New Tank - Pictures And Fishless Cycle Diary

[mark1979]

looks great mate!!

i would check the reliability of your bio-orb thermometer,mine is 1 degree out from my rena heater

 

[gogfumble]

New piccies!

I got the rest of my plants last week and popped them in and had a bit of a sort out and moved the filter to the back right hand corner.

Some of the plants are going a bit brown though so not sure what to do about that. the Java moss on the wood is mostly brown too so am considering getting rid of that.

Full tank:

Left side:

Right Side:

Thanks for all the advise guys. it is much appreciated.

Mark> I noticed that with the bi-orb one too. I have my heater set at 27 and the stick on thermometer reads 27 but the bi-orb one reads 26. I wasn't planning on leaving it in there once cycled anyway, just wanted it so I could get a firm reading and see if the freebie sticky thermometer was doing it's job - and it turns out to be doing a better job than the bi-orb one that I paid for. Typical!

 

[Bungy]

Tank is looking good. Dont worrey too much about a bit of brown on the plants, there is normally a bit of die-back when first planted - give the roots time to establish and they will be fine. The plants benefit from the waste from the fish as it works its way through the gravel by means of fertaliser - getting the balance right is important though as not to leave too much detritus behind when you hoover the gravel. You may consider making your own DIY CO2 system which is dead easy (2ltr coke bottle, sugar, yeast, airline tubing, none-return valve and a bit of sillicone sealant) the plants will thrive on it and it will work fine for a tank that size.

 

[gogfumble]

Today's results:

Ammonia - 2
NitrIte - didn't go off the charts! - 0.50
PH - 8

Bit baffles that nitrites seemed to have dropped so quick but Ammonia has gone up!

No Ammonia added today, will see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully all the readings will start to drop now.

 

[waterdrop]

Today's results:

Ammonia - 2
NitrIte - didn't go off the charts! - 0.50
PH - 8

Bit baffles that nitrites seemed to have dropped so quick but Ammonia has gone up!

No Ammonia added today, will see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully all the readings will start to drop now.

Hi gogfumble,

What baffles -me- is how you could have experienced the appearance of much later stages of fishless cycling so very early on in your fishless cycle! I've almost never seen anyone have ammonia dropping almost immediately and the nitrite spike appear on Day 5. Now it appears your N-Bac population is proceeding on quite far and yet your A-Bac popuation is stumbling a blt.

Did you use any mature media? If not then perhaps you were just quite lucky with your plants or decorations or perhaps with your tap water! At any rate you are only at the end of Week 2 by my reading and so you just need to have a steady hand and add ammonia once a day at your "24-hour point" if ammonia went down to zero at any point in the preceeding 24 hours. Be sure that you are not adding ammonia to more than 5ppm at the most.

Now that you are past your first 2 weeks, its time to be testing twice a day probably and its best if this is done 12 hours apart such that you can be home at both your morning time and your evening time. For instance, you might test at 8pm and add ammonia at that time if ammonia was appropriate. Then at 8am, 12 hours later, you would do your "12-hour" test and post it up telling us it was the "12-hour test" and then at 8pm you'd post up the "24-hour test" and you'd add ammonia to 5ppm if ammonia had reached zero ppm at any time during the previous 24 hours. Anyway, showing us the "timing" of a test is just as important as telling us the test results. And you and us watching the "trend" of your results is more valuable than any one given result.

Hope that helps, ~~waterdrop~~

 

[gogfumble]

Thanks for all the advice Waterdrop, that's really helpful.

I have neglected to say that I have always been doing my 24 hour test at 11am (bar the first few tests which I had put a time down for) and will probably keep it at this when I move on to the 12 hour tests as I am usually about at 11am and 11pm.

Anyway, on to yesterdays results:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - Off the charts AGAIN!

Topped ammonia back up to 5ppm.

I dunno what my nitrites are doing now.

Edit - and today's were the same too, Ammonia 0 and Nitrites off the charts.

I think whatever the nitrites were doing was just a glitch. they don't seem to be dropping at all now.

 

[waterdrop]

gog, you can temporarily ease your ammonia top-ups down to about 3ppm during this nitrite spike so that not so much nitrite will be being produced. Just make sure we ease it back up to 5ppm near the end of fishless cycling when nitrites are dropping to zero in less than 24 hours.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[gogfumble]

HI all

Sorry for my absence, life has been very busy the last week or so.

Anyway, between my last report on the 13th and the 18th I went to testing every 12 hours.

Ammonia has been behaving itself nicely and has been cycling in 12 hours no problem.
NitrItes FINALLY hit 0 on the 19th and as of the Sunday it was getting down to 0 in 12 hours and has been holding since.

Todays readings were:

Ammonia - 0 (Topped back up to 5ppm after testing)
NitrItes - 0
NitrAtes - 10

So, since Sunday I have been cycling Ammonia and NitrItes in 12 hours so that's a good sign.

What about NitrAtes, do I need to wait for them to get down to 0 as well? I have quite a heavily planted tank so don't know if that makes a difference?

I tested PH and it was 8 but not really taking much notice of that until after I do my big water change as I know cycling will affect it.

How's it looking to you more knowledgeable people? My cycle seems to have gone very quickly compared to some other diaries on here.

 

[waterdrop]

You've already reached the goal for starting your "qualifying week," at least by my quick look. If you can drop 5ppm of ammonia to zero ammonia and zero nitrite in less than 12 hours then that's it! What you do is keep feeding it ammonia, testing and watching it for the qualifying week and if it just keeps doing it then you are ready for your big water change and introduction fish (all happens in roughly the same day so that the bacteria food source switches over smoothly from the hand ammonia to the fish waste.)

pH=8.0 is in the ideal range for maximum bacteria growth rate, so that may have helped you. The speed of a fishless cycle (without mature media, which I didn't see listed in your thread) can vary tremendously just by whether your water source happens to have a good supply of chlorine-resistant Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira - this may be why you got a better start than others, or it could be other factors, too hard to tell really.

~~waterdrop~~