Newbie Fishless Cycling Question

[september_blue]

New to tropical fish after I decided to set up my old coldwater tank as a tropical one. I went out and bought all the equipment before doing any research (yeah, oops) and only thought to start reading up on this stuff after I got contradictory advice at the LFS and my local Petsmart. A few days and a lot of reading later, I've learned about fishless cycling and decided to go that route rather than the fish-in cycling the LFS recommended. I've got a 14(US)g tank with a couple of live plants, a bottle of Stress Zyme they sold me at Petsmart (since found out it's probably useless, but thought I may as well keep using it since it's here now), and an API liquid test kit. Can't get ammonia, so I'm cycling with fish food. I was also lucky enough to get hold of some mature filter media, but left that in a non-running filter for two days before finding out that those bacteria need running water and an ammonia food source to live off. Oops, again. I really do feel like such an idiot newbie here, and I don't even have any fish yet!

Anyway, I put some of the mature filter media in on the off-chance some bacteria had survived, and set the tank up running. I'm now on day 5 of the cycle, and my figures are confusing me.

Readings for tap water/tank on day 1:
pH: 8.0
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: Close to 0.

Tank on day 3:
pH: 7.4
Ammonia: 0.75
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: Close to 0.

Since things clearly weren't going anywhere fast, I didn't bother with the whole range of tests on day 4, but I did test the ammonia to see what that was doing. It had gone up to just above 1.0.

Day 5, today:
Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrites: somewhere between 0.25 and 0.5
Nitrates: Close to 0.

So, my questions: Is this what I should be seeing at this point in the cycle? (I was expecting it to take much longer before ammonia started falling and nitrites started showing up!) And since the ammonia 'spike' never got much above 1.0, will the nitrite levels stay on the low side too? Is it possible that some of the nitrifying bacteria on the mature filter media survived, and that they're affecting things? What on earth is going on in this tank?

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Ammonia generally starts to drop pretty quickly but nitrite takes a while. You will need to keep some flake in the tank to keep the ammonia present. Using flakes, you may get to a point that you aren't seeing any ammonia as the bacteria are processing it as fast as the flakes break down but as long as the nitrite is rising, you know things are going as planned. You don't necessarily need to get the ammonia too high but you do want to get it high enough to build a good colony.

Where do you live that you can't find ammonia? Australia is the only place that it seems it simply isn't available.

 

[september_blue]

Thank you! I'll keep a close eye on those nitrites, then. I'm in the UK, so I should be able to get hold of ammonia, but I can't seem to find it for love nor money despite following up recommendations from here and elsewhere - nowhere near me seems to be selling any, and I'm in a fairly small town. I'm still looking, though, and there's a few places I haven't tried yet. I'd prefer to use pure ammonia just so I had a bit more control over some of the water chemistry, but I'll stick to flakes until I can get hold of some.

 

[littlest]

I've found in Boots (even in quite small branches). It was a bit difficult to find as they only have a very small cleaning section and the assistant told me they didn't have any when they did.
I've also found it in pound shops and markets. It's an old-fashioned cleaning product so tends to be found in places like that.

Others have said Homebase and hardware stores (not looked there personally).

 

[SarahB]

Thank you! I'll keep a close eye on those nitrites, then. I'm in the UK, so I should be able to get hold of ammonia, but I can't seem to find it for love nor money despite following up recommendations from here and elsewhere - nowhere near me seems to be selling any, and I'm in a fairly small town. I'm still looking, though, and there's a few places I haven't tried yet. I'd prefer to use pure ammonia just so I had a bit more control over some of the water chemistry, but I'll stick to flakes until I can get hold of some.

go to the cleaning product section in homebase , and you will find a bottle of ammonia (homebase brand ) with a blue label . its 1.99 and its what most use for the fishless cycling .