My Cycle Data

[hakova]

Here is my cycling data so far:

My fishless cycle data

The nitrite levels >=5 are just estimates of course depending on how deep the purple color is.

Because I am having the high nitrites at the moment, I decided not to load the system excessively by raising the NH3 level up to 5. I know this may "starve"the NH3 bacteria a little bit but I hope to replace them with the nitrite converters partially by doing this. Any contribution will be much appreciated.

 

[waterdrop]

Usually by the time of the nitrite spike, the A-Bacs are a robust enough colony that you can cut that ammonia additions down to 2-3ppm to lower the excess nitrite that will be produced but the A-Bacs will bounce back quickly later on when you increase the ammonia adds back to 5ppm near the end of the fishless cycling process.

Either way, it doesn't really matter. Just telling people to keep adding 5ppm all the way along is simpler for everyone to understand and will work fine although I suppose it increases the likelihood a bit that one might need to perform a few water changes near the end for high nitrates.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. for me, your link required a login, so I didn't get to see it

 

[hakova]

ps. for me, your link required a login, so I didn't get to see it

Please try again waterdrop,

I don't why this happened. It should work now. Please let me know if it doesn't. Always need your feedback you know .

 

[waterdrop]

ps. for me, your link required a login, so I didn't get to see it

Please try again waterdrop,

I don't why this happened. It should work now. Please let me know if it doesn't. Always need your feedback you know .

Yes, very nice, worked for me now and I like your chart and graph!
Looks like you are getting past your nitrite spike, moving right along.
There have been one or two others that have used google docs and it certainly seems a nice way to share this info.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[hakova]

Yes, very nice, worked for me now and I like your chart and graph!
Looks like you are getting past your nitrite spike, moving right along.

This morning nitrite level was 0.25 ppm so I went back to adding NH3 enough to raise the level to 5 ppm again. Starting to challenge the system .

There have been one or two others that have used google docs and it certainly seems a nice way to share this info.

I love google docs to share documents. It is very easy to use, too. You don't need to do anything to update the page, just update your data, that's it.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, good time to start getting back up to 5ppm.

There've been a couple of people who were looking around for email and I've recommended gmail in the past. If they have a gmail acct does that mean access to gdocs automatically or is it some different acct/sign-up?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[hakova]

...There've been a couple of people who were looking around for email and I've recommended gmail in the past. If they have a gmail acct does that mean access to gdocs automatically or is it some different acct/sign-up?

Same account, unless they want to create a separate one of course. Once you login to gmail, you can use the links at the top of the page to use the calender, docs, etc. using the same account.

 

[waterdrop]

Thanks hakova, hope you have a nice weekend. WD

 

[hakova]

Thanks hakova, hope you have a nice weekend. WD

And a cycled tank by next week , right?
You have a nice weekend too, waterdrop.

 

[hakova]

I think I completed cycling. Both the ammonia and nitrite readings were 0 in 12 hours after rising the ammonia levels to 5 ppm in the morning. Please refer to my cycling data.

Now I want to plant my tank first before I populate the tank with fish (cardinal tetra x6). Since this is the long weekend and I want to order the plants online, I will not be able to get them before Wednesday. Do you guys think I can just raise the ammonia every 12 hours to 3 ppm, instead of 5? The reason why I want to do this is because I don't want to cause a horrendous increase in nitrates until Wednesday. Right now the nitrates are around 5 ppm. Don't get me wrong, I will still do a large water change before I plant the tank, which should help me get rid of most of the nitrates at that time, but I am more concerned of a pH crash secondary to the high nitrate levels which may actually harm my bacteria until then. For the first time today, I saw a pH level of 7.2, which was rock stable around 7.6 before. It may still be in the safe zone but it just made me think more conservatively, also because I have a 10 gallon tank.

I don't want to 'underfeed' my A and N bacteria by adding ammonia just enough to raise it to 3 ppm though. I have been doing this for about a week now and the A bacteria were obviously not affected. The N bacteria however just proliferated to adequate levels for the first time, so I have to try and see I guess.

Please let me know what you think.

 

[hakova]

Thanks to everybody who helped me managing my tank cycling. I was amazed to see that it took me just two weeks to finish cycling. I think I got very lucky. I wonder if cycling a 10G tank instead of a larger size one also helped. Something I did must be right I guess . Please refer to this link for the details of my cycle diary.

I just ordered my plants. I will be busy planting them next week as well as stocking the tank. I am planning to get 6 cardinal tetras and eventually some cherry shrimps. Hopefully this would not be overstocking the tank.

Cheers.

 

[waterdrop]

Your week of getting plants and adding ammonia rather than fish will be a good thing. It will constitute what we usually call your "qualifying week." Once someone reaches the wonderful day of having both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero ppm within 12 hours after 5ppm of ammonia, we find that watching it repeat that for a week or the better part of a week is a very good way to guard against "surprise blips" in the toxins. Sometimes the feedback of a fishless cycle will just fool you and still have a blip like that. Having it in this week prior to getting fish is better than having it during the first week with the new fish. Your stats look excellent though and there's every reason to believe your plan will go smoothly. Congratulations!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[hakova]

Hey guys,

I had a crazy feeling as if I could be terribly mistaken. The problem here is the nitrate readings from the API kit. Is it possible that my nitrate readings are terribly wrong?

Let me explain what happens during the test. I put 5 drops of nitrite testing solution to 5 ml of tank water. The drops settle down to the bottom of the tube in dark purple. I shake the tube for 5 seconds. At this time the color reading is consistent with 5.0 ppm. After waiting for 5 minutes the color turns into a turqouise color as seen in the picture.

I always thought this was consistent with 0 ppm, but today my wife told me that it looked rather green and it didn't look loke any color on the chart. This alarmed me when combined with the fact that it has been only two weeks since I started cycling and I was thinking that I was done. Am I not done you think? My nitrate levels are still around 5. This is yet another factor that made me think that I may still be in early stages of cycling.

Unfortunately I already placed the order for plants. I will try to put them on hold until I can reach to a conclusion. Your opinions ASAP are much appreciated.

 

[marksp]

Hey guys,

I had a crazy feeling as if I could be terribly mistaken. The problem here is the nitrate readings from the API kit. Is it possible that my nitrate readings are terribly wrong?

Let me explain what happens during the test. I put 5 drops of nitrite testing solution to 5 ml of tank water. The drops settle down to the bottom of the tube in dark purple. I shake the tube for 5 seconds. At this time the color reading is consistent with 5.0 ppm. After waiting for 5 minutes the color turns into a turqouise color as seen in the picture.

I always thought this was consistent with 0 ppm, but today my wife told me that it looked rather green and it didn't look loke any color on the chart. This alarmed me when combined with the fact that it has been only two weeks since I started cycling and I was thinking that I was done. Am I not done you think? My nitrate levels are still around 5. This is yet another factor that made me think that I may still be in early stages of cycling.

Unfortunately I already placed the order for plants. I will try to put them on hold until I can reach to a conclusion. Your opinions ASAP are much appreciated.

Hi

Follow the instructions !! I think on the API kit you shake then read. Some you have to wait 1 minute.
Cycling in 2 weeks is unlikely - 4 weeks is the norm but that varies with temperature. I use rotting prawns to cycle my tanks when I cant use filter media from another tank

 

[hakova]

[...Follow the instructions !! I think on the API kit you shake then read. Some you have to wait 1 minute.
...

Thanks for the reply. According to the instructions in the API kit, you need to wait for 5 minutes for the color to develop. I read somewhere in this forum that drops settling to the bottom in deep purple color as well as the 5 min color converting to green indicated nitrates over the roof. However my color perception at 5 minutes was rather turquoise blue rather than green. I guess my question is what do you think the color on the picture is: green or blue? I know it is rather unfair to expect you to answer this question with the posted picture but your opinion counts.

Thanks.