Fishless Cycle

[Miss Wiggle]

Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy..... i want it flashing really but i don't know the code to do it

 

[Wordy]

So thats a 70% water change and my PH is back up to 7.6. Happy days

Now just gotta wait for the cycle to finish and I'm off to the lfs.

And I didn't panic once

 

[Wordy]

Morning

Fishless Cycle: 110L Tank - Day 8
Results 12 hours after a 70% water change and 5ml amonia added to tank.

PH 6.8
Amonia 0.50ppm
Nitrite 1ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

PH is down again, also Amonia and Nitrite are higher than they were this time yesterday

 

[Miss Wiggle]

OK Have you got a KH Test kit?

 

[Wordy]

No, what does it test for?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

have a read of the bit about pH and KH in here by Rabbut, you'll have to scroll through a bit it's just a few posts from the end.

 

[Wordy]

Evening all.

I did my water test this evening as per usual and my PH has returned to normal, it must just drop when there's a large amount of amonia there.

Fishless Cycle: 110L Tank - Day 8
Results 24 hours after a 70% water change and 5ml amonia added to tank.

PH 7.6
Amonia 0ppm
Nitrite 1ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

Nitrite still hasn't dropped any since this morning, but we'll see what it's like tomorrow.

I've one question....but please don't take this as me getting impatient.

Out of 6 Cardinal tetras I started with in my baby biorb I'm now down to 2, another two died this week, 1 injured itself very badly by panicing during a water change on Sunday and yesterday one managed to get itself stuck under some of the ceramic media and by the time I had found him he must've drown. I'm getting pretty sick of my fish dying due to problems with the biorb and was wondering as my tank is getting towards the end of it's cycle would it be worth risking putting them in my main tank if the nitrite reading is back down to about 0.50ppm or risk leaving them in the biorb?

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

there's an interesting topic in the scientific forum called 'when is a cycle finished' it may help you to make up your mind.

 

[Wordy]

It is interesting and pretty baffling I'm afraid

From what I can gather sometimes the cycle can stick at 0.50ppm nitrites for a few weeks and the bioload placed upon the tank will be less than created than the 5ppm Amonia added daily during a cycle anyway. So if you're cycle is nearly there it may be safe to start stocking your tank? Or am I way off?

Thanks for bearing with me

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup that's it in a nutshell

the load we give of 5ppm is used to give a good 'safety net' because it's more than a full load of fish is likely to produce so you shouldn't find yourself short of bacteria when you do add fish.

now two neons are not gonna produce anything like 5ppm of ammonia a day in a 110litre tank, I doubt they'd even produce 1ppm so I think it's fairly safe to assume that you wouldn't risk a mini cycle if you moved them over now, however what would happen is that you'd loose a lot of bacteria that you'd built up and then you'd have to build up your stocking very slowly and carefully from there to avoid a mini cycle when you do add fish.

what i'd suggest you do is move over the neons and the same day buy some more fish and pop those in as well, don't go as high as a full fish load stock it to around 0.5" per gallon at the absolute most and it should be fine.

the problem is that it does involve a fair amount of guesswork as to how much ammonia the fish would produce and how much you can process so there is still some risk, but if you feel the remaining neons would be better off in the new tank then that's what I'd do.

 

[Wordy]

Thanks for that MW.

You've just answered another question I was going to ask, would it be better to add more fish aswell to stop the bacteria I've built up dying off. I think what I'll do is leave it to the weekend, add another 5ppm amonia tonight then leave it and add a total of 10 Cardinals on Saturday(The amount of Cardinals I want in there) then over the next month or so add a couple of fish a week, until I reach the stock level I want to achieve.

Does that sound like a sensible plan?

Here are this mornings results aswell

Fishless Cycle: 110L Tank - Day 9
Results 12 hours after 5ml amonia added to tank.

PH 6.8
Amonia 0ppm
Nitrite 1ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

Looks like my PH drops while there's a large amount of amonia being processed then goes back to the normal level.

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup that sounds sensible to me, remember though be vigilant with water testing straight after adding fish at the weekend, you may see some ammonia or nitrite and if you do you'll need to do water changes to get rid of it. i don't think you will but it's wise to prepare for the worst.

once the first lot have been in a few weeks post back here with your stats and we'll let you know if it's sensible to add any more fish.

 

[Wordy]

Will do. Thanks again for your help

 

[waterdrop]

This way you will get experience handling both a fishless and a fish-in cycle. I predict that with it still showing 1ppm of nitrite after 12 hours right now that it will still have quite a way to go on the cycle, necessitating significant water changing, especially for sensitive fish like cardinals, unfortunately.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

This way you will get experience handling both a fishless and a fish-in cycle. I predict that with it still showing 1ppm of nitrite after 12 hours right now that it will still have quite a way to go on the cycle, necessitating significant water changing, especially for sensitive fish like cardinals, unfortunately.

~~waterdrop~~

see i'm not convinced there would be any fish-in cycle, it's only stocking to around 0.3" per gal so if we assumed 1" per gal gave us 5ppm (although we know it's likely to be a lot less than this in reality) then one third stock would only be producing 1.6ppm of ammonia a day. at this point i reckon the bacteria could process that.

it's definately guess work though so your guess is as good as mine!

perhaps with 6 cardinals (total) it'd be a bit safer.