Nitrite Dropping - When?

[waterdrop]

In answer to your previous days question, yes, its quite common for us to see ammonia give a stumble and show some traces, right about the time that the nitrite spike is ending and you are waiting for nitrite to drop even faster. Its no big deal and eventually goes away.

You certainly look close to getting to start your qualifying week!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Zia]

Oh, so good to hear you mention an NH3 stumble. I never heard that before, and just encountered it in my own tank today!

 

[fishy55]

Today is day 33 and I have had these results for the last few days, ammonia (4ppm) has been added after the pm test:


28 am Ammonia 0.0 Nitrite 0.0 to 0.25
28 pm Ammonia 0-0.25 Nitrite 0
29 am Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0.25
29 pm Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0
30 am Ammonia 0.25 Nitrite 0.0-0.25
30 pm Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0
31 am Ammonia 0.5 Nitrite 0
31 pm Ammonia 0.25 Nitrite 0
32 am Ammonia 1.0 Nitrite 0.0-0.25
32 pm Ammonia 0.5-1.0 Nitrite 0
33 am Ammonia 1.0-2.0 Nitrite 0
33 pm Ammonia 1.0 Nitrite 0

Is this normal for the ammonia to be going up slightly each day? I know waterdrop has said that it can take a stumble but my stumble seemed to be on days 24 to 27 where most days I had some in the morning test and then on day 28 and 29 it was back to nil and now just look at it it goes up every day.

The nitrite seems to be doing its stuff though as since day 28 the am test has been 0.25 or less and the pm test nil.

Any suggestions as to if I should put more ammonia in tonight, I am thinking not and leaving it for 24 hours as there is still quite a bit in there. Let that clear and then start again sort of thing.

 

[waterdrop]

You are just "watching the pot boil" too closely. You can't really read much into trends of only a few days. These are messy biological systems. They don't create nice clean data curves. The meander down and up and up a down and could stumble any number of times. Look at Nork's cycle, they can even look clean and perfect in something like 3 weeks and then backfire on you. To me it seems pretty good to be down to the low numbers you have at only a month. You've been better than most by noting -which- time you add ammonia, which most logs forget to do but you also need to keep us informed about pH, temp and the occasional nitrate reading!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fishy55]

Waterdrop,

Thanks for your reply. Yes maybe I am watching the "pot boil too closely" but with twice daily tests and a tank full of water and no fish, it is inevitable.

I will just have to be patient.

Fishy55

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, don't forget that for those of us who follow a lot of fishless cycle threads in here, a qualifying week that started at about 30 day mark would be a very early one. Some people even say a slow cycle is a good cycle. It gets hard once you've put in over a month of this kind of testing and watching (I forget sometimes!) It takes quite a lot of patience and you find yourself wishing you could somehow find these darn bacteria in your backyard and throw them into the tank (makes it easy to understand the psychology of the bottled bacteria thing!) Hang in there.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fishy55]

Day 35

Ammonia was at 1.0 to 2.0 and nitrite was around 0.5, this was 14 hours after adding the ammonia to bring the tank up to around 4ppm.

Temperature is around 28/29C, and it has always been around this since the start. I have just tested my ph and nitrate.

Nitrate seems to be around 10.0 to 20.0 BUT the ph is 6.0 (API master test kit and a really pale yellow colour).....I understand that to be very bad and it has crashed!!!!! A week ago it was 7.2 - I promise to test ph daily from now on.

Having done some research on this site, I added about 1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda about 30 minutes ago (thats all I had in the cupboard), the tank has 76 litres of water in it. Is there anything else I can do. I changed 1/2 of the water on day 23.

If this does help the ph recover and then it starts to drop again at what point should I be adding more bicarb of soda or doing something else?

Oh Dear!!

Fishy55

 

[waterdrop]

No big deal. I'd stroll to the grocery next door and pick up another box of bicarb, nice and fresh! Then, if you have time this weekend (or you could wait until next) I'd do a nice thorough gravel-clean-water-change with nice deep turning of the gravel and take all the water out down to the gravel level. Leave water in the filter for the bacteria though! (I always siphon out into a bucket such that I have a bucket of tank water at the end with which to take my cup so I can temperature match. Then refill the entire tank with conditioned (condition at 1.5x to 2x but not more than 2x) and roughly temperature match with your hand. Then dose the ammonia to 4ppm again and put in the new bicarb at 1 tablespoon per 50 liters sort of level. It may take a couple of days for the readings to settle back down from this but it should help the cycle.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fishy55]

Tested ph twice yesterday evening, 1 hour after adding the bicarb it was 8.0 and three hours after that 7.8.

Ammonia was 0.25 at the 24 hour test and Nitirite 1.0 (that was a proper 1.0 with the drops going blue in the bottom of the tube and developing from blue to purpley colours).

At 9pm last night I then dosed the ammonia back up.

At 10am this morning, but the clocks went forward in the night so that is really 9am (It is now summer in britain according to the clocks!) the ammonia is nil Nitrite still about 1.0 and ph back up to 8.0. I think that means things are moving again.

I have bought the extra bicarb it is in the cupboard waiting, what level of ph ideally do I need in the tank?

Fishy55

 

[waterdrop]

Glad you are back on track. That is what should happen.

A pH of 8.0 to 8.4 is the range in which the very fastest autotrophic bacterial growth is achieved. A pH of 6.2 is the level where bacterial growth stalls out. Speed of development very slowly drops off as you go downward between 8.0 and 6.2 pH.

If your bicarb achieves anything above 7 or so that should be good enough though. Its better not to overdo the adding of any sort of addition to the tank such as bicarb.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fishy55]

Hi all,

Thought I would provide a bit of an update and hopefully get answers to a few questions.

Today is day 48.

On day 42 pH started dropping again as it went from 7.6 to 7.0 overnight, topped up the bicarb to sort that.

On day 43 changed all of the water. Starting pH 7.0. pH then seemed to slowly start rising to 7.6 and Am and NI low but not nil 12 hour test.

Day 46 added more bicarb as pH went back to 7.0 and didn't want to risk it crashing. This brought the pH back to 8.0.

Day 47 was the 1st day of 0.0 ammonia and 0.0 nitrite at 12 hour test. but pH seemed to be a bit of a strange colour, not like anything really on the high range chart but closest to 8.4 if I had to pick one.

Day 48 was the same 0.0 at the 12 hour test for both. So looking good.

I was hoping to get guppies, tetras and panda corys, about 6 of each (tank is 90l). I know that pandas are a bit delicate, are any of the other corys a similar size but not so delicate?

The substrate currently is a fine dorset pea gravel (see pics below), I know sand is best for corys but is fine gravel ok, as I have loads of this I really don't want to change it if it isn't totally necessary? If I do swap to sand how do you clean it as I would imagine it would all end going into the bucket through the gravel cleaner? I intend putting live plants into the tank (and probably removing most of the plastic ones shown in the pictures below), is sand or fine gravel best for this?

When you use a gravel cleaner how do you avoid killing the fish?

I have a piece of slate that was picked up on a beach a couple of years ago, can I use that in the tank? It is currently soaking in water dechlorinator. The tank already contains 2 bits of bog wood, smooth stones, one large stone and one twig (as my children call it - this did come from an aquatics shop) which looks a bit like the whomping willow out of Harry Potter

As this tank is going to be fully fishless cycled, Do I put all the fish in together or just some at a time as I am rather confused on this point?

 

[Twinklecaz]

What a lovely looking tank!

 

[fishy55]

Twinklecaz,

Thanks for that, it would look even better with fish in it

 

[Twinklecaz]

LOl yeah. Look at it this way, you're much further into your cycle than I am

 

[fishy55]

Hi all again, I have posted some questions and pictures above but I have now thought of more things I am hoping for advice on.

Plants
I was going to get some from last trading post on ebay (the 50 easy to grow bundle).

I have recently ordered seachem prime and when I was at it ordered some flourish and flourish excel as well. I as now wondering whether the above plants would be okay or not, any ideas anyone?

My tank is a fluval roma 90, this has a canopy of 60x35cm and came supplied with T8 2x15w Power glo tubes. The gallons of the tank is 16.72, so I make this 1.79wpg (feel free to correct me though). At this level do I even need the liquid carb and fertilizer, I hope so as I am after great looking plants and have already bought it.

Do fertilizers and liquid carbon harm fish?

Fishy55