Fishless Cycling....

[Don155]

By geo7x Jul 26 2006, 07:07 AM

Sorry if I missed something but why would you want to change the water? There's not much point, and at the end of the cycle youre going to be doing a massive water change of 75-90% so it will be fine for the fish. And also regarding the point made in the first post, just emptying it out and refilling it will do nothing, as DON155 said, practically all the beneficial bacteria is in the filter and the substrate, not the water. Whatever you do, dont give up, you will just have to go through it all again, and who's to say that you'll have better luck next time? Just wait it out, the nitrite spike will seem like its there forever, but it will go down, almost overnight. The brown stuff on the airstone etc is brown algae, ive got tons of the stuff in my cycling tank, dont worry about it, you can give it a good clean when the cycle's done. Maybe make dure the airstone's on to give some water movement which might help the smell or something i dont know, might want another opinion on that.

The point is, I've been advised that you should do a water change during a fishless cycle when your test readings seem to have frozen with the same readings for an extended amount of time. This state of "frozen" readings could be because pollution levels in the water have reached such a high level that your test kit is not giving accurate readings anymore.

Changing the water at least dilutes the readings back to reasonable levels so that you can accurately ascertain what is going on in the tank. You can add ammonia and watch what happens to Nitrites and Nitrates 24 - 48 hrs later. Also doing the water change does not hurt the cycle at all, because you are not changing the levels of bacteria in the tank. You simply change the water, add the appropriate amount of ammonia and watch what happens.

In short, changing the water does not reset the cycle, it only resets the test readings. Also it doesn't inhibit anything that's happening in the tank so there's no point in NOT doing it if your cycle seems to be frozen. PLEASE remember to dechlorinate the replacement water though, forgetting to dechlorinate WILL inhibit the cycle!!

Having algae is actually a good sign, as it indicates the presence of Nitrates which in turn indicates you do have the proper bacteria in there. But it doesn't by itself indicate whether you have sufficient levels of those bacteria.


HTH

-Don T

 

[Majjie]

I agree with Don - changing the water (taking the precautions he listed) can't do any harm - except possibly to your arms, with the extra water changes

I also think it's possible that very high nitrite levels are inhibiting to the ammonia eating bacteria. I don't have any proof of this - but there are lots of biochemical reactions in living things that are affected by feedback inhibition.

Hang in there

 

[Don155]

Also, don't hesitate to try to re-seed the tank with more bacteria from a mature tank if you think its taking too long. You're not limited to that one initial seeding, you can re-seed the bacteria at any time throughout the cycle to help speed the process. Of course that can be easier said than done if you don't have ready access to a mature tank or other reliable bacteria source.

 

[zodiac]

I must agree with don i seemed to be stuck when cycling my 20 g tank dropping 5ppm to 0 amonia in 12 hours for over two weeks and thought maybe it had cycled and id missed the nitrite spike so i changed about 80% of the water in the hope i may be able to get some fish, after the water change i tested again just to make sure the water was right and to my suprise i had nitrite through the roof i continued adding amonia for another week or more and still no nitrates but nitrites sky high so i did another water change and within about 24 hours nitrites were 0 and nitrates were 30-40ish, so another water change and at last FISH that was three weeks ago and my water stats are still perfect fish all happy and so am i i dont know what part the water changes played if any but they didnt hurt and gave me something to do while waiting

 

[robyngunston]

By geo7x Jul 26 2006, 07:07 AM

Sorry if I missed something but why would you want to change the water? There's not much point, and at the end of the cycle youre going to be doing a massive water change of 75-90% so it will be fine for the fish. And also regarding the point made in the first post, just emptying it out and refilling it will do nothing, as DON155 said, practically all the beneficial bacteria is in the filter and the substrate, not the water. Whatever you do, dont give up, you will just have to go through it all again, and who's to say that you'll have better luck next time? Just wait it out, the nitrite spike will seem like its there forever, but it will go down, almost overnight. The brown stuff on the airstone etc is brown algae, ive got tons of the stuff in my cycling tank, dont worry about it, you can give it a good clean when the cycle's done. Maybe make dure the airstone's on to give some water movement which might help the smell or something i dont know, might want another opinion on that.

The point is, I've been advised that you should do a water change during a fishless cycle when your test readings seem to have frozen with the same readings for an extended amount of time. This state of "frozen" readings could be because pollution levels in the water have reached such a high level that your test kit is not giving accurate readings anymore.

Changing the water at least dilutes the readings back to reasonable levels so that you can accurately ascertain what is going on in the tank. You can add ammonia and watch what happens to Nitrites and Nitrates 24 - 48 hrs later. Also doing the water change does not hurt the cycle at all, because you are not changing the levels of bacteria in the tank. You simply change the water, add the appropriate amount of ammonia and watch what happens.

In short, changing the water does not reset the cycle, it only resets the test readings. Also it doesn't inhibit anything that's happening in the tank so there's no point in NOT doing it if your cycle seems to be frozen. PLEASE remember to dechlorinate the replacement water though, forgetting to dechlorinate WILL inhibit the cycle!!

Having algae is actually a good sign, as it indicates the presence of Nitrates which in turn indicates you do have the proper bacteria in there. But it doesn't by itself indicate whether you have sufficient levels of those bacteria.


HTH

-Don T

Thanks Don!
I shall try that tonight and see what happens