Mid-Cycle Questions

[CezzaXV]

Hello all!

Before I start, here is a link to my journal thread, if anyone needs any more information on what I'm doing: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/372282-cycle-journal/

I'm getting a bit confused here.

Basically, I got my first 0 for ammonia yesterday. I redosed 2.6ml of ammonia to bring it up to roughly 4ppm (it may have been more; I personally can't really tell the difference between the colours of 4 and 8 on the API colour chart), and when I tested tonight (roughly 36 hours later), I got another 0, and redosed 2.5ml to get back up to 4ppm.

My question is, now what? I've seen some conflicting advice about the place, and I'm unsure where to proceed.

I've not done a water change at all this cycle, and my nitrates are building. Not sure if this makes any difference to the cycle, but they currently stand around 80ppm. I've seen on another thread I need to get the nitrite down to a reasonable level to know if it's processing, but according to the sticky, it says nitrite will go off the chart for what seems like forever, then one day they'll all vanish. I THINK my nitrites are currently around 5ppm, though it's hard to tell. The guide says that with the API kit, the drops will go instantly purple in the bottom of the tube. They stay blue, but after I shake the tube it goes purple pretty much instantaneously, then turns very dark purple.

Looking for some concrete advice here, it's all a bit confusing

 

[Katch]

add your ammonia every 24 hours at the same time. Bacteria respond well to this pulsing of ammonia and increase at the best possible rate this way.

dose up to 1-2ppm and watch for nitrites to go off the chart. won't be long now.

keep an eye on your pH every 24 hours as well. if you see it drop below 6 do a large water change (might as well be 100%) refill with dechlorinated temp matched water and then dose the days ammonia.

just stick with it and be patient now. after the nitrites are off the chart its just a case of waiting for them to come back on the chart again.

 

[CezzaXV]

Cheers for the advice.

I will add my ammonia in the evenings only now. I only added in the morning yesterday as I got 0-0.25 the night before and suspected the next morning that it'd be 0 so I tested it and redosed. I'm currently doing it around 6-6.30PM, but I'll start doing it around 8.15PM once I get into 12 hour testing as it'll fit in with my work hours in the morning better.

I'll reduce my dosage of ammonia from now. I'll halve my dose tomorrow (assuming I get another 0) and see what that gives me.

My natural tapwater has a pH of 6.4 after standing for 24 hours. My tank seems to average around 7.6-7.8, but I get a very bright pinky purple colour on the high pH test after dosing with ammonia. Low pH has yet to be a problem.

There's something about the 12 hour testing I want to clarify too. You're testing for when it can process X ammonia into 0 am and 0 ni in 12 hours, but why do you only dose every 24 hours if that's the case?

So, you think I don't need to do a water change at the minute, just lower my ammonia input and keep monitoring the levels?

 

[Katch]

our aim is to have a tank that can process 5ppm ammonia into nitrate in 12 hours. This means our filter will be good enough to handle being stocked with fish.

We dose every 24 hours for the pulsing effect I mentioned. Bacteria respond well to pulses of ammonia and increase at a greater rate this way. If you dose every 12 hours you overload the system very quickly leading to poor bacteria division and nitrate build up.

It is actually an advantage to have the tested ammonia level drop to zero by 12 hours and then not recharge the ammonia until the 24 hour mark. In the Waste Water Treatment world, this is called "pulsing" and I believe is used to better optimize autotrophic growth. The other thing that happens is that when our ammonia kits read zero ppm the ammonia is actually tracing downward but still feeding the bacteria - a correctly running biofilter will always read zero but will always be feeding the bacteria sufficiently (though it will not be dropping off to true zero because the fish are supplying ammonia in that case.)

It is also a fallacy that you can fishless cycle faster if you choose to only stock 3/4 and try to estimate the ammonia dosing down from 5ppm to 3ppm as I believe Si (PDSimon) is trying to do here. The purpose of the 5ppm is to mainly to create sufficiently robust colonies that they will not "mini-cycle" after fish are added no matter what the stocking is and the 5ppm is also to stimulate for the correct species (as C101 has mentioned, 7-8ppm stimulates the wrong species.) In fact, 3ppm -is- a good dosing level for the nitrite spike phase of the fishless cycle (to lessen the overall nitrogen going in) but 5ppm are better for the first and third phases, before and after the nitrite spike.

None of this is a particularly big deal and we can talk about it some more.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[CezzaXV]

Okie doke, that's cool. I'll halve my dose of ammonia next time around, then just keep monitoring nitrite levels until they drop. Then it's onto 12 hour testing and dosing every 24 (if it's at 0 by then). I'm assuming once I get onto 12 hour testing, I need to increase my dose of ammonia back up to 5ppm to know that it's processing that much.

 

[Katch]

soon as the nitrite spike phase ends you can go back to 5ppm.

 

[Gvilleguy]

Katch giving great advice. If it helps any you can read the do / do not list in my signature. Might fill in some of the gaps for you.

 

[Miles_hot]

you might want to raise your pH to 8 for the duration of the cycle (of course when you get fish you don't mess about with the pH) as the bacteria prefer this. If you notice the cycle stall - i.e. suddenly either stop processing as fast or the rate of change drops away sharply - this is a good time to do a 100% water change to reboot the system back to a "normal" state. Sounds like you're making good progress

 

[HayzH]

Hello all!

Before I start, here is a link to my journal thread, if anyone needs any more information on what I'm doing: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/372282-cycle-journal/

I'm getting a bit confused here.

Basically, I got my first 0 for ammonia yesterday. I redosed 2.6ml of ammonia to bring it up to roughly 4ppm (it may have been more; I personally can't really tell the difference between the colours of 4 and 8 on the API colour chart), and when I tested tonight (roughly 36 hours later), I got another 0, and redosed 2.5ml to get back up to 4ppm.

My question is, now what? I've seen some conflicting advice about the place, and I'm unsure where to proceed.

I've not done a water change at all this cycle, and my nitrates are building. Not sure if this makes any difference to the cycle, but they currently stand around 80ppm. I've seen on another thread I need to get the nitrite down to a reasonable level to know if it's processing, but according to the sticky, it says nitrite will go off the chart for what seems like forever, then one day they'll all vanish. I THINK my nitrites are currently around 5ppm, though it's hard to tell. The guide says that with the API kit, the drops will go instantly purple in the bottom of the tube. They stay blue, but after I shake the tube it goes purple pretty much instantaneously, then turns very dark purple.

Looking for some concrete advice here, it's all a bit confusing

Tis isnt it?? i'm winging it now....havent a clue what im doing!?

 

[Katch]

Nothing wrong with winging it. Just keep at it and keep an eye on your pH.

pH drops below 6 then we do a massive water change.

ammonia added every 24 hours test every 12 hours looking for double zero at 12.

As soon as you can add 5ppm ammonia to the tank and 12 hours later there is no ammonia or nitrite the tank is cycled. We repeat this for 1 week to make sure it wasn't a fluke or misreading.

Double zeros at 12 hours for 1 week = fish time.

Just make sure the tank is cycling 5ppm at this stage.

 

[HayzH]

Nothing wrong with winging it. Just keep at it and keep an eye on your pH.

pH drops below 6 then we do a massive water change.

ammonia added every 24 hours test every 12 hours looking for double zero at 12.

As soon as you can add 5ppm ammonia to the tank and 12 hours later there is no ammonia or nitrite the tank is cycled. We repeat this for 1 week to make sure it wasn't a fluke or misreading.

Double zeros at 12 hours for 1 week = fish time.

Just make sure the tank is cycling 5ppm at this stage.

how do i know this..if there is no 5ppm on the colour chart??

 

[Katch]

Nothing wrong with winging it. Just keep at it and keep an eye on your pH.

pH drops below 6 then we do a massive water change.

ammonia added every 24 hours test every 12 hours looking for double zero at 12.

As soon as you can add 5ppm ammonia to the tank and 12 hours later there is no ammonia or nitrite the tank is cycled. We repeat this for 1 week to make sure it wasn't a fluke or misreading.

Double zeros at 12 hours for 1 week = fish time.

Just make sure the tank is cycling 5ppm at this stage.

how do i know this..if there is no 5ppm on the colour chart??

as posted in your thread - just putting it here for completeness.

Work out the dosage using this calc for your tank size.

http/www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm

 

[KittyKat]

Just make sure the tank is cycling 5ppm at this stage.

how do i know this..if there is no 5ppm on the colour chart??

Work out the dosage using this calc for your tank size.

http/www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm

And don't forget to use the actual amount of water you have in the tank, not the stated volume. For example, my "60 litre" tank is actually 65 litres in volume when full to the brim and without substrate, but after substrate and because of evaporation, the actual amount of water inside it varied between 40 and 50 litres for the duration of the cycle and is closer to 35 - 40 litres now that the rest of the décor is in.