Fishywishie Is A Noob - A Guide How Not To Cycle A Tank

[FishyWishie]

I was doing 5 PPM till i hit double 0 at 24 hours then WD recommended to drop to 3 PPM then when that could double 0 @ 12 hours move out to 4 PPM and then 5 PPM - This was me at the moving out to 4 PPM stage. So at some point in last 10 days I *think* I've unwittingly upped the dose to the 5 PPM concentration and then been bewildered as cycle appeared to stall/reverse when in actual fact its been the increased ammonia.

I also must at this stage confess that I didn't measure Nitrates as often as chart may have suggested

Tank pic is in OP btw its not the best pic I'll try and get some smaller more zoomed in ones tommorow.

 

[PDSimon]

Looking good

I reckon you should dose 4ppm, see where your at and then decide what to stock? Unless you want to stock fully?

 

[FishyWishie]

I was thinking see what it does with the right ammount of ammonia in 24 hours (10:15PM) tommorow and just double check its back to where it was ( kinda proving the screwup was what I think it was) Maybe run it couple of days make sure theres no hiccups then go order in some of the fish if results go my way.

The amazon swords are apparently dinky versions so ive moved them to the front 2 at nose of u-boat 3 towards the rear and added additional hygrophilia difformis and combomba at the back alongside the other things the names of which i've forgotten

Pics dont really do it justice as there a lot more varieties in there than you can see in the pic. (bottom left has parvula with hairgrass behind it for example) Dwarf sag in front of the tail. U-boat looks ace in the tank tho not in the pic It's not your cheap ornanment type its £70 resin made with really nice detailing.

The cambomba seems fine now its been trimmed back I'll just have to keep it under control so it doesn't mush again.

 

[PDSimon]

Sounds good to me. Glad you're looking up again

 

[FishyWishie]

Think im going to strip it bare plant wise and reorganise it all to much stuff all along the back wall will reduce the swimming space to much i think ?

 

[PDSimon]

I think the best thing to do is provide cover at the back. For a lot of fish, the more cover they have, the more happy they are to come out at the front where its open.

 

[FishyWishie]

Hmm valid point I'll try and post some more zoomed in pics in a bit so it's easier to see how bad it is

I'm just worried its all mixing kinda together as opposed to dinstinct groups of plants at the rear.

Just checked tank @ 16 hours ammonia showing as 1 (Im willing to bet this is because of the TPN + and is not a real reading ?) Nitrite is about 0.5 - 1 again @ 16 hours. At this point i really don't have a lot of faith my cycle is progressing forward so im not going to stock anything at this time I need time to find out/figure out what it is about my setup thats inhibiting N-bac colony growth. The N-bacs should really be multiplying fairly quickly by now and thats just not happening at all.

 

[PDSimon]

Lol, the other day I hadn't tested ammonia for weeks and I tested it and it was 1ppm, and I absolutely #105### myself and started preparing to do a massive waterchange and then released wait, this is ridiculous, its the TPN+! doh

My water test kit are my rummy nose tetra. When they have red noses, the conditions are ideal I test for nitrates though.

My nitrites were somewhat like yours. I completed the nitrite spike dosing 3ppm but instead of going 3->4->5 I just went straight to 5ppm. I don't think it makes a big difference anyway its just that n-bacs are evil (real scientific fact for you there). The ammonia cycled straight away when I started dosing the 5ppm, but the nitrites still took 24 hours. Then suddenly they did it in about ~14 hours but then stayed like that for weeks. I stocked anyway. Hopefully you'll get a day in the next few days where they suddenly kick into action. Try and keep those conditions optimum and hopefully it will atleast get close.

 

[FishyWishie]

The water changes got the nitrates down to 5 so thats them under control for at least the moment. Nitrite just tested that @ 18 hours and its still at about .5 so there is some pretty major issues somewhere within the tank Since testing @ 16 hours the colour has lightened but barely so. If anything its in a worse position than it was 21 days ago It's not like this is my first reverse either I'm clearly and repeatedly making mistakes here.

The only new thing ive done this week was remove the carbon bag from the 305 filter and replace it with biomedia which if anything should increase the surface area for bacterial colonisation. I wouldn't have thought there would have been much of a colony on the carbon bag ?

 

[PDSimon]

It's not you (Not much anyway ). The bacteria will go back and forth throughout the fishless cycle, when I was at this stage I kept saying why is this not progressing and what not like you, and waterdrop just basically said, bacteria are not consistant, some days they vary so... Stick with it, if not, just stock lightly and with a bit of care

If you want to dose more precisely, get a plastic syringe from boots, they're cheap...

Remember to use that bicarb and get to 8-8.4pH

 

[FishyWishie]

Rgr that missus is picking me up a syringe on way home and ill go buy more bicarb I'd forgotten about that PH is about 7.4 from tap good thinking fella ! I guess even if the bacterial colony on the carbon bag was small there may be a reaction as im seeing till new bacs form on the bio media thats now in its place.

On the plus side since i reduced the nitrate the nitrite colours actually resemble the chart lol

 

[PDSimon]

They sell 1ml and 5ml so you might want a couple of each.

Yeah and a pH drop would set you back a few days (not what you need at this stage ). My pH crashed at night from 7.5 to 6.5 the night before I wanted fish. The speed it changes is ridiculous

 

[FishyWishie]

Im currently toying with a radical idea which might just work - Silk Plants

After thinking about it a lot I'd be willing to bet all the death thats gone on in that tank plant wise recently can only be adding additional ammonia id the leaves lie before being seen for any length of time. I've promised the missus no more buying of live plants for now she's less than impressed with all the dead things i keep hauling out the tank lol

Not to mention the constant battle against Nitrate while at the same time dosing ferts daily.

 

[PDSimon]

Its why you should really add plants at the end stick with it!

 

[FishyWishie]

BTW what did you mean about 'outer' leaves on the swords some of them only have 4 which would be outer of those ?

Its not so much a case of giving up on the plants more that I'm wondering if im trying to fight to many fires at once the whole reason i planted the tank was shear boredom and frustration at the cycle length That and so much #105### has died the tank is filled with whats hanging on rather than what I especially want in there.