Fishless Cycling

[Thommo]

Hi all,

Currently going through a fishless cycle which I actually completed at 3ppm Ammonia (which I didn't realise) and have now upped it to 5ppm. When I was doing 3ppm I had completed the cycle and had an extra week of ammonia being processed in 12 hours as recommended. Was fully cycled in 2.5 weeks at 3ppm.

Anyway since I've upped it to 5ppm I have gone through the extra nitrites and nitrates as expected but I am now getting nitrites processing in 12 hours but not Ammonia. I go from 5ppm and 12 hours later anywhere from 1-3ppm.

A quick back ground. Have been cycling since sometime in November (not quite sure) with 3ppm until the start of January. I then realised that should have been 5ppm and have been doing it since. I have plants in the tank which are now processing most of my nitrates which are now currently 0.

NitrItes were off the scale 2 days ago, Ammonia was processing in 12 hours. I then think the Wife put 4.5mm of Air into the tank instead of Ammonia She did seriously.

The next day Ammonia and nitrItes were both 0 I was so excited until the next day when I had ammonia but no nitrItes.

I have also had a couple of PH crashes during this time as my KH is only 3-4 out of the tap and I can only do water changes every 2 weeks due to my job(work away). One was rectified with a water change. The other only happened today so I have got the wife to put in some Bicarb Soda.

I have been cycling this long as I'm getting the fish from a fella at work but have to wait until it is convenient for the both of us to get them.

Thoughts, Ideas why the Ammonia is not processing in 12 hours but the NitrItes are. Did some Bac die because they missed a night?

Current Stats before KH was upped (not sure what it is at the moment)

Am = 2
Ni = 0
Na = 0
Ph = 6 ... if that
Gh = 8
Kh = 2

CHEERS

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Thommo,

I think pH crashes have more of an effect on ammonia processing. You're showing that you're crashed in those posted stats of course. The addition of bicarb (baking soda) will be much more effective done on the backside of a 90% water change. Doing a 90% water change and recharging both baking soda and ammonia will usually get your type of situation proceeding again. Your goal should be to get your KH significantly above 4, so don't be shy with the bicarb, it will all go out the drain at the big water change.

Its unlikely you've killed any bacteria, they're probably just paused waiting for you to hit the Play button.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Thommo]

Hi Thommo,

I think pH crashes have more of an effect on ammonia processing. You're showing that you're crashed in those posted stats of course. The addition of bicarb (baking soda) will be much more effective done on the backside of a 90% water change. Doing a 90% water change and recharging both baking soda and ammonia will usually get your type of situation proceeding again. Your goal should be to get your KH significantly above 4, so don't be shy with the bicarb, it will all go out the drain at the big water change.

Its unlikely you've killed any bacteria, they're probably just paused waiting for you to hit the Play button.

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks waterdrop,

I'll get the wife to up it a bit more. I only got her to bump it up back to 4 KH. Unfortunatly I'm unable to do a waterchange due to me being at work for another week .

 

[Miss Wiggle]

can you get the missus to do a water change for you?\

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, MW slings heavy buckets with the best of um... .. actually I can appreciate that one might have a reluctance to ask too much of a spouse for a particular hobby thing, it just depends on their interest...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup i have knackered myself hauling buckets of water around on many occasions.

can also understand the reluctance to ask, but it doesn't do any harm for us to aks you if you can ask her!

 

[Thommo]

yup i have knackered myself hauling buckets of water around on many occasions.

can also understand the reluctance to ask, but it doesn't do any harm for us to aks you if you can ask her!

The Wife is the best! She loves taking the water readings and has been doing it every day since November for me. Problem is that the tank is a large one(5 ft) and a 50% water change is 140L. Not to bad for me but the wife it might be a bit of a struggle. She unfortunatly has a sore sholder at the moment, only got quaterzone(spelling ) in it the other day. So I think it might be out of the question, but I will ask and see what she thinks.

Thanks guys

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, if there was ever a household that needed a "Python", you are it! Are you familiar with those type things?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Thommo]

Wow, if there was ever a household that needed a "Python", you are it! Are you familiar with those type things?

~~waterdrop~~

Yeh I only finished reading a couple of the pinned articles yesterday. I kept wondering what a python was when people kept talking about them .
I've got a wheelie bin with a pump in it which I siphon into and wheel around the garden and then use it to mix up my water and put it back into the tank. With me away all the time though I think it is definitely a must. Plus it would be a bit easier than lugging 4 buckets of hot water to my bin to get the right temp. I will definitely be looking into it.


CHEERS

 

[Thommo]

quick update to my stats(if anyone cares)

Water temp 29.3

Am = 0
Ph = 7.4
Ni = 5+ - off the scale
Na = 50
Gh = 7
Kh = 5

Looks like the ammonia bac stalled when the PH crashed but has now kicking back into gear. Fingers crossed that the Nitrite bac get a wriggle on.

Might up the Kh abit more. Any thoughts about that?
CHEERS

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I have a large tank and a bad back as well, I just use a hose pipe to do water changes. stick one end of the hose in the tank and the other out of the door/window/down the sink... whatever's easiest for the layout of your house really. get the siphon going down the hose pipe then just sit back whiel teh tank drains. then hook the hose up to a tap, dechlor straight into the tank and fill up with the hose. If you're worried about the temp of the water then just run the tap in slowly it'll give the heater a chance to kick in and warm the water up. It may take a little while but it's not labour intensive so she can just sit back and watch telly or whatever while the tank is filling up.

 

[Thommo]

I have a large tank and a bad back as well, I just use a hose pipe to do water changes. stick one end of the hose in the tank and the other out of the door/window/down the sink... whatever's easiest for the layout of your house really. get the siphon going down the hose pipe then just sit back whiel teh tank drains. then hook the hose up to a tap, dechlor straight into the tank and fill up with the hose. If you're worried about the temp of the water then just run the tap in slowly it'll give the heater a chance to kick in and warm the water up. It may take a little while but it's not labour intensive so she can just sit back and watch telly or whatever while the tank is filling up.

Thanks MW,

Talking to the wife last nigh and I think that I will be doing the same as you in the future. It sound a lot easier than lugging buckets around. Getting hose is no problems for me but I was wondering how do most people join their hoses to their mixer taps?

CHEERS

Thommo

 

[Miss Wiggle]

go to any garden centre or diy shop and you'll find a connector for it, I find them a bit pants though tbh.

my other half just installed a garden tap under our sink and we connect the hose to that. handy for cleaning the cars as well.

you will still need to use a gravel vac to clean the substrate when you've got fish in but you can usually just do this with 1 bucket of water so you've not got loads to lug around.

 

[Thommo]

go to any garden centre or diy shop and you'll find a connector for it, I find them a bit pants though tbh.

my other half just installed a garden tap under our sink and we connect the hose to that. handy for cleaning the cars as well.

you will still need to use a gravel vac to clean the substrate when you've got fish in but you can usually just do this with 1 bucket of water so you've not got loads to lug around.

Thanks MW,

I just remembered that our tap in the kitchen which is the closest is a fancy mixing tap that extendsout and all that, and dosesn't have a standard spout. I guess putting a tap underneath the sink is a great idea. Not too hard to do so I'll check that out when I get home.

Quick update for anyone who is interested. Spoke to the wife lastnight and the tank temp was 31.7 . That is because it has been over 40 C for the last 3-4 days the other day was 45.7(highest ever recorded) and it was 31 C inside with the AC on so that would explain the 31.7 for the tank.

29/1/09

Ph = 7.4
Am = 0
Ni = 4
Na = 15
Gh = 8
Kh = 7

Not too much longer I hope.

CHEERS
Thommo

 

[waterdrop]

Sounds like MW's "tap under the sink" might work out for you, a pretty good idea and can see that that could be practical in a number of ways. I'll just mention, though, in case it helps in some other way that the "difficult mixing tap" is exactly what I thought Python was potentially good for. They make a whole bunch of adaptors that basically are little brass parts with a thread on one side that fits a given brand and model of tap and has a standard hosepipe thread on the other side.

In my case I had a really odd modern bathroom mixing tap and even when I called Python on the phone they said they didn't have an adapter for it but I became suspicious that perhaps my threads weren't all that strange after all and so I took a chance and bought one of the adapters I though it might be after some study. It turned out to fit perfectly and so with virtually no work I now have this easy system where I unscrew the little screen/aerator from the tap spout, screw on the little brass adapter and then can attach a super-long hose (I bought one of their long clear-tubing ones. It is clean, flexible and not too heavy and attaches to an assortment of gravel cleaner cylinders on the other end.) An unexpeted benefit of my modern faucet was that it has a single lever that stays in the temperature position last selected even when turned off (does that make sense, lol?), so I can repeatedly move my hand from a cup of current tank water to match it against faucet temperature positions. Then when I've matched the right position I just turn it off, connect up the adapter and hose and lift the single lever to slowly increase tap water force, knowing the correct temperature position is still in place. This wastes no water re-matching temps.

Now the whole topic of whether you need any warm water to begin with and whether your hot water heater leaves the water clear of trace metals is a whole extra topic, but in my case the hot water heater is glass lined and I like to do large percentage water changes on a relatively small tank (28g) so this is perfect for my situation compared to huge tanks getting small percentage changes or if I had concern about lots of metal in my hot water.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw this out since you sound like a practical guy and will probably think over all alternatives. You might have a faucet like mine in some bathroom that's farther away but not too far. Doing the whole operation where there is a bathtub can also be handy if you have to "safety-drain" to watch for small fish who might get sucked up and also for setting a bucket of tank water for filter cleaning, and the filter, etc.

~~waterdrop~~