Fishless Cycle

[Wordy]

My tank has been up since New Years Eve and last Friday I got an API Master Test Kit, the results on Friday were:

PH 7.6
Amonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 1. ppm
Nitrate 40 ppm

I've tested the water Sunday after a 25% water change and the results were pretty much the same. I'm doing a 30% water change tonight and test again. The product I'm using to mature the filter is Interpet Filter Start and thats is getting added every other day. I've read a couple of suggestions regarding turning the heater up to about 30c and adding some mature filter media from another tank.

Regarding adding mature filter media, my other tank is a BiOrb so the filter sponges is a circle shape, would I be able to scrape some of the gunk of the filter and add it to the newe filter or squeeze the water out of the old one onto thew new one?

Would anyone else have any suggestions, or do you think I'm been a little impatient and it's only been just under three weeks?

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

right as your adding the filter maturer we've not got a real test of how much ammonia your filter can process, i'd advise you to buy a bottle of pure ammonia, dose the tank up to 5ppm of ammonia and monitor the ammonia and nitrite levels over the next 24 hrs. report back the results to us and this will give us a much clearer picture of where you are.

What you can do is buy a second sponge for the bi-orb, cut off one third of the old sponge and replace it with one third of the enw sponge. then just cram the old sponge into the new tanks filter any which way you can, if that's not possible then just dump it in the tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Excellent bit there from MW on how to move some "mature media" over from your existing biorb to the new filter, I agree with all that. Mature media is one of the most reliable ways to potentially take a little time off the cycling process.

Wordy, I think I'm remembering (without looking..) that you've had a few other threads and have been reading here in the beginners section? Its great that you've now obtained a good liquid based test kit, can't really do much until you know what's going on in the water! But, depending on how you define it, I guess you decided not to persue what -we'd- call a "fishless cycle" in the beginner's section here?

Instead you've got an experiement going for us where we might see if "Interpet Filter Start" can do anything. This might be interesting to us but in the end it most likely will not turn out to be "fishless cycling" for you if it fails. One of the reason's many people come back to help in the beginner's section is because so many of them experienced the failure of "bottled bacteria" products that claim to have filter bacteria in them or to magically make the month-long process of growing the bacteria somehow go away. Now it could be that the Interpet stuff has ammonia (or something that breaks down to ammonia) in it and if that's the case then its sort of like putting fish food or shrimp/prawns in your new tank -- it results in some unknown amount of ammonia present for the first species (the "A-Bacs") to be encouraged by.

What MW is saying is that by chucking the Interpet procedure and switching over to our normal fishless procedure here on the forum (as detailed in the Add&Wait section of RDD's pinned fishless cycling article, our working document) you'll have a more controlled situation where you can report a trend of ammonia and nitrite measurements and get a much better idea of what progress your 2 bacteria species have made towards building their elaborate biofilm structures in the biomedia of your filter!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

there was a thread from BTT the other day saying he'd heard some stuff about this filter maturer and that he suspected it might work.

so i'm interested to see what the results are actually like.

while your snapshot is a valid part of the picture thats all it is, like a small square of a collage, we need some more info and more pictures to make sens of exactly what's going on.

we don't know how much (if any) ammonia the filter maturer is adding each day so we can't measure how well it's being processed or anything like that and therefore we can't measure the growth or capabilities of the bacteria colony that you have going. This is why I'd suggest adding some ammonia because then it becomes controlled and measurable, we then know exactly how much went in and we'll know shortly afterwards what the capabilities of the bacteria are processing wise. Just from results at 12 and 24hrs after adding the ammonia we'll be able to make a much better diagnosis of the situation and advise you how to proceed safely from there. I know that the safety of your fish is no1 concern so that's definately the route to take to confirm things.

If the filter maturer has worked then great, we can progress with qualifying those results and you can start to think seriously about stocking the tank.

If it hasn't worked then you've saved your fish and yourself a lot of work by checking it against pure ammonia.

 

[Wordy]

I'm happy to do the amonia fishless cycle, I've been and bought some amonia and a medicine dropper, and am about to add it but have one question.

As it stands there is no amonia in my tank, but a large amount of nitrite & nitrate. Does that not indicate that the amonia in my cycle has already converted to Nitrite and just needs be converted by bacteria into Nitrate, or does it just mean I've got some Nitrite & Nitrate in there?

Thanks for bearing with me

 

[waterdrop]

Doesn't really matter because the important thing is to "measure" how big your colonies are by "timing the drop" as we like to say. I'd do a large 90% water change (with conditioner of course so your existing bacteria won't be endangered) and then dose up the ammonia to 4 or 5ppm and note the date and time in your log.

Over the next few days you'll want to be seeing where you are, closer to 24 hours to drop ammonia and any nitrite produced to zero ppm or closer to 12 hours to accomplish that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes the prescense of nitrite and nitrate is indeed a good sign that this maturer is working. adding the ammonia just gives us the opportunity to accurately measure how good the processing capabilities of your bacteria now are. at this point all the ammonia is for is to test how well the filter maturer has worked so as above, water change, top up with ammonia then test as often as is practicle for you and record the results, post them up here and we'll help you decipher them and the next step.

make sure you record the time that you toppped up and the time of each test.

 

[Wordy]

Thanks for your help, a 90% water change and amonia dosing it is

How often do I add Amonia, or is that dependant on the results of the water change and test?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup, just give us your test results at 12 and 24 hrs and we'll tell you what to do from there.

 

[Wordy]

I've done the 90% water change, added the amonia and tested the water about 1/2 an hour afterwards and another this morning, I'm not going to be able to do one at 12 hours, but will do one at 18 and 24 hours.

23:00
PH 7.6
Amonia 4-8ppm
Nitrite 0.25ppm
Nitrate 20ppm

06:30
PH 7.6
Amonia 4-8ppm The colour was a bit lighter than last night but was still inbetween the 4-8ppm colours
Nitrite 1.0ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

I'll post the 24 hour results later.

Thanks

 

[waterdrop]

OK, good, glad you have switched your fishless cycle over to ammonia! And you're confident the ammonia is the right type? Very clear and does not foam when shaken, just some bubbles like plain water would do, right? And no dyes or fragrances in it?

When judging the color that's between 4ppm and 8ppm, its important that you not be dosing up at 8ppm. Even better to err down at 4ppm rather than mistakenly being at 8ppm. At 8ppm there is another species of bacteria that can be selected for and will slow down our overall process. Its more important that we get it a shade over 4ppm (to 5ppm) at the -end- of fishless cycling, not so important at the beginning at all.

Your pH looks good. A value of 7.6 is pretty close to the optimal 8.0 to 8.4 range and you can just keep an eye on those results to be sure it doesn't start to drop too much as some point. Fishless cycling will push pH downward but the downward direction will be resisted by the "buffering" of your water and that's not something you've measured (and don't need to unless we see a problem later.)

Good posting format there, just a couple minor suggestions:
Just above the results postings I'd always repeat something like...
Fishless Cycle: XXXL/XXG tank - Day XX (or roughly Day XX)
Secondly, rather than telling us times of day, I'd just say...
Results after recharge to 4ppm or...
Results XX hours after ammonia recharge.

That way you are making it easiest for the various members to judge where you are without them having to do any little calculations in their head and thus you may get more people bothering to comment.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Wordy]

It was pretty difficult to tell what the ppm of the amonia was, it was definately above 4ppm. My tank is a 110 Ltr tank, I'd used the calculator on here and it works out at just over 5 ml of amonia. I've got a 10ml bottle so I filled it half full and emptied that into the water straight after the water change.

The amonia only lists amonia in the contents, and 9.52( I think it was) and after being shaken vigorously there was only 1 clear air bubble on the surface.

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

is the tank 110 litres before you've added in substrate, decor ect? cos they normally come up a bit short of the manufacturers given size.

if it looks closer to 8 than to 4 then do a water change and bring it down, it's better for it to be too low than too high.

 

[Wordy]

Yes thats the size before substrate, I calculated the amonia for 100 litres to allow for the substrate, bogwood & plants. to be honest there was only about 1/2ml difference between the two.

I'll be testing it when I get home then do a water change if neccessary.

Thanks

 

[Wordy]

Fishless Cycle "Add and Wait" Method: 110L Tank - Day 1
Results 24 hours after 5ml amonia added to tank.

PH 7.6
Amonia 4.0ppm
Nitrite 5ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

So the Amonia has come down a bit, from between 0.4-0.8 to exactly 0.4ppm, and the nitrite has spiked a fair bit aswell.

Thanks