Sky Blue And Happy Too!

[waterdrop]

Our Nitrites have finally dropped to ZERO! Whoopee! (Yelling and celebration in the house!)

Its DAY 61 of fishless cycling and I thought it would never come!

For 40 some days my filter has been able to drop 4ppm of Ammonia to 0.0ppm within hours, but my Nitrites have stayed mostly spiked at 5.0+ (yes thats one heck of a deep purple on the API test!)

This morning while I was on the forum posting the usual chat with members, I was avoiding the morning tests. When I finally took out the API kit and, for the thousandth time, dripped 5 bright aqua drops into 5ml of tank water in the test tube I was stunned that they didn't turn purple right away. Kept hoping through the whole long 5min wait of the test that nothing would go wrong and YES! Beautiful pale blue (Caroline Blue we call it here ) told my son and I that the filter has finally managed to process Nitrites to zero. Did a Nitrate (NO3) test too and it was as dark as I've ever seen it (probably somewhere north of 60ppm). Now have to see when it can do it within 10-12 hours.

So we are very happy and excited and have spent the day cleaning and shaping flourite and gravel on the bottom, changing the water and recharging the ammonia and hoping to get some plants in there. We'll feed the bacteria ammonia for another week, making sure there are no mistakes and then hope to stock some fish next weekend!

Well, may attempt to summarize what we learned later but for now just happy!
~~waterdrop~~

 

[doresy]

Party at yours!

Glad that you are carrying on for a week to make sure many rush out the moment the nitrite has gone and undo all their hard work.

Just remember to do that final water change just before setting out on your fish shopping trip *envy* get most of your intended stock on day one to keep all that bacteria well fed

 

[waterdrop]

dorsey, Thank You!
There was something special about the way you kept saying "it will seem like forever and then one day, suddenly, you will see the light blue" that helped inspire me to keep going!

I would also like to say a big thank you to ALL the MANY members who helped me along the way!

RDD for his famous fishless article and steady evenhanded advice and help!
BTT for great advice and getting me to do the kickstart water changes!
JonesyUK and oldman47 for calm cool advice!
Miss Wiggle for being the perfect all 'round tropical fish advisor.
Colin because he knows everything (how the heck...)
Bignose, andywg, monkey and all the science guys..
Tolak, tweety and all the mods for all their experience..
T1,Bastables and all the hardware guys for all the filter help..
And again, all the really nice members here who I forgot to mention and who all helped me out, including all the great newbies out there who jump in to keep things fresh and give encouragement.

Now just have to keep that precious black bacteria alive another week and make sure its really doing its thing!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LionessN3cubs]

dorsey, Thank You!
There was something special about the way you kept saying "it will seem like forever and then one day, suddenly, you will see the light blue" that helped inspire me to keep going!

I would also like to say a big thank you to ALL the MANY members who helped me along the way!

RDD for his famous fishless article and steady evenhanded advice and help!
BTT for great advice and getting me to do the kickstart water changes!
JonesyUK and oldman47 for calm cool advice!
Miss Wiggle for being the perfect all 'round tropical fish advisor.
Colin because he knows everything (how the heck...)
Bignose, andywg, monkey and all the science guys..
Tolak, tweety and all the mods for all their experience..
T1,Bastables and all the hardware guys for all the filter help..
And again, all the really nice members here who I forgot to mention and who all helped me out, including all the great newbies out there who jump in to keep things fresh and give encouragement.

Now just have to keep that precious black bacteria alive another week and make sure its really doing its thing!

~~waterdrop~~

aww congrats waterdrop!!! You win the gold medal for patience I think! Im envious !

 

[Miss Wiggle]

lol

well i am practically perfect in every way

glad you've got through it finally, so what's your stocking plans then?

 

[pirate monkey]

excellent! I (like many others...) have been following your story, really happy you'v finally made it!

I bet your son's really happy he doesn't have to look at a bare tank much longer lol!

 

[waterdrop]

oh, probably a fairly boring common community type affair. I'll be partial to tetras, rasboras, small corys and maybe a pair of anglels but since its Oliver's tank, things will have to be "discussed" along the way. Luckily, all the things I'm thinking of fall on the side of liking softer water like we have. The only exception would be be zebra danios, which are so hardy they probably wouldn't mind the soft water. I've always liked the thought that even with fishless cycling, danios are a reliable way to start out seeing how things go and I have no doubt their energy would be ok in a boy's tank.

Despite being familiar with raising a lot of different tetras, I've never had rasboras or endlers, both of which have seemed harder to find here. I do have a bit of interest in seeing whether I can find either of those two.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[stormy78]

Congrats on getting the 'sky Blue'! You must have the patience of a saint, 3 to 4 weeks will be bad enough for me let alone 60+ days!!! Well done for persevering!

 

[waterdrop]

Thanks pirate and stormy, its been a long haul. The tank looks a stage better after the weekend as I was able to get the plant substrate and overlaying gravel in there and settled.

I partially buried the big airstones and was surprised to see that that somehow helped them produce finer clouds of bubbles (was sort of weird - if you buried them deep in the gravel, the bubbles collected underneath and emerged as fewer big fat bubbles, but if you buried them closer to the surface, they produced (and still are producing) clouds of very fine bubbles, much finer than when the bare airstones were in the bare tank... (just know BTT and Colin won't be able to resist trying to explain this, lol)

 

[backtotropical]

Congrats Waterdrop. Can't believe i missed this thread?

(just know BTT and Colin won't be able to resist trying to explain this, lol)

Lets see how long i can resist, just out of interest........................................

 

[waterdrop]

Congrats Waterdrop. Can't believe i missed this thread?

(just know BTT and Colin won't be able to resist trying to explain this, lol)

Lets see how long i can resist, just out of interest........................................

Thanks BTT!

Just finished tonight's tests and both Ammonia and Nitrite have dropped solidly to zero for the 3rd day, Yea!

(now, about those airstones, you know you're getting interested. I'll tell you its like some funny reward that they now are showering a huge vortex of wonderfully tiny bubbles, much smaller than they did all through the weeks of bare tank. They really like the gravel for some reason...)

 

[ALEXF]

congrats !!! (im soooo jealous lol) any ideas on what your going for as far as stock or did i miss tyhat... im gonna re read it lol