24.

I'm with back to tropical on this

I have no experience with Marlboro Discus, but they are lovely fish. I too have heard that Angels and Discus shouldn't be kept together, but my belief is that it is an old wives tale. The only reason not to keep them together would be aggression, but you probably have enough space to house maybe 3 or 4 Discus in with your current fish.

Discus are nice fish, but need a mature (6month+old) tank to surivive Also, 5 is the minimum recomended number. They require very good water quality, and regular feeding and waterchanges. These fish are considered by many to be advanced fish, and thus I'd advise you to do plenty of research before purcahing any
They IMO should be fine with the fish you have. The advise to not keep discus with angels is due to some keepers beliving that the angels would make the discus more suseptible to parasitic infection. No members on here have found that to be the case, though I have never personaly kept discus and angels together.
There is also another roumor that discus and loaches are a no-no. I'm not shure haw true this is, but aren't too concerned as loaches aren't my thing and dont intend to keep any
Discus need a 55gal minimum, with 10 gal of the capasity dedicated to them. Don't overstock them as they realy won't like it

If you are interested in keeping discus, research them like crazy and memorise that research so that you can answer any question on discus. Then bin the research At this point you should look to mimic an existing discus set-up. If it works, great leave them be. If it doesn't, follow the gut feeling you will get from your research as to what is wrong

Stear clear of beefheart also, as it is not good for discus (wrong type of protien) though many people swear by it. Problems with diet often will not show for a long tme, hence why some don't realise the issue with using it as a feed

Lastly, i would advise that you should add more corys. They are schooling fish and are much happier in big groups. I'd recommend at least 6 to a group, but 8+ would be ideal.

Agreed

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Jeff Lange]

Well dont know if my cycle is stalling again or not. Did a 90 percent water change last Monday- 1 week ago today to get PH back up as it was down to 6.4. light green on my API test kit not yellow yet.
Anyway have been processing 4 ppm ammonia in 8-10 hours for a week and a half at least w8 for the cycle to complete and Nitrite to go to 0 in same 8-10 hour time frame to do last water change before adding fish.
Yesterday ammonia was again 0 and Nitrite was 0.25. Added approx 4 ppm of ammonia again as usual.
Today my ammonia is 0, Nitrite is however at 2.0 and my PH is still around 6.4.
I added ammonia again to approx 4 ppm this morning.
Is the 6.4 too low to continue cycle?
Do I need another huge water change to try to finish the cycle?
The Nitrate has been approx 40-80 ppm throuhout.
Thanks for the continued support. Kind of wish I could get this tank cycled. Has been 32 days now into cycle and don't want to crash it and have to start over.

 

[rabbut]

Below a pH of 6.5, the cycle slows, below 6 it crashes the cycle. If it comes out of the tap at 6.4, don't worry too much, but if out of the tap is higher, you will have soft water. Great for later, opening up alot more fish, but a killer now
I'd think about adding baking soda to the water to raise the KH (keeps pH stable without going into A-level chemistory) and then the pH won't crash
You probibly won't need the extra hardness later, so remove the baking soda at the end-of-cycle water change.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Jeff Lange]

Below a pH of 6.5, the cycle slows, below 6 it crashes the cycle. If it comes out of the tap at 6.4, don't worry too much, but if out of the tap is higher, you will have soft water. Great for later, opening up alot more fish, but a killer now
I'd think about adding baking soda to the water to raise the KH (keeps pH stable without going into A-level chemistory) and then the pH won't crash
You probibly won't need the extra hardness later, so remove the baking soda at the end-of-cycle water change.

HTH
Rabbut

How do I add baking soda to my 65 gallon tank ? And how much should I put in there? I hate to keep doing massive water changes to correct the PH for 4-5 days. If you could explain to me I would appriciate it as I am a noobie

 

[rabbut]

I would add about 5 table spoons of the soda to the water. Get an old sock and add the soda into it. knot it shut and secure it by the filter outlet. This ensures that it desolves rather than just sitting on the bottom doing nothing
Expect the tank to be a little cloudy for a few minuites after as the very fine bits that escaped get disolved in the water column.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Jeff Lange]

Ok added 5 table spoons of baking soda in sock and hung it by filter outlet. Will keep you all posted on the results .

 

[Jeff Lange]

Well the sock and 5 tbs of Baking Soda did the trick. 2 days of PH 7.6 or so.
Also this morning tested and Nitrite was down to 0 so processed in under 24 hours. Whoot.
Added another 8 tsp of ammonia as the ammonia is processing in 10-12 hours
hopefully my nitrite will process again to 0 quicker each day now.
Hopefully I am getting close now.
Thanks all, Will continue to keep you posted.

Also, another question to pose to the experts. I have the Marineland Magnum 350 canister filter ( no Bio-Wheel ) as I wanted an under the cabnet filter for my 65 gallon. After doing much research on this I am wondering if I should change my pump/filter to the Eheim 2028 Professional II or the Eheim Professional wet/dry 2229 as these filters seem to have biological advantages over my Marineland Magnum 350? Not sure if the wet/dry is overkill or not ? Can I run both of these filters at the same time maybe the Magnum with the micron filter? I don't want to have to start this Cycle all over since I am almost done with it I think.
The LFS said that the 350 pump would be all I needed as the bacteria would be in the subtrate, gravel and carbon media in the filter canister and stuff. I am using the Carbon media container and carbon media with the blue Bonded Filter Sleeve arund the Carbo/Media Container, at the moment cycling. ( Wish I would have researched more before I purchased as the LFS recommended the 350 and they use it on all there aquariums w/o bio wheels ).

Thanks again and I will w8 for all your responses.

 

[rabbut]

Canisters offer brilliant biological filteration, but can be a little lacking in mechanical filtration when you observe Ehiems tank size recomendation. The 2080 would be overkill on a tank under 300l, and I'd use it for anything up to the 400l mark, though it is rated up to 1200l. It would do to 1200l if you added a large internal to do the mechanical allongside. I am unformiliar with the exact models you quote, but I'd say if you are going to get one, use that for Bio only, and keep the magnum for mechanical and chemical (if appropriate) filtration.
Eheim are supposidly the best, though I won't state my view on them as it tends to caurse arguments... For bio filtration, look for one that will turn over the tank twice an hour. The wet and dry is great for filtration, be poor for plant growing, so bear this in mind if you are growing plants
TBH, I think that adding a bio wheel would be as advantagious as an additional filter. What other media do you have in the existing filter? is it all carbon

All the best
Rabbut