Fishless Cycle And Aqueon Water Conditioner

[MDG]

Hi all,

I apologize for just joining to ask this question, hopefully I can participate further as I go.

I am currently in maybe my 6th week of cycling. I can get the ammonia down from 4 ppms to 1 or 0 in about a week, I add more, etc. My Nitrites are beyond the scale, and my Nitrates are around 10. I know I need to wait until nitrites go down to 0, and I understand this could happen rapidly, but shouldn't it have happened by now? It's a 10 gallon tank, filled about halfway so the filter can do the waterfall thing for surface agitation. The heater is in the mid 80s. I am now wondering if it could have something to do with the de-chlorinator I have been using. It is Aqueon Water Conditioner, and I noticed on the back of the bottle it says "detoxifies heavy metals, ammonia and other elements released from fish waste." That does not sound like it would be conducive to a normal cycle and I wish I had not used this type. I have been adding about 1 gallon of de-chlorinated water a week to top off what evaporates. I do this the same time that I add more ammonia. Should I try a different de-chlorinator, or have others used Aqueon without cycling problems? If i were to switch, would i do a large water change with the new brand, or just gradually switch when i do top-offs?

(i also used Nutrafin Cycle a few weeks ago for what it's worth)

I appreciate any help!

Danny

 

[fatheadminnow]

to TFF!

The conditioner is just fine.

I believe it just converts ammonia into ammonium. Ammonium is not toxic to fish, but still can be utilized by the bacteria colony. Don't quote me on that, but I am positive your conditioner is just fine, or else you would not be seeing nitrite.

You do not need to worry about surface agitation (the waterfall effect) unless you have fish in your tank. And I presume you are doing a fishless cycle.

Anyways, add water all the way to the top to your tank. If your water is half way full, then you are cycling a 5 gallon tank, not a 10 gallon tank. This would cause problems later down the line if you add the water all the way to the top.

Get an aerator to create the surface agitation.

-FHM

 

[MDG]

thank you! yeah, I am doing it fishless. I was kind of wondering about the water being only filled halfway too.

 

[MDG]

It's now the 7th week... since my last post i've added the other 5 gallons of water and added more ammonia when it went down to 1 ppm. i have a powerhead in too. nitrates and nitrites are still the same. ammonia is dropping at the same rate it has week after week.

my theory now is that it's my filter. i have a Whisper in-tank filter and have noticed negative reviews of it on here. Could the carbon that is in the media be messing up the cycle?

 

[OldMan47]

I have some of the Whisper in tank filters and they are terrible in many ways but, they work fine as long as the water flows through the cartridge on the way back into the tank. If you see much of the water returning to the tank by flowing around the inlet tube, the filter is too plugged for decent flow. In that situation it would be time to rinse out the cartridge in used tank water when doing a water change. Until there is flow through the filter cartridge, the nitrite processing bacteria cannot develop in large numbers to help you. Something that we have found that sometimes helps, but certainly not always, is to do a large water change to get the nitrites back into a range where you can measure them. This would be a change of as much water as you can easily remove from the tank and replacing it with dechlorinated water.

 

[MDG]

thanks for replying. Yeah, so far all the water is coming out of the lip where it's supposed to. i'll be sure to rinse out the cartridge in tank water if i see anything different.

 

[MDG]

i decided to do a big water change today to see if that would help. after i did, i was surpised when i tested ammonia and found it at 1 ppm (almost exactly what it was before the water change). then i tested the water straight from my faucet and, aha!, it is also 1 ppm. is that normal? anyway, i put more ammonia in the tank to bring it up around 4.

also since the water change:

Nitrite: 2.0

Nitrate: barely detectable.

btw, my ph is and always has been on the higher part of the scale, as well as hardness. could that be causing me problems?

I hope i haven't put myself back at the beginning of the cycle with the water change.

 

[waterdrop]

The high pH and hardness will actually be good for the bacterial growth. Are you using the straight-up media choices that came with the whisper? You haven't added any Zeolite or had any zeolite that they gave you or anything, right?

Are we sure that the flow route that OM47 was trying to get you to look at was the same as what you observed? I'm pretty sure he was concerned about water bypassing some of the media down inside the filter, rather than particulary where it comes out and returns to the tank, but I'm not directly familiar with this particular filter. I believe in the past we've had any number of beginners report having a struggle with this filter and I'm sure that if the water flow found a way to "cheat" and get back to the tank without being forced to flow against the media, it would make matters even worse.

In a normal fishless cycle you should be seeing a better response from the ammonia oxidizing bacteria by now. For you to be 6 weeks into fishless cycling and for it to take a full week for the filter to drop 4ppm of ammonia down to your tap baseline of 1ppm is pretty poor performance. So something seems to be wrong.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Actually, on that style filter, the wrong flow path ends up overflowing around the intake, WD. If the flow is coming out of the other side of the filter, over the little lip area, it is flowing through the cartridge. Unfortunately I have some of these because they come in small tank kits from Walmart and Petsmart. I am just too cheap to replace something that I can get to work for me.

 

[MDG]

thanks WD and OM. I'm was worried about that too, its really hard to know how the water really travels up through the filter. i would think that majority of it would have to be coming in contact with the media though...

 

[waterdrop]

I know what you mean! My son and I have been preparing a Q-Tank with a little AC Mini/20 and I find myself wondering how much water gets by the media around the edges in the AC. We're getting it all ready prior to giving it the patented "oldman treatment" of course.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[MDG]

so, im pretty much still at the same situation. my ammonia takes a week to get down to 0, but now im not showing any nitrites, and my nitrates are at 2. ?? how can that be? i even am using a better test kit (before i was just using a test strip). both tests show the same. where could the ammonia be going if i hardly have any nitrites or nitrates?

and this is also weird: yesterday i added some more gravel and fake plants. when i started the cycle i just had enough gravel to cover the bottom so i wanted to get some more stuff in there and finally got around to it. i rinsed it all off in warm tap water as usual, but after i put it all in, i have a rather thick layer of foam at the top. it looks like a bubble bath. ive never heard of this happening before.

 

[waterdrop]

Did you check that your ammonia doesn't foam by itself? When you shake it you should only see bubbles for 2 to 3 seconds as if you had shaken water. If it creates a foam that doesn't go away for a while then there might be soap in the ammonia mixture, a common thing in the mop and broom store sections.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[MDG]

I don't think it's that, this ammonia is the same kind i've been using the whole time, and it has never foamed. And i noticed all the foam maybe 30 minutes after i added the new gravel and plants.

 

[waterdrop]

You may just be overly concerned. There are times when the proteins in tanks will cause a bit of foam at surface and it can be a passing thing that is of no consequence. I'd just keep an eye on it to see if it continues. New tanks have various funny stuff happen to them that doesn't matter.

~~waterdrop~~