Fishywishies Fishless Cycle

[JoshuaA]

Things seem to be going well i will have a problem soon tho I fly to turkey on tuesday for 2 weeks cycling my tan in the sun Now ive asked my neighbour to test my tank for me and he says not a prob however im worried hes going to make a fist of it lol

What the safest way to make sure he doesnt ruin the entire cycle ? Get him to test daily and trust him to do it or something else ? I know its bad timing but tank was delayed a few weeks after ordering which has meant ive not even had it runnning a month pre holiday.

is it processing ammonia daily now? Well within the 24 hour mark? You could always just get him to add the ammonia dosage at 8pm or something every night. AFAIK is even if the pH has dropped the ammonia will still be consumed just the bacterial colony won't have expanded much.

I think just getting him to dose daily will be better than anything as long as just after 12 hour or just before 24 your stats are Ammonia 0 and Nitrite 0 then there really should be no problem. To be honest its all we've done the last 3 weeks on our cycle add ammonia every night nothing different about it.

In fact I don't even know why we bother testing every day because as soon as the Nitrites were being processed there has never been a case we haven't dosed on the 24 hour mark. I know for a fact waiting for the 12 hour mark to be 0,0 will take weeks and weeks if it will ever come so I may just save the test liquid and only test pH

 

[FishyWishie]

Not close to with 24hr atm theres a graph in my first post i update each day its on its 2nd run from 5.0 to 0 atm. Its def dropping quicker this 2nd run but will only be something like day 19 when i fly.

 

[JoshuaA]

Not close to with 24hr atm theres a graph in my first post i update each day its on its 2nd run from 5.0 to 0 atm. Its def dropping quicker this 2nd run but will only be something like day 19 when i fly.

Come the 19th you'll probably be doing it every 24 hours, you may also want to cut down on your ammonia dosage at that point to lower the overall nitrite.

 

[FishyWishie]

Day 19 not 19th of June so 3 more days Day 19 for me is tueday which is day i fly out.

But i will drop the dosage as you suggest just spoke to him and showed him how to test for ammonia and how to add it etc so fingers crossed. Tho i guess if it is say 3ppm a day as long as he keeps 'feeding' it and doesnt let the A bacs and N bacs die off i can resume when i come home and see where i am.

 

[JoshuaA]

Day 19 not 19th of June so 3 more days Day 19 for me is tueday which is day i fly out.

But i will drop the dosage as you suggest just spoke to him and showed him how to test for ammonia and how to add it etc so fingers crossed. Tho i guess if it is say 3ppm a day as long as he keeps 'feeding' it and doesnt let the A bacs and N bacs die off i can resume when i come home and see where i am.

Yeh thats what I mean the 19th day, Once its starts processing the Ammonia it increases exponentially it only took 4/5 days since it first showed processing to process it all with 24 hours. You just got to hope the N-bacs start forming! When you get back it will probably be wise to do a down to gravel water change. Your Nitrites will be off so far off the chart your Nitrite test will explode*.

* joke

 

[FishyWishie]

Ah good to know thanks for the advice much appreaciated there.

Nitrates atm are around 40 maybe slightly under more than 20 tho on API

 

[JoshuaA]

Ah good to know thanks for the advice much appreaciated there.

Nitrates atm are around 40 maybe slightly under more than 20 tho on API

You may as well do a water change before you go a big one, will help reduce the amount of Nitrate in the end and hopefully prevent an algae bloom.

 

[FishyWishie]

Big water change done tonight to just above filter intake so as not to disturb it ammonia doesed back to 5ppm.

A few questions

1) What ppm should i instruct my neighbour to add each day assuming i see it almost processing in 24 hours by time i leave late tuesday ?

2) With an external filter when it comes time to do my massive pre fish water change how so i do it without pumping cholrine through it or leaving it with nothing flowing through it ?

3) If when i come back i still (as i suspect i more than likely will) still have a little work to do before getting to qualifying how much damage would say a 20% water change do if filter was left running and dechor added at the end of the change? I can run warm water from the tap making sure its right temp initally but obv this means dechor would either need to go in before or after.

 

[waterdrop]

Big water change done tonight to just above filter intake so as not to disturb it ammonia doesed back to 5ppm.

A few questions

1) What ppm should i instruct my neighbour to add each day assuming i see it almost processing in 24 hours by time i leave late tuesday ?

2) With an external filter when it comes time to do my massive pre fish water change how so i do it without pumping cholrine through it or leaving it with nothing flowing through it ?

3) If when i come back i still (as i suspect i more than likely will) still have a little work to do before getting to qualifying how much damage would say a 20% water change do if filter was left running and dechor added at the end of the change? I can run warm water from the tap making sure its right temp initally but obv this means dechor would either need to go in before or after.

Have been reading through your thread. Things look ok to me. I'll try to comment on your questions:
1) Sounds to me like 3ppm would be fine, better for it to be a lower amount like this in case it doesn't all get processed.
2&3) Its fine to hose water directly in to your tank - that's what I do all the time. I use a "Python" which attaches via a brass adapter to my mixing tap so I can directly fill the aquarium with the temperature tap water I want. I put about half the dose of Prime (my conditioner) directly into the tank water before the fill and the other half dose at the end of the fill. You always have to dose the aquarium based on the proper amount of conditioner for the full tank volume when you do it this way. Further, if you are fishless cycling (as you are) then you should actually calculate your dose as 1.5x whatever the instructions are. You can leave the cannister filter running through all this and just not change water below the intake, or for a massive change you just unplug your cannister filter and turn off the hose valves (that why they're there!) Its not problem for a filter to be off while you water change, won't bother the bacteria all all. In fact, the bacteria can go about 5 hours without the fitler running if you ever happen to be in a power outage and need some sleep between manually changing your filter water, lol! (As you can tell, I learned that one by direct experience!)

Good luck on your trip, I'm leaving the same day! Its easier to give ammonia instructions than having to explain the fish and plant feeding when you have a running tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[FishyWishie]

Not sure how the tank is doing atm as the only water ive been near last 2 days is the pool lol

Phoned my neighbour and hes been dosing the tank as i asked (3ppm) hes colour blind tho so i wont get him to test it lol

Weather is scorchio 31 degrees Wed and 30 yesterday this sunbathing isnt as easy as it looks i tell you Hotel is something else ill try and squeeze a few pics up when im back in amoung my tank pics lol

And i got engaged last night

 

[FishyWishie]

PH of the pool is 7.2

 

[PDSimon]

Congratulations on the engagement!

I like the bar chart

 

[FishyWishie]

While i await my holiday coming to an end so i can go home and see how my neighbour has got on with the dosing and measuring ive been playing on aquadvisor looking at possible stocking dream sheets.

Now my fluval 305 external filter only seems to offer 4.2 X filtration so what im wondering is - Is it worth it to pick up say a second hand fluval U4 and ramp up the filtration to nigh on 8x ? Even stocking to around 70-75% on most of my stocklists show my filtration as worryingly inadeqaute.

Also new updated graph ! and thanks PDS for the kind words

 

[FishyWishie]

Ah well in absense of a reply i went ahead and picked up a fluval u4 for £3.51 + p&p on ebay just need to get some media for it and its all aboard the 8x filtration expresss toot ! toot !

 

[waterdrop]

Can't hurt, but remember that full-stocking/over-stocking is more about substrate-cleaning-water-changing than about over-filtration. There are other factors too but that's one of the main ones. WD