Not Another Fishless Cycle Journal?!

[nehpets81]

Well, I have been looking through all the posts about fishless cycling with interest and decided just what this forum needs is another one... Actually my cycle has mysteriously stalled (much like at least one other poster - I think Gazanimal for one)so I thought I'd share my findings to add to the combined knowledge, get some advice and some much needed moral support. It has been going for over a month now so here goes:

Day PH Ammonia Nitrite Nitrate
1 7.9 0.25 0 20 Added Ammonia up to 4ppm
2 8 4 0
3 8 4 0
4 8 4 0
5 8 4 0
6 8 4
7 8 4
8 8 4
9 8 4
10 8.2 3 1
11 8.2 2 1.5
12 8 1 1?
13 8 0.4 2
14 8.1 0.25
15 8.1 0.25 4
16 8.1 0.25 4
17 8.1 0.25 4
18 8.1 0.25 4 30
19 8.1 0.25 4 Dosed Ammonia back up to 2ppm
20 8.1 2
21 8.1 2
22 8.1 2
23 8.1 2 Dosed Ammonia up to 4ppm
24 8.2 4
25 8.3 4 1.5
26 8.3 4 1
27 8.3 4 0
28 8.3 4 0
29 8.3 4 0
30 8.3 4 0
31 8.3 4 0
32 8.3 4 0
33 8.3 4 0 Did a 50% Water Change and does ammonia back up to 4ppm afterwards
34 8.1 4 0
35 8.2 3-4? 0


That is where I am up to now. To say I'm a bit frustrated is an understatement. I should probably add I have a Fluvial Roma 125L with sand and a few rocks in. I am using an API master kit to test. I have a bit of trouble with the Nitrate tests - they seem to be a bright red which can correspond to plenty of different levels.
It seems to me that I made a mistake trying to wait for the Ammonia test to appear yellow and this might have killed off the A bacs? Also, the N bacs have been working, but now I suspect they would also be starved.

Any advice/support as to whether I am doing the right thing or have made a total mess of things would be gratefully received!

Edited to say those colums looked a lot neater when I was writing this post!

Continued:

Day 36
Ammonia 4ppm
Nitrite 0ppm

Day 37
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 38
Ammonia 4ppm
Added fish food

Day 39
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 40
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 41
Ammonia 4ppm
Opened up my filter and had a look for blockages etc.

Day 42
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 43
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 44
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 45
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 46
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 47
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 48
Ammonia 3ppm (think it's a cruel trick of the light!)
Nitrite 0ppm

Day 49
Ammonia 4ppm
added Nutrafin cycle and remove poly/carbon pad from filter

Day 50
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 51
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 52
Ammonia 4ppm

Day 53
Ammonia 4ppm
Performed 75% water change, took out a rock & dosed back up to 4ppm Ammonia.

 

[Warehouse]

Chuck some fish food in! That's what I read today as a tip to kick start the cycle again. Otherwise it seems you're going to have to be patient.

Great choice of tank though

 

[nehpets81]

Chuck some fish food in! That's what I read today as a tip to kick start the cycle again. Otherwise it seems you're going to have to be patient.

Great choice of tank though

Yeah, I've heard that too - I might see if the water change gets things moving at all to start with

Thanks! You got one too then?

 

[Warehouse]

Thanks! You got one too then?

Yes, we purchased one from Maidenhead Aquatics early February. I opted for an external filter rather than the supplied one as I hated my last internal filter with a passion .

 

[waterdrop]

Fishless Cycling is nothing if not frustrating in some cases. When you get stuck at the place your log indicates, I'd consider doing a complete water change just to make myself feel better, if nothing else. Here's what I'd do: Turn off the filter and heater. Gravel-clean siphon all the water out of the tank (use a catch bucket in the garden or tub so you'll have some tank water left over) all the way down to the substrate until the siphon breaks of its own accord. Take your filter and just do the most gentle squeeze or swish in the catch-bucket tank water to make sure there are not any large particles clogging anything and then put the filter back together and fill it with some of the tank water. Refill the tank with conditioner dosed at 1.5x to 2x whatever the instrucs say (I like Seachem Prime, like most of the others here) Don't go over the 2x dosing. Make sure to use your hand a number of times to roughly temperature match the return water. Make absolutely sure to re-dose ammonia back to 4ppm or so and then retest it an hour later or whenever to double check. Sit back, relax and feel better that at least you've done something! Make sure you're temperature is working back up to the 29C/84F for good bacterial growing soup.

You may still have days before your A-Bacs come back to life but at least you'll know all the conditions are right for them. I agree that you may have waited a bit long to recharge your ammonia. You are not alone, we get any number of people that decide the yellow doesn't look quite right and wait too long to recharge (sometimes it's due to the slight greenish look of the new fluorescent bulbs people use rather than incandescents.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[nehpets81]

Thanks! You got one too then?

Yes, we purchased one from Maidenhead Aquatics early February. I opted for an external filter rather than the supplied one as I hated my last internal filter with a passion .

Ah, why did you not get on with your internal filter? Which one did you have?

 

[Warehouse]

Ah, why did you not get on with your internal filter? Which one did you have?

It was a fluval one that came with the last tank. It kept clogging up, it kept falling off the side of the tank or slipping down the glass, it was an absolute nightmare to clean internally and the mess it made every time I removed it was appalling. otherwise it was great .

 

[nehpets81]

Thanks Waterdrop, I did feel a whole lot better after the recent 50% waterchange actually - I think like you say it is just a case of feeling like I'm doing something and hopefully give my tank a few new fresh A Bacs in the water.

Something did occur to me as I tried to get the water temperature matched (not all that easy when it was 29 degrees C...). I was boiling the water and adding it to a bucket of cold water from the tap before adding the conditioner in the bucket. For that hot water, would the boiling process not kill off any bacteria in the water that is boiled? Or would it not matter as enough unboiled water is going in?

It might be my imagination but the green did look a little bit lighter than the 4ppm mark yesterday (the zero nitrite reading tempered my excitement somewhat though) so I will see what it looks like tonight before trying anything else. Would I be right in thinking the N-Bacs are probably all dead by now too as they haven't had a source of Nitrite for 8 or so days?

 

[SLIM]

IMO i wouldnt change the water at all. The point of a water change is to remove Nitrates which in the cycling process is unnecessary. And if anything a 100% water change will just causes stress on what little bacteria you do have in the filter.

Simply test your water for Ammonia every 24hours on the same hour if possible. If the Ammonia reading is as low as 1ppm when you test, then re dose it up to 4ppm.

When you get to the point where you test for ammonia and it has dropped to 0 within 24hours, this is where u want to start testing every 12hours.

When your ammonia drops to 0 within 12 hours, drop the amount of ammonia your dosing to 2ppm every 24hours.

Then when your Nitrites drop to 0 for the first time, up your ammonia back upto 4ppm every 24 hours.
When your filter can drop 4ppm of ammonia and Nitrites in 12hours, your cycled.

To speed thing up, have your water temp at about 28/29 and have your PH at 8.2
Your Ph looks fine at the moment but if it starts to drop, which it can do during the cycling process, you can use Bicarbonate of soda to raise it again, which you will find the the bakery section at your local supermarket.
2 Teaspoons of Bicarb per 50L is usually the right amount.

 

[waterdrop]

While it is true that when everything is going right we try to avoid water changes because they can sometimes cause a "pause" in bacterial activity, it is not true that a water change will really cause any stress to the bacterial population in the filter. We have been advising "kick-start" full water changes during fishless cycles for years and have watched them to lots of good. When a fishless cycle has been giving signs of doing things but then seems to just go dead, it is often good to reset things. Sometimes a blockage in the filter turns up, we've had a lot of weird things off and on. This was part of the reason for my advice. The bacteria just care that fairly fresh tap water (fresher tap water has more trace minerals) with oxygen and ammonia are readily available, coming through their colonies - they are pretty tough about water changes as long as you don't allow them to dry out too much.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[nehpets81]

Day 36

Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm

Day 37

Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm

Day 38

Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm


Grrrr...

Seems the water change didn't kick start this #41#### cycle - about to out a bit of fish food in - can't see the logic behind it but as a few people seem to have had some success with this, I'm giving it a shot.

 

[Gazanimal]

I'm keeping an eye on your log nehpets81 to see how you fair as we pretty much seem to be in the same boat with ammonia processing stalling.

Fingers crossed for you fella!

 

[nehpets81]

Yeah, thanks Gazanimal - I've been keeping an eye on yours too (think I gave you a namecheck in the first post!) and must say your frustration has been a bit of an inspiration for me to keep going so don't give up on yours and I won't give up on mine, hows that for a deal, mate?!

 

[waterdrop]

You guys might want to look up the fishless cycle of kporteo. She had a really frustrating time with things just not moving.. so much so that I think I remember her starting over at some point.. anyway, she stuck it out and now has a tank of the month I think!

 

[nehpets81]

Day 39:

Ammonia: 4ppm

Day 40:

Ammonia: 4ppm

Day 41:

Ammonia: 4ppm.

Hmpf.
I'm going to have a good look at my filter tonight to see if there is anything obvious wrong (not sure what I'm looking for tho!)