Mature Media Request

[sjolliff]

iv had a look in the donate page, last time i got some from Rabbut, but i had a problem with my tank and started again,


i live in keighley (bradford area) can anyone please donate any mature media for me please

I can pick up

For the EX1200 iv got new replacments for bio-balls and filter floss between 15mm + 50mm
and iv got some fluval 205 sponges and floss

iv got a tetratec ex1200 but i can fit any media into the baskets

im losing faith in keeping fish, i set-up my tank 26th june and still no fish due to problems, i thought i was nearly there last week but now its gone back about 2 weeks

 

[sjolliff]

Bump

Not sure if adding mature media will help that much?

 

[waterdrop]

Try to hang in there Steve. You're only on day 27 of your fishless cycle. Many of our members have gone between 60 and 70 days for the actual fishless cycle period and a few and successfully stuck it out past 100. Now we can never say for sure that a process will work - this is an international site and somewhere out there in this huge world there may be some tank condition (who knows? perhaps some trace metal is too high and we don't realize this is fatal to the process!) that just won't work... but that is -so- pessimistic! No, instead, I'm inclined to feel that in nearly all cases it would be -extremely hard- for the process -not- to work, given the right conditions and enough time. Its just such a universal part of fresh water systems on the earth! Do we think all these waste water treatment plants and all these millions of filters in fishtanks are juggling a very tricky process that may fall apart at any moment if you do something wrong?? NO! Its the opposite - its almost impossible to -not- have these autotrophic bacteria take over in fresh water if the ammonia is present and the temp and pH are loosely in range.

So that's just to say that time is on -your- side! Its possible that the one thing you have the most trouble with is just the business of -not changing- stuff too much. The bacteria need the biomedia to just be there, undisturbed if possible, and the correct parameters as much as possible and they need this to go on and on, perhaps 60 days without the aquarist getting impatient and changing something on them.

Anyway, sorry if I'm way off base for your particular problems and the last thing I'd want to do is give a rough time to someone who is doing everything right but just happens to have some chemistry thing wrong that our experience is -not- helping us with! But, just hoping some of that might help.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[sjolliff]

Cheers WD
, its just with My 1st fishless cycle going wrong with the dodgy bottle of api stress coat not allowing bacteria growth ( no nitrites or real ammonia drop after 30days), 2nd with adding pond media and full of creatures etc, now this when with every going right and a big waterchange damaging the cycle.

Iv decided to carry on dosing every 24HRS and checking the PH at the same time, but only testing every 5 days

but ill probably change my mind again and still check every 12+24HR lol

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, If I'm reading you right that might "calm you down" just enough, lol.

I mean, its seems to me that of course you should never dose the ammonia in anything more frequent than once in any 24 hour period, that's basic! But on the other side, if the ammonia level drops from 4-5ppm quickly down to some trace that you read as ".2" or ".1" for a couple days, then that would better be considered "zero" and the ammonia recharged to 4ppm. And yes, for the bulk of the process, its the pH that would need more regular watching, whereas the nitrite and ammonia are more about just telling you progress (although knowing ammonia is zero or close seems important for ammonia re-dosing.) Can't remember but I guess you replace that stresscoat with some Prime or such? And, yes, now I remember that you also had the disaster of the pond media, so that was a genuine setback, sorry not to acknowledge that! That kind of stuff definately adds to the time frustration! (I was near the end of taking 80 days for a cycle after periodically messing things up when the tank broke and I ended up spending nearly as long again, so nearly half a year before fish really! So I know frustration!)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[sjolliff]

I would of packed in after 80days then the tank broke.

Yeah i changed to tetra aquasafe, iv also got some seachem prime but its something like 5ml per 200L and i dint want to overdose

so, your saying when my ammonia drops to 1/2ppm redose another 2ppm so its back up to 4ppm?

how would this help my cycle and wont my nitrites go through the roof?

cheers

 

[waterdrop]

No, sorry, miscommunication. What I was trying to say was that the ideal ammonia dosing pattern for add&wait I believe is where (after you are past the early week or weeks when you're waiting for ammonia to just drop to zero) ...anyway after that when ammonia starts pretty much dropping within a day, that your pattern is to confirm (via a test that occurs during the day) that ammonia has indeed dropped to zero ppm and that when you reach your normal time of the day to do your "add" that you then add ammonia back up to 4 or 5ppm. That time of day is ideally always the same time of day, say 7AM or 7PM or some such that's convenient for you but is pretty much a fixed time. So the important point is that the big dose of ammonia is pretty much the same amount at pretty much the same time each 24 hours, setting up a bit of a rhythm day after day, which I believe just helps the reading of the results down the road to be easier, nothing more than that. I mean I don't know that the bacteria particularly care, as all we know of as important to them is that they regularly see a dose of ammonia that's less than 7ppm or so and that they have available surfaces and temp and pH.

OK, so seeing "zero ppm" ammonia each day within the 24 hours is ideal and pretty common, BUT, we sometimes seem to have these cases where people put in the big dose, 4 to 5ppm, and it rapidly drops during the day but then it seems to somehow still show up as a "trace"... a tiny little bit of green or something, say, on the api test... and we'll see them then wait, sometimes for several days, for it to reach true zero ppm before they re-dose the ammonia. Now, in my mind, I'm just not sure what's going on in those cases, whether there's some legitimate thing where the tank ammonia is really not getting down to zero, or whether somehow the color is just interpreted wrong or what the heck is going on. But in those cases I tend think the cycler should just go ahead and add ammonia, even though I -usually- tell people to try and be patient and really wait for it to be zero. In other words, I think there's a difference between somebody who's too impatient when ammonia has only made it down to 1ppm or 0.5ppm (they really -should- wait) and somebody who has it go right down to a tiny trace that hardly looks dark enough for 0.25ppm (-those- people should just recharge with ammonia!)

I hate it when it takes me so many words to describe a pretty simple thought but I guess I'm just not that good of a writer! Anyway, hope you followed my thought...

~~waterdrop~~