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Here We Go Again!

Based on the fact you now see Nitrates, I'd say your tank is cycled. You see no nitrites now because the bacteria are munching them into nitrate. Also plants will munch Nitrite so perhaps this is why you never saw any perhaps?

Do a massive water change and then straight away get some fish in there... stock to 75%

As your plants grow they will spread. As this happens & your tank matures you'll see less & less algae.

Just out of interest then:
What susbtrate have you got?
What do you dose for the plants?
Are you using CO2?

Andy

PS,
wait for others to confirm what or deny I say re: tank cycled / get fish in there. I would get some fish now if that were my tank, some others may have a different opinion / would wait. You have plants and this will also be an excellent water filter. Plants are great!
 
I'm still waiting on the ammonia to drop to 0 in 12 hours at the mo but will wait for others to confirm like you said.

With regards to the plants,

My budget would only allow TetraPlant substrate, I use Seachem Flourish and at present am not using co2 as I felt everything else was taking a while to get my head around so planning on reading up on co2 in more detail in about 1 months time once everything else makes sence lol.

Vicki
 
Fair enough, keep waiting for that drop will be a good idea perhaps...

You don't need CO2 - IMO, that just makes for exposive growth and eases growth of difficult plants. You'll be trimming weekly and will be quite hgh maintenance for the plants. Also CO2 is very difficult to measure and therefore to stabilize initially. Unstable CO2 will then create explose algal growth....

Keeping fish is an absolute doddle compare to keeping plants!

That susbstrate you've got there is fine. 100x better than nothing & I see you've capped it so that's good too. Hell, I make my own substrate by digging up soil from my garden & 'conditioning' it before adding Mulm, sand, peat and Leonardite!

I am a bit against the grain with my tank. I rarely change the water. I don't vac the substrate. I use no CO2. My stats are 0 across the board, low maintenance, no algae (OK a fine dusting every month to 5 weeks)... the idea here is that the fish feed the plants, the plants filter the water (and my Eheim)..... Happy long living fish (I still have my orignial Harlequins in there from 2.5 years ago), reasonably fast growing plants (the bulk of I remove every month!). I would also say I'm 'over stocked' fish-wise if you look at the generic stocking advice given... Naughty me! :rolleyes:

Andy
 
Well I added 2.75ppm of ammonia last night and the tank was back down to 1.75 at 12pm today, I also tested the nitrites today and I finally have a small reading of 0.20.

I'm now hoping that stage 1 is almost complete *touch wood*

Vicki
 
Yes, you now seem to have more definite signs of turning the corner from stage one (ammonia being dropped but no nitrites or hardly any nitrites being seen) into stage two where ammonia is dropping even faster and now ammonia goes up and up and then stays spiked as high as the test can show it. Definately harder to read when you have significant plantings.

I forget, are you dosing any with liquid ferilizers? According to Hovanec, a little iron (which virtually all those liquid ferts. have ) is also seen as good for the bacteria growth.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Just a little update:

3rd August: Ammonia = 0.10 no2 = 0.90! no3 = 30
(added 3.15ppm at 23:30)

4th August: Ammonia = 1.5 no2 = 1.10 no3 = 40
(will take another ammonia test this evening and hopefully add some more)

Vicki
 
..continues to look like it is moving into the "nitrite spike" phase 2 and your conditions certainly seem pretty optimized for it from what I can see

~~waterdrop~~
 
Well ammonia being processed in 13 hours now and the nitrite has been off the scale for the past 2 days.

Generally speaking how long does the nitrite spike usually last (although I understand my cycle is far from normal)?

Vicki
 
Generally, the second phase where nitrite is spiking and ammonia is dropping faster lasts -longer- than the first phase did, but that's only general and your own fishless cycle may behave differently as you have already seen. Your tank looks great and all of this is helping create a nice stable environment for your new fish eventually. Don't over-do the hours of light, since all this ammonia in the tank is going to promote algae anyway.

~~waterdrop~~
 
waterdrop said:
Generally, the second phase where nitrite is spiking and ammonia is dropping faster lasts -longer- than the first phase did, but that's only general and your own fishless cycle may behave differently as you have already seen. Your tank looks great and all of this is helping create a nice stable environment for your new fish eventually. Don't over-do the hours of light, since all this ammonia in the tank is going to promote algae anyway.

~~waterdrop~~
Click to expand...

Yer have already had to cut back on some light with a siesta early afternoon as the algea is pretty bad, although I may need to cut back a little more but hopefully shouldnt be a problem as most of the plants are growing like mad! The Polysperma has grown 6", the red lud 5.5" and the torta 6.5" so that just shows how well most of them have done in just 3 weeks.

Judging by the fact the cycle only really started working after the W/C on 23rd July, I'll assume another 4 weeks for the 2nd stage although I hope it would be sooner as the tank has been set up 5.5 weeks!

No doubt I'll be back reporting again once the Nitrites start dropping!

Vicki
 
Good luck with it Vicki. I won't be able to log on for a bit but other members will be around for discussion and I think you've got the right approach. Nice big gravel clean water changes on the weekends with ammonia recharge should keep things moving along in the second phase.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Just thought I'd update that the ammonia is now dropping well within 10 hours and the Nitrite is dropping to 0 in about 22 hours so I'm hoping it shouldn't take too much longer now.

Some of the plants have algea on them which wont come off but the good news is new shoots are already growing through, just cant wait to transfer my bristle noses :lol:

Vicki
 
Great news, your almost there, it will all be worth the wait in the end :)
 
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