Hi Everyone, New Fishless Cycle Tank.

[leeboy20]

Hi,
I've been reading the forum for a while now and decided to join. I have an established tropical tank that has been running for over a year with all water parameters at 0 and nitrate 40 using API liquid kit.

I decided to set up another second larger tank (approx 140L) and used some established media from the old tank.

I've dosed with household ammonia, installed the live plants and filters etc. I'm using an external aquis 1000 and an internal fluval U3. Yes I know its a bit "over filtered" but I'm a bit funny like that. Also the external filter wasn't making much water movement, no matter how I positioned the intake and output tubes. The length of the tank is 48inch so I decided on both internal and external at oposite ends to circulate the water. The temperature is 28 degrees.

After 4 days nitrites were appearing at 0.25, and also nitrates at 20. I added a bottle of "cycle" over a few days.

Large amounts of ammonia is being broken down in 12 hours now. Approx 4ppm of ammonia is disapearing in 12 hours! The nitrites are off the scale now.

I guess everything is going smoothly, I just wondered if theres anything I can do to speed up the last bit of the cycle? I have a 5 year old boy thats VERY eager to add fish and shrimp!

The water is crystal clear and ph is 7.5 Also any ideas on stocking would be appreciated. The tank is (L)48x (D)12x (H)19inch.

Thank you for any help/advice and thanks for all the tons of information on the forums.

Lee

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Leeboy20 and welcome to TFF!

You sound as if you're performing a filter clone in the right manner, testing it via normal fishless cycle technique. When the biofilm colonies get moved between filters they can get disturbed in various ways, so it makes sense to test them just as you would a fishless cycle. Sometimes the nitrite spike on a clone can be very sharp and short, but there's no telling. Once nitrite suddenly drops you will be in the equivalent of the 3rd phase of fishless cycling where nitrite will be usually taking somewhere between 12 and 24 hours to drop to zero ppm. That time should get shorter and shorter but may stick shy of 12 hours, calling for added patience and a watch that the pH doesn't suddenly dip. Once both ammonia and nitrite can clear in 12 hours you are into your qualifying week.

You can additionally do a weekly clean of your existing filter(s) right in the nice clean water of your new tank. Your new filters will suck up most of the debris and it will add to the speed of the fishless cycle. Later, your gravel-clean-water-changes will get all that looking nice and pristine again.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[leeboy20]

Hi Leeboy20 and welcome to TFF!

You sound as if you're performing a filter clone in the right manner, testing it via normal fishless cycle technique. When the biofilm colonies get moved between filters they can get disturbed in various ways, so it makes sense to test them just as you would a fishless cycle. Sometimes the nitrite spike on a clone can be very sharp and short, but there's no telling. Once nitrite suddenly drops you will be in the equivalent of the 3rd phase of fishless cycling where nitrite will be usually taking somewhere between 12 and 24 hours to drop to zero ppm. That time should get shorter and shorter but may stick shy of 12 hours, calling for added patience and a watch that the pH doesn't suddenly dip. Once both ammonia and nitrite can clear in 12 hours you are into your qualifying week.

You can additionally do a weekly clean of your existing filter(s) right in the nice clean water of your new tank. Your new filters will suck up most of the debris and it will add to the speed of the fishless cycle. Later, your gravel-clean-water-changes will get all that looking nice and pristine again.

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks for the advice. I'm still adding daily ammonia up to 4ppm and this is being reduced to zero in 12-24 hours. The nitrite is stuck high at the minute and has been there for about 5 days now.

Everything else seems to be ok. (except there's no fish in the tank....obviously!)

Just a query...when using media from an established tank, could the bacteria that converts nitrite die off until the ammonia converting bacteria gets going again? It took a few days for the ammonia converting bacteria to start working in the new tank from teh established media, so could the nitrite converting bacteria have died off in this time?

Thanks
Lee

 

[drobbyb]

That's a good question. I would assume that the bacteria that process ammonia would provide enough nitrite for the nitrite processing bacteria during those few days, but I don't know this for sure.

Anyone have a better answer?

 

[waterdrop]

Oh yeah, I wouldn't be surprised at significant die-backs from a media transer at all! And a "differential" die-back as described (where the A-bacs stall at making NO2 for a bit and therefor the N-Bacs die back in size) seems quite plausible! MM transfers are still quite reliable and have a very high percentage of success.

~~waterdrop~~