Fishywishies Fishless Cycle

[PDSimon]

I think using nutrafin cycle can mess up the results on tests, I've never bothered with it whilst cycling

 

[FishyWishie]

Entirely possible i wouldn't have paid for it but it came free so i gave it a try.

 

[JoshuaA]

Entirely possible i wouldn'y have paid for it but it came free so i gave it a try.

I think a good way of finding out if this is really happening is checking your pH, assuming you knew what it was before. Check it now and see what it compares to the previous result. If the pH has dropped significantly I would say your tank is producing Nitrite. I wouldn't really trust the Nitrate test, my nitrate hasn't been anything but 160 since Nitrite was produced in the tank.

 

[FishyWishie]

PH is very slightly down prev was a little to dark on the PH test (I.E darker than the 7.6) and a little lighter (not much) than 7.8 on the high PH test

Now its almost dead on 7.6 on the PH test and close to the 7.4 on the high certainly not the 7.8.


I think ill test the PH again in a few days to see if theres any more discernable change to PH and hold off adding more ammonia till its processed back to 0 seeing as the collective wisdom of the board seems to lean this way.

 

[OldMan47]

It is time for you to reset your aquarium by doing a huge water change so that you can start a cycle. After 3 days of adding at least 5 ppm daily, you have around 15 ppm of ammonia or more in that tank. It will not develop a strong bacterial colony, it will develop a wrong bacterial colony. The way you do an add daily is to add just enough ammonia to bring the level in your tank back up from 4.5 ppm,or whatever you measure, to 5 ppm. You do not add 5 ppm.
If you let the ammonia level get as high as 8 ppm, you will be growing the wrong bacteria in your filter. Those bacteria will work fine at 8 ppm, but when the levels drop down to where your fish can live in the water, they will not be able to prosper and you will get to start all over again with a fresh cycle.

 

[FishyWishie]

I started off wanting to do add daily but the negative feedback i recieved has persuaded me otherwise

Reason i added 5ppm per day on days 1-3 was due to reading this in the newbie section which reads to me like you add enough ammonia initially to get it to 5ppm then keep doing it. Which seems to be the opposite of how you say it should be done.

I was planning to do water change today to bring it down to the 5ppm level and continue on add and wait.

This was what i read and due to the stocking i had in mind i thought the stronger filter seemed attractive but i know realise new wisdom is this approach is flawed.


"Add Daily" Method

I call this the "Add Daily" method because that is what you do. The start is exactly like the other method. To begin, you add enough ammonia to raise the level to 4 or 5 ppm (see ammonia calculator here at bottom of page). The difference is that the next day and each day thereafter you add the same amount. This continues until the ammonia drops to zero. This will take much longer than the other method because of the massive amount of ammonia the tank will initially contain. It generally takes about 3 days before any bacteria begin to form and you are able to notice even a small change in the color of your tests. In the other method, on the 3rd day there will still only be about 4 or 5 ppm of ammonia in the tank. With the "Add Daily" method, there will be approximately 12 to 15 ppm on the 3rd day so you need a lot of bacteria to process all of that.

 

[OldMan47]

Add daily that proposes you add 5 ppm daily needs to be corrected. I have never actually read through it because it seemed too much work. I will go check it now since it flies in the face of known research on the bacteria and their needs.
I have just sent the author a PM about their pined post. The way I described add daily would work but that way will slow things down a lot.

 

[FishyWishie]

Ive just completed a 50%-60% water change ammonia is now reading very slightly darker than the 4ppm colour

 

[JoshuaA]

Ive just completed a 50%-60% water change ammonia is now reading very slightly darker than the 4ppm colour

Lighter than 8ppm though? If so I'd personally say you have no problem now. You should be able to work out how much you removed of the ammonia if you had added 5ppm a day and did it for 2 days... 10ppm and then did a 50% you should have 5ppm which is what you may be reading now. If anything that would be over 4/5 I may consider doing another water change to further dilute the concentration.

 

[FishyWishie]

Oh definately lighter than 8ppm its only very slightly darker than the 4ppm nothing like as dark as the 8ppm one now to let it settle and reduce on its own

 

[FishyWishie]

Updated with day 5 results things are happening in the tank thats for sure i just hope there the right things lol

 

[FishyWishie]

The way I'm checking colours is standing the test tube on its end next to the colours to match it is this correct ? Obv if i lie the test tube on its side against the chart all the test appear darker.

I know its a dumb question just wanted to make sure im not doing it totally wrong and getting bogus results.

 

[Liverbird36]

The way I'm checking colours is standing the test tube on its end next to the colours to match it is this correct ? Obv if i lie the test tube on its side against the chart all the test appear darker.

I know its a dumb question just wanted to make sure im not doing it totally wrong and getting bogus results.

I'd love the answer to that one too. When I googled it, some sites say you have to hold the tube directly on the white background which makes the results a lot darker, and some say to hold it to the light and slightly away from the card which makes it a lot lot lighter. I guess i'm about to find out that all the tests I have done are incorrect now lol

 

[FishyWishie]

Thats exactly my problem any tube held on the white card looks darker than the darkest colour on all the tests

 

[Liverbird36]

Thats exactly my problem any tube held on the white card looks darker than the darkest colour on all the tests

Lol i'm in the same boat as you. I am a wee bit worried I have been doing it wrong. I have to admit, I don't find the API test all that easy to raed. Although I appreciate it's the most accurate. God forbid it's between two readings then i panic lol