Fishless Cycle In 35L Tank

[cybergibbons]

Checked nitrates this evening - pretty high at 80ppm but the pH seems fine for now.

 

[waterdrop]

 

[cybergibbons]

One of the plants is dying on the side facing away from the light, so I've upped the number of hours it is on and will order another light. No signs of algae but I'll keep a close eye on it.

Ammonia is now clearing in 24 hours, nitrites are still off the scale. Tested for nitrates, and found they were down at 5ppm! I'm guessing the plants have had a big effect on these.

 

[waterdrop]

Forget if you have other threads about your plants but what are you doing for them? A brand new tank with nothing but tap water and ammonia can kill plants pretty quickly. Sorry if you already doing other things and I've just forgotten the thread...

 

[cybergibbons]

Forget if you have other threads about your plants but what are you doing for them? A brand new tank with nothing but tap water and ammonia can kill plants pretty quickly. Sorry if you already doing other things and I've just forgotten the thread...

No, no other thread yet! We bought three random plants the other day on a bit of an impulse buy. After getting back, and researching them, they are pretty much the opposite of what we want in terms of light requirements, pH, and hardness. I'm just working out the plants that will work and was going to post later!

I've got TPN+ and Easy Carbo on order but won't he here until next week. I think it may be a lack of light - a single 11W on 35l probably fits into the low light category...

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, it won't be light that's the problem if they are low-light plants as you are doing fine on low light (your 11 watts in 9 us gallons will put you just over a watt per gallon (which is the standard for T12 but you've probably got an even smaller diameter bulb of some sort, which will put you still a little bit higher))... but what you're saying is that they might be plants that need high light in which case you'll be unlikely to save them.

If they are low-light plants then its more likely the lack of those two things you got coming in the next week.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[cybergibbons]

I've just put a post in the planted tank section about it. Two of them seem fine, one doesn't. I've now got better plans for the planting after reading up on it a bit more. We are getting another light though.

The ammonia is almost returning to 0 in 12 hours now, the nitrites are still 5ppm+. Dosing ammonia every morning now, so we will see how it goes.

 

[cybergibbons]

I was getting concerned with the amount of dead plant matter in the tank so had a bit of a clean up and replaced the water I removed.

Last week I put a piece of a pair of tights over the filter so I wouldn't have to disturb the sponge if I needed to clean it - I'm very glad I did!

Still waiting on the nitrite dropping, hopefully soon.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Hi Cybergibbons. I was having the same problem with dying plants and swopped them all out for plastic ones in the end. Still my tank will be great when my bacs wake up again

 

[cybergibbons]

Hi Cybergibbons. I was having the same problem with dying plants and swopped them all out for plastic ones in the end. Still my tank will be great when my bacs wake up again

I had the same issue as you a couple of weeks ago where fiddling around in the tank appeared to halt progress for 24 hours - they quickly came back!

We've got a better plan for which plants to use now, and more lights and ferts on the way.

 

[cybergibbons]

For the first time today, I noticed that the nitrites have come down from 5ppm+ to 1ppm. Hopefully not long to go now!

 

[waterdrop]

If the nitrites keep dropping down for 3 days then you can declare yourself to be in the 3rd phase of fishless cycling and make the appropriate changes. WD

 

[cybergibbons]

Unfortunately I think I misread the result from the nitrite test yesterday.

Today I took 1ml of aquarium sample and mixed it with 4ml of (nitrite free) tap water and performed the test. I got a reading of about 2ppm - suggesting that the nitrite level is still about 10ppm.

Nitrates are still reading about 5ppm.

Ammonia is still clearing.

I'm guessing that the nitrite bacteria are working, just a bit slowly at the moment. The nitrate levels have remained low due to the plants consuming it.

Or worst case, the ammonia and nitrite bacteria are doing nothing, and it's just the plants consuming the ammonia...

 

[waterdrop]

The N-Bacs (nitrite processing bacteria) can appear to be slower growing than the A-Bacs but its mostly because they have a lot more material to process. For each 1ppm of ammonia, the A-Bacs produce about 2.7ppm of nitrite(NO2) and that goes on to be about 3.6ppm of nitrate(NO3) after the N-Bacs process it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[cybergibbons]

Nitrites are almost 0 within 24 hours now. I'm not testing ammonia at 12 hour intervals yet, I'll get onto that a couple of days after the nitrites are 0 in 24 hours.

Had to remove one of the plants as it was too far gone. The Echinodorus are doing well though - they seem to be able to grow a massive leaf in 24 hours.