My Cycling Diary

[drain_bamaged]

Hello

Well as some of you know, I left my tank for a few days before adding some Ammonia. When I brought my tank, it came with a solution which helped to cultivate the bactaria needed. In the few days since ive had my tank set up, I have recorded some low levels of Ammonia and NitrIte. To stop the process from stalling, I added a few flakes of food (lierally, a pinch!) and yesterday at 7PM, I added the ammonia to ramp it up to 5ppm.

So its 24 hours later and here are my first set of results (any insight will be greatly appreciated!)

28.7.09 @ 7pm

Ammonia - 5ppm
Nitrate/Niterite- not tested for
PH- Not tested for

29.7.09 @ 7pm

Ammonia- 1.2 mg/l (which is roughly 2ppm- I say roughly because my tester goes on mg/l, and I am using the colour guide to roughly convert it to ppm for you lot/universal understanding!!!)

Nitrate/Niterite- not tested for
PH- 8.5/9.0

SO what do you lovely lot think? It seems to me that in 24 hours the ammonia has dropped by just over half is pretty ### good going! Should I be concerned by the high PH- i know this is a by product of adding ammonia and I am not worried...yet at least!!! I am going to test for nitrate/niterite tomorrow.

30.5.09:

Ammonia- this seems to have risen, but I think I may not have given the chemicals enough time to mix yesterday!!- this is 2.0 m/l

Niterite- 0.5 mg/l

31.5.09

Ammonia - still 2.0 mg/l

Niterate- 50 mg/l (the box description for this is ' acceptable for most freshwater species, reduce for sensitive fish')

nitrite- (this is the first time I have tested for this)- between 0.25 and 0.5...its hard to tell which colour it is haha

 

[drain_bamaged]

I have just done a tap water test, and it seems to be pegged at 8.5PH

 

[Rediahs]

I'm a tad confused. Are you adding liquid ammonia or fish food? You don't need to do both. If you have liquid ammonia there's no point in adding fish food, it will just rot in the tank and wont' do anything productive. If you don't have ammonia, you can use fish food but it's highly recommended you try to find some liquid ammonia. Adding fish food along with ammonia won't help the process from "stalling" - most stalls that people talk about are from low pH.

 

[drain_bamaged]

I am using liquid ammonia.

To stop the process from stalling (my tank has been set up for a week, well, since Saturday), I used very few flakes of fish food to keep the process from stalling on Wednesday and again on Thursday...the ammonia levels were normal when I tested on Friday(so the flakes had been taken care of) and that is when I added the proper liquid ammonia. I am no longer using fish flakes.

Hope that clears things up!"

 

[Rediahs]

That didn't explain much... lol...

I still don't understand why you feel you need fish food if you are using liquid ammonia?

Your cycle seems excessively fast, are you using mature media? Or does your filter have zeolite media in it?

 

[drain_bamaged]

My two posts explain everything I have done, Chrissie! lol

When I set the tank up, it came with a solution to encourage the bacteria growth, and evidently, it has worked!! So I set the tank up on Saturday, with the solution and I left it for a few days. On Wednesday I tested the water and it came back with low levels of (almost zero) Ammonia and Nitrite. To stop the process from stalling (and because I didnt have any liquid ammonia) I used just a pinch of Fish food. When I did manage to get hold of some Liquid Ammonia, I added that!!

 

[Rediahs]

Oh so you used fish food when you didn't have any ammonia.

Gotcha.

 

[drain_bamaged]

Bump!!

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds like you have made some progress DB. Don't worry about trying to convert mg/l to ppm, they are basically the same number since ppm is mass of solute / mass of solution and water has a specific gravity of 1.0. Keep feeding the ammonia in as needed and measuring the results and you will get the cycle done eventually. It looks like you at least have some ammonia processing bacteria but we don't know yet if you have any of the nitrite processing bacteria.

 

[drain_bamaged]

Thanks for the insight Oldman! SO today I have tested for all three, and it seems that I do have Nitirite processing bacteria! The Ammonia doesnt seem to have dropped yet- but I understand this can take up to a week! Today, I was able to get hold of some 'mature' ornamants, and mature water, which I have also added to the tank, so hopefully this will speed everything up...im hoping to get hold of some mature media tomorrow!!

Cheers

Darren

ps- can every please comment on my results...the more insight I have, the better!!!

 

[waterdrop]

Probably the two most common misconceptions about fishless cycling are:
1) That its pretty predictable and that thus you can expect to see certain results within certain time frames.
2) That its a process you can "speed up" a lot by doing the right things.

Here in the beginner section we try to give newcomers ideas of the time frames we've seen for dozens or hundreds of individual cases, and we try to relate all the things we feel are the best helps for a fishless cycle, but in the end, none of that can change the fact that its frequently a pretty slow process overall and it remains a quite unpredictable when watched on a day to day basis.

You really do just have to settle in, knowing that it could take two solid months of having a steady hand testing and adding ammonia when needed and trying to be patient. If you're lucky, particularly with mature media added, you could come out of it a lot sooner than that but its better to be prepared the the two month scenerio in my opinion.

Some of the factors we like to pay attention to are that good biomedia was chosen for the filter (Sponges, ceramic rings, ceramic gravels, rough plastic "brillo" like things, plastic bioballs are among the best of the biomedia types.) That the "bacterial growing soup" is kept at a good temperature (84F/29C is my choice for ideal), that the water has a bit of calcium in it (this is achieved by the water having some hardness, ie. not being totally soft!), that there is a bit of trace iron in there (just about any tap water probably does, but at dash of common aquatic plant fertilizer (even thought there aren't any plants in there) would do the trick for that), that a few ppm of ammonia "re-appear" (due to the watchful fishless cycler adding some ammonia!) within a day or two of the test saying ammonia is now zero, that there is plenty of oxygen for the bacteria due to the filter pump pushing fresh water through the filter and there being surface agitation so that the water gets more oxygen from the air above.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[drain_bamaged]

Waterdrop- your knowledge is encyclopaedic! I have seen you post of all manner of subjects, and it all seems to be pretty sound advice!!! I know that cycling can take up to two months, but im going to try and do everything I can to speed that up lol!!!

So I tested for ammonia yesterday (1.6.09), I didnt have time to test anything else.

Ammonia- between 2.0 & 4.0

The reading was definitely lighter then the day before, so I would say its nearer to 2.0 then anything else lol, but its so ### difficult to tell!!!!

I should add that the reading was taken 24 hours after adding some mature media...which is doing its job!!! Hence the lighter colour reading!!!

 

[drain_bamaged]

2/6/09

Ph- really high 9.0 (should I be concerned about this at such an early stage!?)

Ammonia- I have decided this is at 4.0mg/l... definetly lol

Nitrite- 0.25 mg/l

Nitrate- 50 mg/l

So, as ever, what do you think?

 

[waterdrop]

Don't worry about the 9, it will probably drop down later and be more optimal.

~~wd~~

 

[drain_bamaged]

Brilliant, I was beginning to wonder if the PH would stop the bacteria from multiplying! What is the optimal temp for bacteria growth? T the moment I have my heater set to 23oC but I have a feeling it should be 28?