My First Fishless Cycle Diary - 2 Tanks

[CherryDanio]

in the second pic the plants on the right (green leaves with white tips) arent aquatic, they will rot

They were removed a while ago thats a pic from when it was first set up, it looks very different now. Lots more new plants (which definatly are aquatic, will not be going back to that shop).

Ok so I was a little impatient.... I was doing the weekly water change on our little tropical tank and remembered that we hadn't changed the filter media for 6 months. It's an elite stingray model so has 2 filter sponges so I took out the half we have a spare for, chopped it down to size and put it in the little filter in the betta tank. I will be doing extra checks on the older tank to make sure the stats are ok after having changed the filter media but hopefully there won't be any problems.
CO2 injection kit has finally been installed in the DP tank so hopefully the couple of plants that look like they have a hang over will perk up (we already have plant specific lighting in there etc but had put off buying the CO2).

 

[waterdrop]

Are you doing DIY CO2 or Pressurized CO2?

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[CherryDanio]

It's a kit that we bought but it's essentially a big bottle with yeast, sugar and water and a diffuser that sits in the tank. Deliberatly bought because we can just add yeast and sugar rather than forking out for bottles of CO2. Just about to test the Betta tank...
Day 9: Betta tank
Nothing added... and nothing has gone away. No movement in ammonia and no nitrites.

DP tank: Day 7
Ammonia added this morning. 12 hours later 1ppm. No fair

I would have thought the mature media would be doing it's thing? The original tank it came from is doing absaloutly fine...
Thought maybe the ammonia is too high (8ppm - possibly higher as 8 is all the chart goes up to) so have done a quick 50% water change. Sooo much happier doing that in the Betta tank than the cold water tank (much much bigger tank and my scrawny arms can never get the big gravel vac going).

 

[waterdrop]

Yea, we just lump the kits and the total homemade ones under the term DIY CO2, so that's how I'd refer to it. Nice! Should help your plants no end. Its of course somewhat of a hassle to keep up with long term, which is what drives people to the pressurized longer term, but there's nothing wrong with finding out if you can be methodical enough!

Sometimes MM seeding just doesn't "take" but in your case I think its just too soon to tell. Its extremely common to have a long period of "no action" when you first put in ammonia and the whole process is still just barely beginning. And yes, 4ppm is vastly better than 8ppm because the wrong species of bacteria gets started at 8ppm and then slows things down it seems! Your spell of having it at 8 was hopefully too short though for any setback to have started I'd think.

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[CherryDanio]

Thanks for all the help by the way waterdrop Star!

 

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You're Welcome I like thinking I'm chatting with someone sitting in Scotland. I totally enjoyed what little visit time I had there. wd

 

[CherryDanio]

Ooh where abouts in Scotland did you get too? I've only ever been to Florida in USA and that was many many years ago.

This morning still no change in the Betta tank. :'( Not happy.
Don't have time to check DP tank and won't b able to tomorrow either as I'm away on business. Hopefully when I get ack the Betta tank might have gotten it's act together!

 

[waterdrop]

Ooh where abouts in Scotland did you get too? I've only ever been to Florida in USA and that was many many years ago.

This morning still no change in the Betta tank. :'( Not happy.
Don't have time to check DP tank and won't b able to tomorrow either as I'm away on business. Hopefully when I get ack the Betta tank might have gotten it's act together!

Landed in Glasgow, saw Stirling Castle and Wallace Monument. Had a fab time sitting outdoors at a cafe in Edinburgh, really liked that city and all the towns I saw. Stayed in homes of people I'd never met before, which was really fun! Made me really want to come back.

What sort of filtration does the betta tank have?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[CherryDanio]

Ooh where abouts in Scotland did you get too? I've only ever been to Florida in USA and that was many many years ago.

This morning still no change in the Betta tank. :'( Not happy.
Don't have time to check DP tank and won't b able to tomorrow either as I'm away on business. Hopefully when I get ack the Betta tank might have gotten it's act together!

Landed in Glasgow, saw Stirling Castle and Wallace Monument. Had a fab time sitting outdoors at a cafe in Edinburgh, really liked that city and all the towns I saw. Stayed in homes of people I'd never met before, which was really fun! Made me really want to come back.

What sort of filtration does the betta tank have?

~~waterdrop~~

Still no movement on the Betta tank. To be honest I do think the filtration is the problem. I have read a lot of people saying that Bettas do not like strong current as they are poor swimmers due to their large tails. Thus we have an elite stingray filter which is designed for up to 25L in a 28L tank (there will be only one fish in the tank and I plan ondoing veyr frequent water changes). Wondering if 4ppm is just too much for it to handle but surely we should have seen some change?

 

[waterdrop]

I thought Elite Stingrays had zeolite inside their cartridges(?), in which case they chemically remove the food that the bacteria need to eat. It can be recognized by the mix of white chips among the black carbon chips if I remember right. I remember somebody slitting these open and substituting sponges or ceramic or something for this stuff. I have never had these filters and am not there to see yours so don't just take my word on it, just wanted to warn you so you could check into the possibility.

Also I agree that you don't necessarily need to be dumping 4ppm in there (although of course its a proportion, so you're not dumping that much to acheive 4ppm in a tiny tank).. it can be 2ppm or 3ppm and be fine. RDD wrote the article making it 5ppm the whole way through in order to make it simple for all sorts of people to understand. In fact, you can go with smaller ppms of ammonia for most of the way as long as you ease up to 4 or 5ppm right at the end so that you get really robust colonies. In your case of tiny tank, tiny filter, tiny betta lol, you would probably have a fine colony at 3ppm final.

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[CherryDanio]

Nope it just has 2 sponges (no carbon or anything else). I'l do a water change to lower it again.

Betta tank: day 12
Ammonia 4ppm
Nitrite 0ppm. Boo....

DP tank: day 10
Ammonia 0.25 (12 hours after it was last added )
nitrite 5ppm

 

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Good, there must be differences in the different stingray models. I was looking at the Hagen site the other day for someone and I think I saw that there were several models...

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