My Fishless Cycle.

[Miss Wiggle]

wait around an hr so all the new water has mixed with the old.

for the siphon to work the other way round you'll need to hold the bucket up above the height of the waterline in the tank. depends on where your tank is etc if this is possible. on my 200litre 6 foot tall tank it's really not an option!!

 

[Joinerlavin]

what If its a battery operated pump connected to the hose sucking the water from the bucket to the tank? tank is chest height.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ah yeah, if you've a pump it can work, depends on the pump though, your a practical guy so i'm sure you understand how different pumps have the ability to pump different volumes of water up to a different height. give ti a try and see what happens but have plenty of towels to hand!

 

[Joinerlavin]

haha yea, its quite dangerous playing with water aswell, next to my tv, sky box and playstation lol

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup, you'd be surprised how much water you can throw over your electrics before they blow up, and yes i am speaking from experience!

 

[Joinerlavin]

haha

 

[Joinerlavin]

just checked my water perimeters:

Ammonia = 2ppm

Nitrite = 5ppm

Nitrate = 40 ppm??

Ph = 6.8

why is my nitrate so high after a 50% water change

 

[Miss Wiggle]

because it was a lot higher before!

1ppm of ammonia makes 2.7ppm of nitrite, can't remember how much nitrate you get from each 1ppm of nitrite however I think it's similar so once the ammonia starts going through quickly it all multiplies exponentially and you get loads of nitrite and nitrate.

don't worry the nitrate will go from your big water change at the end.

have you tested the nitrate of your tap water by the way?

 

[backtotropical]

can't remember how much nitrate you get from each 1ppm of nitrite

1ppm ammonia = 2.7ppm nitrite = 3.7ppm nitrate

so

1ppm nitrite = 1/2.7*3.7 = 1.4ppm nitrate

 

[Joinerlavin]

yes I tested my tap water when I first got the test, There was 0 Nitrite and 0 Nitrate.

Another question I need to ask is, My first fish I am going to get are 3 Pygmy catfish, and will leave them alone in the tank for 2 weeks, but I dont think that they would produce enough ammonia to keep the bacteria alive, Am I right in thinking that? What would I need to do, keep adding ammonia?

and thanks for all your posts you are all very helpfull.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

nah if you keep adding ammonia you'll kill the cories so that's out.

if you're gonna just add a few fish then some bacteria will die off, it's unavoidable unfortunately, anything that you could do to feed the bacteria will most likely harm the cories.

what will happen is the bacteria die back to the point where they just handle the waste from the cories, then you have to build up stocking very slowly and carefully from that point to avoid a mini cycle.

 

[waterdrop]

Ah, but don't forget that its still good that you built up the nice solid colonies to begin with because they will always be more "robust" for that. Dispite the die-back, a colony that's been bigger is better than a small new one that is just building up. The big one that died back will be better at not "mini-cycling" than if you hadn't done a well-qualified cycle.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Joinerlavin]

oki cheers guys

 

[Joinerlavin]

Does day 20 look ok? Nitrite gone down quick, did 50% water change yesterday.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes all going according to plan