Hit Cycle Problem

[bikerfish]

Hi ALL
I have had to strip my tank and start again after something nasty got in there so all is new, when I started in this hobby 3 years ago I did not no about the fishless cycle but want to do it properly this time .
Way problem is
Day 1 of putting ammonia in I put in 12.5ml as tank is 240lt
Day 3 tested and ammonia 4.0 , nitrite 0
Day 5 ammonia 2.o , nitrite 5.0, nitrate 10
I put in 5ml of ammonia to bring my ammonia back up as dropped below 3.0
Day 6 ammonia 0.0 , nitrite 1.0 nitrate 20
as ammonia read 0.0 I put in full amount of ammonia which is 12.5ml
Day 7 ammonia 0.0 nitrite 5.0 ,nitrate 2.0

I use the api drops and are in date , the only one I have a problem reading is the nitrate test.

What is going on with my ammonia as putting in right amount for my size tank as used the converter on here for litres,
Do I add some more ammonia in ?
The ammonia I bought was of amazon and other people had written reviews it was good for cycle tanks also I checked when it came to make sure there was no bubbles after shaking,
It is called Kleen off ammonia by jeyes
Also wondering even thoe I washed my filter media and sponges In hot water maybe I left a bit of bacteria in bottom also I bought quick start filter and was adding that before I started to put ammonia in so maybe that gave friendly bacteria a boost , not sure ?
any idears or advice would be great

cathy

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You have overdosed ammonia. What you should have read was the link at the top of the page that says Cycling a Tank.
 
I assume you have a concentration for the ammonia you added about 9.5% and that the 12.5 ml you added created 5 ppm. I further know you said you added at least another 2 ppm. So in went a total of 7 ppm in 5 days. At this point there were almost no nitrite converting bacs. This means you added enough ammonia to produce 17.85 ppm of nitrite. And this assumes your numbers do not in any way underestimate the actual ppm of ammonia involved. The danger point for nitrite impeding or harminging a cycle is 16+ ppm on your API kit - the one that only goes up to 5 ppm. So you actually have no idea how high nitrite may be.
 
And the thing about nitrate tests, even if they were anywhere near accurate, is that how they work is by converting nitrate to nitrite and measuring that. So if you have any nitrite in the water it will show as nitrate on a nitrate test.
 
My advice is to do a 90% water change and start over following the directions in the link  at the top of the page. They will tell you to use a volume of 85-90% of the advertised tank volume and only to dose to 3 ppm for that volume of water.

 

[daizeUK]

And the thing about nitrate tests, even if they were anywhere near accurate, is that how they work is by converting nitrate to nitrite and measuring that. So if you have any nitrite in the water it will show as nitrate on a nitrate test.

 
That's very interesting, I never knew that!  That could explain why some people are mystified by increasing nitrate when the nitrite isn't falling.

 

[bikerfish]

Hi cheers for getting back to me
I read the cycling your tank and used the converter which told me how much ammonia to put in my tank.
If I have overdosed on the ammonia then why is my test reading 0 ? surley it would be of the roof?
I understand how ammonia goes to nitrite to nitrate , so then if the ammonia is concentrated how do you work out the converter as this is what I used before ? which is why I put in 12.5 ml
cathy

 

[TwoTankAmin]

There is a problem in that the calc. indicates using 5 ppm. The article uses 3. The 5 ppm is wrong. As for over dosing ammoinia, it can show up in different ways. One is the way about which you inquired and is reflected in the ammonia readings. You mistook what I said as the meaning the problem was in the ammonia readings. It is not.
 
The ammonia overdosing problem is not in the amount of ammonia itself, it is what happens to it. It turns into nitrite. The more ammonia that goes in, the more nitrite that is created. Now, during cycling this can be a problem because the amount of bacteria in a tank (where none have been added by the fishkeeper) usually contain minimal amounts out of the water system. The bacteria do not even start to reproduce until there is an excess of their food,so  the nitrite ones start to reproduce well after the ammonia ones, and then they take longer to double their numbers as well. This is why ammonia spikes, drops and then nitrite continues to rise. Until a tank is fully cycled, ammonia hits 0 long before nitrites will.
 
The upshot of all this is that too much nitrite will damage a cycle. How much is 5 ppm when measured as nitrite-nitrogen (NO2-N). However, our test kits use a different scale. So one needs to translate 5 ppm of Nitrite-nitrogen (NO2-N) into plain old Nitrite NO2. To do this you multiply by 3.28. So the 5 ppm NO2-N on an API test kit will come out as being 16.4 ppm of NO2. Trust me, unless you are a nerd, you don't want a more in depth explanation.
 
What it boils down to is this. If one has almost 0 bacteria for converting nitrite to nitrate, most of the ammonia added to a tank will get turned into nitrite that remains. And there is more chemistry and math that lets us know how about much nitrite should result from any give amount of ammonia. This has to do with the atomic weights of the different components of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. More nerd stuff. But it boils down to this 1 ppm of ammonia should turn into 2.55 ppm of nitrite. In your case the potential was to create almost 18 ppm of nitrite as measured on hobby kits where much over 16 ppm is an issue.
 
Hobby test kits and measuring devices are not the most accurate. So its not hard to over or underdose things or to get test results which are off. Common sense tells us that its harder to exceed 5 ppm when dosing to 5 ppm than it should be to o so when dosing to 3 ppm. One has room for error on the upside, the other doesn't. This is the one of the foundations of the cycling article here. If one follows the directions, it should be impossible to overdo anything as a cause of cycling problems.
 
As for the calc., there is an input for the concentration of the ammonia product you are using. UK folks should be able to help with that if you know the brand. The defaut setting is 9.5% ammonia.

 

[bikerfish]

Hi done water change , where is my ex husband when you need him as he is the chemist out of the to of us , so nerd stuff I am afraid has just gone right over my head but got a ruff jist of it Just tested the nitrite and it was 0.25 so gone down a lot , not going to add any more ammonia till tomorrow .
Going for a large glass of vino after all them buckets of water

cheers for your help
cathy

 

[TwoTankAmin]

cathy- have a second glass for having been smart enough to do a fishless cycle. Your mistake did not hurt any fish.
 
What you and your other half need to do now is to start cycling as if you were at the beginning of the cycling directions here. However, the odds are you are beyond that point even with what happened. So you should be testing as if you had seeded the tank with some bacteria and reduce the intervals between testing in the article by 1 day. At the "start" you should test every 2 days not 3. Reduce the every other day testing direction to every day. The test rsults are more important conditions than the days involved in terms of what to do when,
 
It is likely your ammonia list the ingredients on the label somewhere. Look for the active ingredient %, If its Kleenoff it should he 9.5% ammonium hydroxide.

 

[Essjay]

I have a bottle of Jeyes Kleen Off ammonia, though I did buy it years ago to feed the bacteria while my tank was temporarily fishless. My bottle does not state the ingredients or %. The website did say it contained nothing but ammonium hydroxide and water but not the concentration, so I emailed them and they said 9.5%. Though the ammonia reading in the tank was just about double what I would have expected from a 9.5% solution.
Since my bottle is so old, they could have changed the concentation by now.

 

[bikerfish]

Hi it is still 9.5% so added just 10ml instead of the 12.5 this morning and will leave it till tomorrow to test ammonia and nitrite ,still  having trouble getting my head around overdosing the ammonia and obv it has gone to nitrite but for there to be no ammonia showing a tall on my test

 wont make that mistake again but then having a lot of fifties moments lately

.
cathy

 

[TwoTankAmin]

cathy- you discovered what I consider to be the biggest single problem with new fish keepers and fishless cycling. Nitrite is the real demon but ammonia is the underlying creator of that demon. It is also why seeding a tank with bacteria is so helpful. it removes most of the lag between the built up of the two different bacteria. When there are nitrate bacs ready and waiting for the nitrite, you lop off a ton of the cycling time. Ther will still be a minor lag because the ammonia bacs will reproduce to handle the full ammonia load faster than the nirtie ones can size up to the full nitrite load.
 
The ammonia/nitrite problem is complicated by the fact that the level of nitrite you do not want to exceed is a hair over 16 ppm on the API kit which goes up to 5. So unless yo are adept at doing proper diluted testing, you have no clue how high nitrite might be when it red 5 ppm. And to make matters worse, very high nitrite can read 0 on hobby test kits.Have fun with this
 
[media]http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPiDRid_Km8[/media]
 
 

 

[bikerfish]

Hi
cheers for that got more of a jist now why my ammonia read 0 on reading . think I will have to get some distilled water in and give it a go
I did wonder as my filter I washed my filter media with hot water to get rid of any thing lurking whether there might have been a bit of friendly bacteria left after I put the filter start in there , prob not thoe .
My filter is about 3 years old and normaly clean in tank water but as totally cleaning tank out , why I cleaned in hot tap water
cheers again , holding out and testing water tomorrow as this will be the 2 days, must confess I really miss my fish and still watch the tank
cathy

Hi would it be woth getting dr tims one and only ?
cathy

 

[bikerfish]

Hi two tankamin
I am even more confused now and need your take on this ?
I added 10ml amm 2 days ago and left testing till today results are
5ml tank water - amm -0   nitrite -0
50ml distilled-5ml tank   amm-0  nitrite -0
100ml distilled - 5ml tank   amm-0  nitrite -0
50ml distilled -1ml tank      amm -0  nitrite -0
100ml distilled-1ml tank    amm-0    nitrite -0
200ml  distilled-1ml tank    amm-0  nitrite -0
my nitrate reading from tank was 10
I tried diff measurements to see if that would make a different out come as now understand if reading is to high for test it can give a 0 reading
thinking do I add more amm to tank and test tomorrow  but only add 3ml as concentrated ?  depending what readings are sunday  whether to buy 4 tetras and add a lot of nutrafin cycle at same time and test water daily ?
I really do not want to add fish unless ok  to do so , other people have used this amm for fishless cycle , came recommended .
still want to screammmm
cathy

 

[bikerfish]

Hi
I added 3ml of amm about an hour ago and now have a reading of 1.0, I did not test nitrite as thought it might be a bit soon for a reading
will test amm and nitrite to see what is happening
cathy

 

[bikerfish]

Hi  now done a test on the nitrite and it is 0.25 , nitrate 10 ph 7.5 
thinking def done right thing in adding 3ml of amm .
will test tomorrow to see what is happening , I know you are suppose to leave it for a couple of days but curious to see what it comes up with
cathy

 

[TwoTankAmin]

cathy-
 
Once in its biofilm the bacteria are a lot hardier than most folks realize. Warm water wont kill them.ou need to bet over about 104F for that. If you can out your hands in the water while rinsing, I doubt you hit that temp. And even if you did, it may niot have been for enough time to do big harm.
 
And your results are confirming you have a bunch of bacteria at work. You processed 2 ppm of ammonia in an hour- my goodness this is super. Understand that if ammoni drops. nitrite was created. So the fact that the ammonia dropped by 2 ppm also means it created 5.1 ppm of nitrite. the fact that you tested only .25 ppm  of nitrite indicates it went to nitrate. the fact that you tested nitrate at 10 ppm shows us nothing as the the kit stinks and the results cannot be trusted. I can tell you the 2 ppm of ammonia that vanished should result in and maximum production of bout 6.5 ppm of nitrite which accounts for the .25 ppm of nitrite tested (Nitrate tests normally convert nitrate to nitrite to test, so any nitrite in the system must be subtracted from the nitrate reading). Using an API kit you have to multiply the nitrite by 1.34 before subtracting it. When testing using the nitrogen scale, that 1.34 step is not needed.
 
it looks to me if your tank is pretty well along the cycling process. Deal with things now as if you were at the back end of the cycling article where it tells you to add the 3 ppm amount and test in 24. Just keep following those directions and it will be fine. If I am on the mark here, you are really quite close to being done.