On The Right Track... I Hope

[RobynR]

Still need to make some decision as to which fish I'll end up with, but at least I'm finally getting somewhere on cycling the tank since I managed to find my ammonia and get a nicer filter (AquaClear).

I added ammonia on Tuesday to get to about 5 mg/L. Also on Tuesday I realized that I should call the fish store where I plan to buy my livestock and ask if they sell mature filter media. They don't, but offered to squeeze out one of their sponges into a bag for me. I went and got that, and added the water to my tank. Hopefully that will help speed the process up a little. Also, since my tank is tall and the AquaClear only comes with two intake tube extensions, I took the extension pieces off of the old Whisper filter and added those to make a longer intake tube that reaches lower into the aquarium.

Ammonia level looks the same today.

Now for the waiting game.

 

[waterdrop]

Congrats Robyn!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[RobynR]

Looks like somewhere between 3 and 5 mg/L today -- I'd assume around 5 since I can't imagine there's been much progress yet. I suppose it's possible that there's a very slight drop in ammonia level due to the small amount of bacteria that would have been present in the filter sponge squeezings from the store.

The water in the tank was cloudy looking for a couple of days and now seems to have cleared up. Is that anything I should be worried or happy about?

 

[Dogson]

No seems fine, you're looking at about a week for your ammonia to drop to zero(average but could be more each tank is different), then top it back up to 4ppm. I found that once it had dropped to zero it processed the next batch in about half the time and then half again until you're finally getting through the ammonia in 12 hours.
When you do get to the 12 hours stage of processing ammonia don't top it up every 12 hours keep it to 24hrs for topups to give the nitrite process time to catch up with all the ammonia doses. I made that mistake and my nitrite spike wasn't budging.
So sit back and wait until ammonia down to zero, top-up and wait until you are finally getting through it in 12 hours and then keep your ammonia doses to once every 24 hours regardless of how many hours the ammonia is getting processed in.
I'm sure Waterdrop will be watching closely

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, you're right dogson I caught you trying to sneak in a "change of rules" in that paragraph, lol. You shouldn't ever need to be just adding ammonia right when it gets to zero, not even near the beginning of fishless cycling. Even if your ammonia processed down to zero in 3 hours, it wouldn't slow the process to have it sit at "zero" ammonia for the other 21 hours prior to there being more ammonia. Instead, topping up with ammonia too frequently will just make the reading of "nitrite spike" phase results somewhat less clear.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[RobynR]

Think today looks like 3 mg/L on the ammonia and .8 on the nitrites, if I recall correctly (wrote it down and the left it in the other room). Progress, maybe? We'll see what it looks like tomorrow. I always have trouble matching these colors...

 

[OldMan47]

Cleaning a filter in tank water and then using that to jump start a filter works for me every time. When I am in a hurry to cycle a new tank, I start by dechlorinating my water, then clean one of my filters in the new tank. Then I dose ammonia for a fishless cycle. The cycle is usually done within a week or less. Once in a while I get a stubborn filter that requires me to clean a second filter in the tank, but not often. Most recently, I got caught with an auction buy that I had no cycled filter to house. In that case I washed a filter in an empty newly set up tank while the fish sat in the fish bag. As soon as I could acclimate the fish, they went into the new tank, even before the mess that I had made in the tank was completely gone. In a few days, my fish-in cycle was done with no losses at all and only one large water change on day 2.
Before finding out about fishless cycling, I had a couple of fish-in cycled tanks already running. With 20 tanks up and running and none truly fishless cycled from scratch, I mostly follow along and try to keep the science in mind on a real fishless cycle when giving advice. My fishless cycles are really filter clones and don't require nearly the patience that a real fishless cycle takes.

 

[RobynR]

Glad to hear that the water squeezed out of the mature filter sponge should do some good! I wasn't sure how much it would help since it sounds like most of the bacteria stays on the sponge, but I figured it was worth a shot (especially for free). Today ammonia looks like 3 mg/L and nitrite at 1.8. Keep waiting for the ammonia to go down, but I guess nitrites are a good sign.

 

[RobynR]

Today is day 10 and the ammonia was at 0 this morning for the first time (hooray!). Nitrites are at the highest level on the test kit (3.3+). I added 3.5 mL of ammonia.

So, if I'm correct, I'm now waiting for two things: 1) Nitrite to spike and drop, and 2) Ammonia to start consistently disappearing completely within 12 hours, along with the nitrites.

 

[waterdrop]

Congrats! Progress!

Yes, and the order you'll likely see those milestones might be that the nitrite spike you've now entered may stay for quite a while.. meanwhile the ammonia will be needing to be recharged more often and will drop to zero in less and less time, working its way down from 24 hours toward 12 hours.. Then later the nitrite spike will finally come down and you'll want it to drop to zero within 24 hours and then it may be the last to begin dropping in less than 24 hours and working toward dropping to zero within 12 hours. At the bitter end, it could be either the nitrite or the ammonia that seems to stick without quite clearing by 12 hours, but finally they both will and you can start your "qualifying week."

~~waterdrop~~

 

[RobynR]

Two days after adding the ammonia, ammonia is at 0 and nitrites and nitrates are both at the highest level on the color chart.

Would it help to do a water change at this point so the nitrite and nitrate levels wouldn't be quite so high? Make it easier for the bacteria to develop and catch up?

 

[waterdrop]

Depends on the pH, if its still nice and high I'd probably just let the nitrite spike keep going without a water change. During the nitrite spike stage you can, in my opinion, be a little lighter with the ammonia, only having it add up to 2ppm or 3ppm rather than 4 or 5, because later you can ease it back up to 5ppm and the ammonia bacteria will quickly bounce back to full size along with the now larger nitrite bacteria.

Now if you start to get serious pH drops along with the high nitrites and nitrates then it can become helpful to consider what a water change will accomplish and even what baking soda would do if you need to go beyond water changes. Remember though, that all this is just picking at things and the fishless cycle will actually proceed dumbly on its way regardless of us messing about, as long as its got some ammonia feeding it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

It is your choice RobynR. If you like to watch the nitrites and nitrates, a large water change would make it so that you could measure them again and follow what is happening. If you can just trust that things are going OK, there is no real need for the water change right now. It can get frustrating when you measure the same thing day after day because you have so much in the water that you just can't measure it. Your nitrite could be 20 ppm one day and 35 the next with 35 then 15 and all you would see is that it is over the 3.3 you can measure for 4 days straight. You would not be able to see it coming back down.

 

[RobynR]

I did a 25% water change -- not much, but it made me feel like I was doing something. I also figure I might as well get the hang of that before I get fish, so a few practice runs will be good if they don't do any harm. That way I can figure out the best way to make sure all the water gets dechlorinated and temperature stays stable and all that. So far so good.

Ammonia is now down to about .25 within 12 hours, and 0 within 24, for a few days now. Nitrites aren't budging (that I can tell), but I can wait them out. Ran out of ammonia tests with the TetraTest kit so I went and got the API ammonia test kit which should last much longer.

 

[waterdrop]