Fluval Roma 90 Fishless Cycle

[KarlyBoy]

Hi All,

I have recently set-up and am Fishless Cycling a Fluval Roma 90 Tank for my 11 year old Son. I am into day 5 of the Cycle, and I am still seeing Ammonia at around 5PPM (I am testing using Nutrafin Test Kits), so the reading is 6.1 for NH3, however, I am also getting the Nitrite readings of 3.3mg/L (which I guess is the Nitrite spike), and has been the same for around 3 days, and I did a Nitrate test this morning (Day 5), and am getting a reading of 110mg/L.

Can anyone tell me if this is normal (i.e. Ammonia / Nitrites / Nitrates off the chart), the tank is fully planted, and I have the temp at 80 Degrees, and I DID NOT seed with any materials (other than some cycle, just because it came with the tank, so why not (I know it doesn't work). I know I can drop the Nitrates with a Water Change, I am just surprised that the Ammonia and Nitrites are so high in combination, I would have thought one or the other would drop ...

Any advice is greatly appreciatedhttp/www.fishforums.net/public/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif

Also wanted to say what a great site, has helped me enormously in choosing equipment etc... and lots of great help and advice

 

[KittyKat]

How much ammonia did you add? 5 ppm is the highest you should dose to, I normally recommend 4 ppm as that's what most ammonia kits have a swatch for.

6.1 what? ppm? mg/l?

Nitrite is either from tap or your cycle is being super fast.

What are your tap readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?

 

[lilfishie]

the plants should of ideally been added after the cycle as they throw the results off

 

[KarlyBoy]

How much ammonia did you add? 5 ppm is the highest you should dose to, I normally recommend 4 ppm as that's what most ammonia kits have a swatch for.

6.1 what? ppm? mg/l?

Nitrite is either from tap or your cycle is being super fast.

What are your tap readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?

 

[KarlyBoy]

I added 5PPM Ammonia on Friday 1st April to the 90 Lites of water (approx 21 gallons based on the Caclulator from this site (so effectively 5ml initial dosage), the Results have been as follows (I did not measure Nitrates or Nitrates at first)

Date NH3 (Mg/L) NO2 (Mg/L) NO3 (Mg/L)

2-4-11 3.7
3-4-11 6.1
4-4-11 6.1 3.3 Mg/L
5-4-11 6.1 3.3 Mg/L
6-4-11 6.1 3.3 Mg/L 110 Mg/L

The Nutrafin Test kits I am using, is showing all at the highest concentration for their tests, I added the plants because I was told this may help the cycle, and they are not susceptible to Ammonia or Nitrites/Nitrates.

My Tap water is negative across all 3 Ammonia / Nitrites or Nitrates, I tested so I had a baseline ...

I added 5PPM Ammonia on Friday 1st April to the 90 Lites of water (approx 21 gallons based on the Caclulator from this site (so effectively 5ml initial dosage), the Results have been as follows (I did not measure Nitrates or Nitrates at first)

Date NH3 (Mg/L) NO2 (Mg/L) NO3 (Mg/L)

2-4-11 3.7
3-4-11 6.1
4-4-11 6.1 3.3 Mg/L
5-4-11 6.1 3.3 Mg/L
6-4-11 6.1 3.3 Mg/L 110 Mg/L

The Nutrafin Test kits I am using, is showing all at the highest concentration for their tests, I added the plants because I was told this may help the cycle, and they are not susceptible to Ammonia or Nitrites/Nitrates.

My Tap water is negative across all 3 Ammonia / Nitrites or Nitrates, I tested so I had a baseline ... by the way, I have NO IDEA, where or how that Smiley got in my post, although I did get a php error when posting the reply, so apologies for that

Sorry, don't know where the emoticons are coming from in my posts !!!

 

[KarlyBoy]

Just as a quick check, I have retested my tap water (I work from home so it has its advantages), no Ammonia, No Nitrites and no Nitrates, and I also tested PH, and that was 7.5-6' ish

 

[KittyKat]

Your readings are fine then.

Plants need light, ammonia + light = algae.

 

[KarlyBoy]

Yes, i am watching carefully for any Algae bloom, but it appears to be OK for now, I was just a little surprised that the Ammonia and Nitrites were so High together (given I had not introduced further Ammonia to the tank... However, I did put in a 3 cm Plant Nutrient substrate and then 2 cm Gravel over the top of that, so perhaps that helped with the bacteria ??

 

[KittyKat]

It's not really the blooming type of algae you should be watching out for, but more the hairy types

What does the "plant nutrient" substrate actually contain?

 

[KarlyBoy]

Ok Thanks, no sign of anything at the moment, everything looking very green and healthy, there was a lot of cloudiness in water for 2 days, but now it is beautifully clear, and I have been checking surfaces and plants for any sign of anything, I have the Light going on for 8 hours a day at the moment. The plant substrate was i believe JBL Manado (or something like that), which I rinse thorughly in conditioned water.

and then a Dorset Pea Gravel over the top of that, enough to give it a good covering, but something for the Plants to root in.

 

[KarlyBoy]

Today, 7th April I believe I have a Drop in my ammonia levels 'yeeeehhhh', I have a reading of 3.7 ml, thanks for the follow up Kitty Kat, I think when I get a drop to Zero, I will only go back up to 3PPM as recommended, at least then I can measure changes more accurately,

 

[KarlyBoy]

As well as the Ammonia Dropping down to 1-1.5ppm. I noticed I had the tiniest little snail on the wall of the tank, but he can move like lightening, should I leave him for a while, or end his early life ? Advice please ...

 

[KittyKat]

I don't remove snails: in my experience, if snails breed out of control, you're overfeeding. A few make good cleanup crew.

 

[KarlyBoy]

Folks,

I am still a little confused about what is happening in my Fishless Cycle. I have continued to monitor as per what seems to be the "standard' approach. I have been monitoring my Ammonia, which eventually cycles down to around 0.3PPM, and the Nitrites have been stable for ages (my Ammonia seems to be the issue), It will NOT cycle down to Zero... it comes down to 0.1 or 0.3 over 48 hours, but refuses to go to Zero, so I am then pushing it back up to 3PPM, and my Nitrites remain low to Zero, in a 24 hour period, I have undertaken 2 x 90% water changes, in a bid to 'Kick-Start' something.

What I am wondering about, is that the Fluval 90 comes with the Fluval U2 Filter, which means a 90L tank is at the top end for a Filter of this size, would it make a difference if I were to take the Filter up to a Fluval U3 (I could use the media from the U2 to seed the new filter (certainly the biological), I am just concerned that the ammonia <-> Nitirites seems to be at odds (unless of course, I am being stupid, but there has to be a relationship between the Ammonia, and the Nitrites, and I still cannot figure out, how my Nitrites are remaining relatively low (having already spiked), given that the Ammonia, is taking 2-3 days to cycle away 4PPM, unless of course, my Nitrifying bacteria have outpaced my Ammonia ?

Anyways, If anyone has a thought on the Filter upgrade would appreciate it, just wondering if I can push through more volume in the filter, might that help that last little bit on the Ammonia to Nitrite Cycle ?

 

[waterdrop]

As I see it, you have 3 factors making your readings a bit different (not in any important way in the long run) from the typical logs you'll see here. The biggest factor is the JBL substrate. It was probably releasing a ton of things that spiked the nitrite/nitrate readings up. That's not anything to worry about and it will probably be a better than average substrate over time, so good choice. Secondly, you dumped in the nutra. cycle stuff that came with the tank (it sounded like) and in my experience that tends to also spike up the nitrite and nitrate readings for a while but has nothing to do with things the bacteria are doing. Thirdly, the nutrafin tests do tend to shoot higher or give a higher impression as I think the nitrate test seems to show higher readings if there is high nitrite present.. this somehow seems to happen more than the API tests. Again, all this is unimportant as I will further discuss.

You are overthinking all your readings. Fishless cycling is basically a very boring wait for some very slow bacteria to take 70 days or so to grow to a size that will handle a batch of fish. Trying to interpret a bunch of numbers in the first 14 days like you are doing isn't going to tell you much of importance. It sometimes takes 14 to 21 days just to see the A-Bacs (Nitrosomonas spp.) begin really eating the ammonia dropping the ammonia levels close to zero. One of the confusing things in a forum is that -some- people will have those same A-Bacs eating ammonia right away in the first week. They were often just lucky and may have had some big patches of these bacteria in the pipes leading to their homes or something.

To the extent that you have plants, it's important to realize that they can consume some of the ammonia and other things and that means those reductions in numbers are not coming from bacteria "eathing" the stuff. So with plants in there you just have to take the numbers with more of a grain of salt. In the end what we really care about is really crude. We are really just waiting for the day when we dose all this ammonia (4-5ppm) and then see it go boom, down to zero ammonia and zero nitrite and eventually do that in 12 hours or less.

~~waterdrop~~