Fishless Cycle With Media Seed

[karin]

Morning. I'm cycling a 60 Gallon Tank with an Eheim 2215 filter. Any comments about Ph below (See day 21-23)? Should I increase it more? With baking soda or a water change? When are Nitrates too high in a fishless cycle? Does it look like the media seed has altered anything?

Tap Water: Ph 8.2 A 0 Nitrite 0

2/15/2010 Start of Cycle 86 Degrees F Covered tank, no plants

Day 1- A 4ppm
Day 3- Added mature media to Filter – Handful of ceramic balls and a course sponge from an Aquaclear 50 plus some filter sludge.
Day 4- am A 4
Day 5- am A 4
Day 6 - am A 4 ( around here, the filter hose bent and shutdown flow through filter - Ouch)
Day 7 - am A 4
Day 8- am A 4
Day 9- am A 4
Day 10- am A 4 (filter working again. Probably killed all the good bacteria.*&&^%$#@@$%)
Day 11- am A 4
Day 12 am A 4
Day 13 am A 2 (Added more mature media to filter and 2 stockings with mature gravel)
Day 14 am A 1.5
pm A 1 Ni 2
Day 15 am A 0.25 Ni 2-5 N3 10-20 Ph 7.4 (Added 11 ml Ammonia to 4-5 ppm)
Day 16 am A 2
pm A 1
Day 17 am A 0 Ni 2-5 Ph 7.6 (11 ml Ammonia)
pm A 1
Day 18 am A 0 Ni 2-5 N3 40 Ph 7.5 (11 ml ammonia)
pm A 1
Day 19 am A 0 Ni 2-5 (Added 11ml)
Day 20 am A 1 Ni 2-5 Ph 7.5
Day 21 am A 0 Ni 2 (Added 11 ml)
pm A .5
Day 22 am A 0 Ni 2 N3 40-80? Ph. 6.6 (Added 11 ml plus 1 tbl Baking soda)
pm A .25
Day 23 am A 0 Ni 0.25 N3 10 Ph. 7.5 (Add 11 ml)


Thanks everyone for looking

 

[waterdrop]

If that nitrite spike (of sorts.. not very definate) turns out to have been the main one and is now coming down (that latest .25 NO2 reading) then that might indicate that the MM seeding has greatly helped your N-Bac population, more so than your A-Bac population. If an MM seeing "takes" for either bacterial species its a win.

Looks to me like your splash of bicarb has controlled the pH up fairly nicely and since your NO3 looks to be low, I'd ride with it for a while and wait for the next pH plunge before thinking about doing a typical 90% gravel-clean-water-change flush with ammonia recharge. We typically look for NO3 up at maybe 160ppm or more before we think about water changing rather than just letting it be. Unfortunately, NO3 test results can be all over the place because of the difficulties in shaking the bottles (bottle 2 gets sediments that sometimes need to be whacked loose before starting the shaking) or because the test itself can get thrown off by high NO2 or NO3 or even possibly by plant fertilizers when people are using those.

~~waterdrop~~