On The Right Track... I Hope

[RobynR]

Same ol' same ol'... ammonia at 0, nitrite at .3. I picked up some airline tubing at the store today and tossed in an airstone that came with the tank (hooked up to an air pump, of course) to see if that'll help. I've hesitated to use it because I've been afraid if I cycle using one and then stop using it, the bacteria might die back. But then I'm wondering if such a tall tank might need an airstone for better water movement since it has such a small surface area relative to height. Any thoughts? Also, this is one of the small airstones currently (maybe an inch or so long?), but it sure has the surface moving a lot. If I leave an airstone in long-term I'll pick up a longer one to distribute things more evenly, but will that much surface movement upset the hatchetfish?

 

[waterdrop]

Discontinuing the use of air bubbles at the end of cycling shouldn't make any difference to your bacteria by that stage. The only thing we think of in general as controlling the colony size is the fish stocking. As long as you don't have a near-stagnant tank with the filter not doing any surface disturbing, bubble probably make little difference. In other words, if they made any at all during cycling it would be because of making the surface "boil" in a stagnant tank (I suspect the possibility that some beginner might have just this problem was one of the things RDD thought would be positive about leaving this often recommended feature in the TFF fishless cycling article.) The fact of water and ammonia moving through a filter is overwhelmingly the larger factor in colony development.

Once you have fish, water movement at all levels is a good thing both for the algae problem and any number of other reasons. OM47 likes to point out that fish, most fish, probably need the exercise (our tanks no doubt offer considerably less opportunity for this than their original naturaly environments did, although there are some species/individuals that stay in a tight territory (just like there are human couch potatoes )) and as long as they have at least somewhere in the tank to get a rest, things should be fine with faster moving streams. One of the issues with bubbles is just usually the noise of the pump and/or some minor surface noise from the bubbles. Some just don't want this.

Really, bubbles during fishless is just one of those "do everything you can" things, rather than a major factor.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[RobynR]

Good news! I finally found a message board for fishkeepers in my immediate area (sadly it's mostly inactive) and I think I found someone willing to let me have some mature media from his tank. Waiting to hear back on when and where I can meet him, and what kind of media I can buy for him to replace what I'm taking (figure it's the least I can do).

So, I'm assuming once I add the sponge he's going to give me, I'd keep adding ammonia as usual and doing my testing watching for the same results (0 ammonia and 0 nitrites within 12 hours) and still give it the qualifying week to make sure it's stable? Then after that and a water change to get the nitrates down, I'm ok to add my first batch of fish?

Also, I'm assuming he'll know how to package the sponge for transport, but to make sure I don't mess things up, the main idea is just to keep it wet in tank water the whole time, right? I'm guessing he lives within 20 minutes of me, so we're talking less than an hour of transfer time. Anything I need to be especially careful of?

 

[waterdrop]

Good news! I finally found a message board for fishkeepers in my immediate area (sadly it's mostly inactive) and I think I found someone willing to let me have some mature media from his tank. Waiting to hear back on when and where I can meet him, and what kind of media I can buy for him to replace what I'm taking (figure it's the least I can do).

So, I'm assuming once I add the sponge he's going to give me, I'd keep adding ammonia as usual and doing my testing watching for the same results (0 ammonia and 0 nitrites within 12 hours) and still give it the qualifying week to make sure it's stable? Then after that and a water change to get the nitrates down, I'm ok to add my first batch of fish?

Also, I'm assuming he'll know how to package the sponge for transport, but to make sure I don't mess things up, the main idea is just to keep it wet in tank water the whole time, right? I'm guessing he lives within 20 minutes of me, so we're talking less than an hour of transfer time. Anything I need to be especially careful of?

Yes, all your understandings are exactly right. You don't do anything different with MM except hope that it causes the usual stages of fishless cycling to go faster or to seem to be entirely skipped. Yes, the tank water sloshing around in whatever container the media is put should keep the bacteria wet. If its not entirely submerged you can slosh it some at stoplights!
Sometimes getting a new member is kind of a reward for those members of a local hobby society who've been staying with it despite not much interest so maybe you'll be the spark for them.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[RobynR]

Well, I picked up the media tonight and have it in my filter now! It was nicely packaged in a bag of water with some air at the top, so I just drove it home quickly and tried to fit it into my filter with a minimum of jostling and squeezing and keeping it in the water as much as possible. He gave me two smallish sponges so I was able to fit them both into my basket along with one of my old sponges and I shoved my ceramic pieces in a nylon bag in at the top, although I'm not sure all of them will stay wet with the filter basket so full. Figured it couldn't hurt to add them, anyhow. Made sure there's ammonia in the tank, and now everything's up and running. Excited to do my tests tomorrow and see if there's any difference!

 

[RobynR]

Slow progress. Just before I added the new media it seemed like somehow my ammonia stopped processing as quickly. I'm thinking it might be because I was rearranging some things and had the filter unplugged for a little while (15 minutes?) not realizing that a lot of the water would drain out of it and leave some of the media exposed. Glad I learned now, I guess. So, I think I lost some ground before changing out part of my media for the mature stuff. I'm optimistic that I'll gain it back quickly, though. I'm definitely still seeing nitrites, and levels of ammonia and nitrites have definitely gone down within 12 hours, so at least that's something.

Ran out of the tetra test nitrite drops today, so I was able to replace it with the API test. Much easier to read! Still using tetra test for nitrates, pH, GH and KH, but I'll transition to API as those run out.