Lily Rose's 64L Tank Cycle

[LilyRose Tank]

Thanks rebrn, just performed 9pm tests and the results are

Ammonia 2ppm.
Nitrite 1ppm
Nitrate 20ppm
i like the ammonia and nitrite levels as it looks promising as they are both dropping,but how is the nitrate dropping?

pH is down to 7 too. if i need to put sodium bicarb in how much should i use, is it correct to use baking powder? sodium bicarb and disodium phosphate in it?probably not

 

[waterdrop]

I like 3ppm for the ammonia dosing during the nitrite spike stage but hey, its hard enough to guesstimate those green colors anyway, right? We basically don't pay much attention to nitrate readings during a lot of the fishless cycle because they can be so wacky -- they get thrown off when there's a lot of nitrite in there because that will mess up their accuracy. What we -do- use nitrate tests for is just as a reassurance that there are a few of both types of bacteria in there and to some extent some of the overall nitrogen cycle is beginning to creep through to conclusion. After the fishless cycle is over and the aquarium is maintaining NO2=0 all the time, the nitrate(NO3) test becomes more accurate and is also more useful to us because it is the thing that can tell us how our maintenance is doing. If nitrates at that time are not creeping up beyond 15 to 20ppm above what our tap water nitrates are then we are doing ok.

Yes, the bicarb needs to be pure baking soda, sodium bicarbonate. Do not use baking powder as it can sometimes have additional additives. The amount is not terribly critical at all but a good starting point I use is one tablespoon per 50L of water. Knowing 3 teaspoons makes a tablespoon and that overall amount is not so critical you can usually come up with an amount good to try. Then of course you want to watch a day or so later and see what it did to your pH. As long as this is a fishless cycle (baking soda is not ideal with fish!) then I'm convinced there's just not that much reason to hesitate in using it. The plan is for it to all get thrown out with the big water change before getting fish.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[rebrn]

I like 3ppm for the ammonia dosing during the nitrite spike stage but hey, its hard enough to guesstimate those green colors anyway, right?

Agree, I only say 2 because the API scale goes from 2 to 4, so 3 can be really hard to judge.

Don't worry to much about the nitrates, as waterdrop said they can be wonky during cycling. Now that you know they are present, that is really all you need to know until the end. Just make sure they go down to safe levels (approximately 10ppm - no more than 15ppm above your tap water levels) after the water change at the end before you add fish.

For the baking soda I found that 1 tsp per US Gallon (so roughly 4 L) worked well. You can add a little less if you are concerned then test about an hour later to decide if you want to add more.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

ok thanksguys,
is my cycling going ok?
i assume that as nitrites are coming down,,,i think, and ammonia is now regularly coming down that hopefully we will go into qualifying week soon, xx thanks guys you've been wonderfully helpful

 

[rebrn]

Yep it looks as though everything with your cycle is going fine. It is really hard to predict a time frame before you will hit the qualifying week, the general rule of thumb is however long it took for your first ammonia to drop to zero it will take twice as long for you to complete your nitrite spike phase. Looking at your cycle log it looks as though the first phase (ammonia drop) took 14 days, so you are roughly looking at a 28 day period for your nitrate phase (phase 2) to end, at which point you will be in phase 3, the qualifying week. I know that seems like a long time but truthfully it looks as though you your cycle is progressing quite normally. So if all continues to go according to plan you are looking at a total cycle time of approximately 2 months (just under actually) which is about the norm. My 3 tanks took 101 days for the 5 gallon, 69 days for the 12 gallon and 40 days for the 55 gallon ... the 55 gallon was used and came with a cycled filter but as I borrowed some media from it to kick start the other 2 tanks and I through it into a mini cycle. But truthfully a total cycle time of approximately 50 days (which if yours continues to follow the general rule of thumb will be your time) is really really good.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Gosh 50 days...bloommin heck lol.
todays results
ammonia 0ppm dosed with 2.5mls.....2ppm
nitrite 1ppm
nitrate 20ppm

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Hello again guys, here are this evenings results

ammonia .50ppm
nitrites 1ppm
nitrates 5ppm....how is this possible? when they were 160ppm a few days ago?
pH 6.4.... will be adding bicarb tomorrow when I get some

JUST AS A MATTER OF INTEREST i just placed all my figures in excel to see how the charts look, and pH and nitrate seem to have exact correlation, whereas ammonia and nitrite have direct opposision correlation and therefore when ammonia rises , nitrite drops and when nitrite rises ammonia drops, which is as it should be right, so does that mean, my cycling is ahead of shedule, now the ammonia is dropping to 0 from 2-3ppm in 12 hours?

 

[waterdrop]

NO3 test is not only jumps around during cycling, its pretty hard to shake it enough to always get good results.

 

[rebrn]

As waterdrop said the nitrate results can jump around during cycling, and if you don't shake the bottles and or the tube enough you really won't get accurate results. As for your correlations I am not sure on that. Essentially once ammonia AND nitrite drops from 2-3 ppm (of ammonia) to 0 ppm (for both tests) in 12 hours then you need to start dosing your tank back to the 4ppm, then once you get double zeros 12 hours after 4 ppm ammonia dose consitantly for 7-8 days you are cycled. This is where it gets a little tricky, and your correlations propably won't be the same, because you could potentially get another nitrite spike, this is why we say you need double zeros consistantly for 7 days.

Ideally, you should see a correlation between ammonia and nitrite - as ammonia drops nitrite should rise. You should also see a correlation between nitrite and nitrate - as nitrite drops nitrate should rise. These are the expected correlations, and we are able to see them more clearly during cycling but once cycled the only correlation you will see is decreased ammonia = increased nitrates. Essentially the nitrogen cycle works like this:

Ammonia present – A-bacteria breaks down ammonia to produce NitrIte – N-Bacteria breaks down Nitrite to produce NitrAte – water changes removes Nitrates.

The correlation with the pH is simply that the bacteria re-produce more rapidly with a high pH, so the lower the pH the less the bacteria re-produce therefore you have less bacteria and ultimately end up with a slower completion of the nitrogen cycle.

Did that make sense or did I just confuse you more?

 

[LilyRose Tank]

No rebrn, you said it as I understand it, thanks,
my results at 9am this morning are as follows

ammonia .... 0ppm.... added 2.5mls ammonia.... now reads 2ppm
nitrite 1ppm
nitrate .... 20ppm
pH 6.2!... added 3 1/2 teaspoons bicarb... now reading 8.2

thanks guys

 

[waterdrop]

If you take a whole lot of data, like testing everything twice a day and putting it all into a spreadsheet and graphing and then look at the entire multimonth fishless cycle, you can often see some pretty standard looking cycling curves - we have a fair number of them sitting behind links in fishless cycling threads from over the years. But its always good to remember that on a more day to day basis, graphing the stuff can be very confusing. Remember that you are dosing a big jolt of 3,4,5ppm of ammonia all at once and then this spike of ammonia goes down as the A-Bacs take each 1ppm of NH3 and convert it to 2.7ppm of NO2, roughly, and then to 3.6ppm of NO3.. so the humps in the graph should be of 3 different substances each a little bigger and coming a little later. But to see a nice little "movie" like this you'd need to go nuts taking data, perhaps all 3 tests every half hour for days on end. You'd need a machine.

In real life there are two things working against seeing nice graphic hills like this: first, we are only taking readings usually at most at the 12 and 24 hour mark after the ammonia dosing, so we could completely miss a hump going up and down, and secondly, the bacteria are life forms, not chemical reactions, so they can have literally hundreds or thousands of factors going on within their cell walls that might create delays or speedups in when things might happen (ie. they are unpredictable in practical terms, as all life forms are.)

This is why any conclusion you make about your results is a better conclusion if you mentally place it within a multiday result context.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Hello there guys, This evenings results are a little dubious. the ammonia test is 0ppm. the nitrite colour test result doesn't match anything. what do you think? It is sort of a grey ish colour




and the Nitrate result is 20ppm.

but the pH is also inbetween, so what do you think?






anyway, i guess my nitrite spike is hopefully coming to an end... so if its 0 ppm tomorrow, do i add 4ppm ammonia? and wait for both to rise and fall again?

 

[rebrn]

Nitrites has sky rocketed off the charts, not unusual, that brownish colour is common when the nitrites is too high for the test to read. This is not a bad thing, it just means that your A-Bacs are doing there job, but you don't have enough n-Bacs to keep up, this is tempory, the n-bacs will soon catch up. Your pH reading is at the high end of the scale, 8.8 ish not a bad thing eithor, that will come down as the cycle progresses and/or with the large water change at the end. Did you add the baking soda? DO NOT DOSE TO 4ppm, only dose to 2 or 3 ppm, give those n-Bacs a chance to catch up. You are still on track everything looks good.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

i was guessing nitrites were coming down, like the lilac colour denoting 0.50 especially as the reading over the last few days have been more like 1ppm than 5ppm. but we shall see in the morning. and as for pH i thought it was aroung 8.2-8.4? shall retest soon
thanks rebrn xx

 

[rebrn]

The Ph reading was kind of hard to say for sure in the picture, put 8.2 -8.4 is just fine, no need to retest right away, just with your next set of tests will be fine. As for the nitrites spiking it is truthfully not a surprise, we would expect to see that and it is a good thing as I said that means you have a nice healthy A-Bac colony growing which is great. Now you just need the N-Bacs to catch up and you will be there

I just blew up the ph picture and it looks like 8.4 which is pretty much perfect during cycling.