Fishless Cycle

[LardyDad]

Never done a fishless cycle before because i had never heard of it until stumbling across this forum, which is very good by the way. The advice from the "well known" pet shop were i bought the tank was fill and wait a few days then stock slowly with fish.
Anyway I never took their advice and went with yours instead much to the dismay of the kids as they reckon it's taking ages and I just like testing the water!!!!

To cut a long story short I filled the 64 ltr tank and tested ph which was 7.0. Then added ammonia to raise the level to 4 ppm. Added some plants and decoration day later with no real effect to the testing. The plants seem to be establishing themselves and look healthy.

I have been doing this now for 10 days and the ammonia has now dropped to 0 ppm but the nitrite and nitrate levels have raised to 5 and the ph has risen to 7.5.

I have not done any water changes yet, do i need to do this yet or do I have to add more ammonia to cycle that again?

I have read that the water changes will lower the PH, nitrate and nitrite levels, is that correct?

To keep the kids happy I have invented a new tropical fish species, the invisible amazonian tetra and the faster than light zebra danio. They then tried to catch me out with how did the fish man catch them then but they didn't know about his special glasses did they!!!!!!

P.S. my tank is not full of algae and the water is still very clear, am I doing something wrong.

 

[OldMan47]

You are doing fine. If the ammonia has dropped to zero, it is time to dose it back up. You are trying to keep your new bacterial colony growing and improving and they need the ammonia to grow. Soon the ammonia will be dropping to zero in less than a day but the most you ever need to give them fresh ammonia is once a day.
I like the story of the invisible fish. Is that what makes the plants move in the water too?

 

[doresy]

Hi, if you ammonia drops to zero in a day and nitrite is up to 5ppm then all systems are going well.

If you are gen'ed up on the fishless cycle then you realise that as the ammonia is processed during the day it is being changed into nitrite so that level will rise as the ammonia level drops. The nitrite processing bacteria taked much longer to develop so the nitrite level will go very high (known as a spike)
Continue to add ammonia as the level approaches zero and eventually the nitrite will start to drop too. Don't worry about water changes unless your PH level drops to near 6.0 (stalling the cycle) caused sometimes by the addition of bogwood

 

[OldMan47]

Thanks for chiming in Doresy. It has been a while since I came across one of your posts. Its good to hear from you again.

 

[doresy]

Thanks for chiming in Doresy. It has been a while since I came across one of your posts. Its good to hear from you again.

Oh, I pop in from time to time Been a bit busy, what with Daughters getting married, other's making me a Grandpa for the first time, getting a new (and demanding) job and then there's the holiday. Anyway, back on course now with a new tank a coming