Stalled Fishless Cycle?

[bob9009]

Hehe. Thanks guys.

Part of the reason I'm so eager to get this tank going is that I've been offered a very good looking sailfin pleco and a few 10-12cm clown loaches by a friend who has decided to give up fishkeeping just as I'm starting. It's too bad he's got other fish he has to sell first, or I'd just take all of his mature media and not have to worry about cycling!

As suggested, I'll be doing some research into some other species to go into the tank. Have you guys got any suggestions for something to occupy the mid to top regions of the tank? Ideally something that will swim around most of the time (I'd get an arowana if the tank was 60cm longer and 45cm wider). My brother is very keen on some Puntius Denisonii, but they sell for about A$45 (about £23) each and I think we'd need 6 or 8 for a school so they don't look odd. I also thought about silver dollars, but from what I've read they grow rather large and I wouldn't want to keep them in a tank this size.

One final quick question: Why is it that when I mention fishless cycling to employees at the LFS, they look at me like I've just told them I'm a serial killer?

 

[OldMan47]

The typical LFS employee is not very expert on fish. They are often folks that the owner has hired and taught how to catch a fish. Any fish training that they have will be a more or less canned approach to a new tank setup like they put in the little pamphlets that come with a tank. They go along the lines of set the tank in place, fill it with water and decor, run the filter for a couple of days and go get the fish. In many cases you are talking about something they have never considered possible and would not know how to do. Don't be surprised when they can't help and may not even recognize the name for the method, they are salesmen, not hobbyists. Even the owner may only be someone who worked in the fish shop as a kid and decided it looked like a good business to own.
Stocking is a tricky business. Your intent to put a juvenile sailfin pleco into a small tank like that means that in a few years you will need that bigger tank or will need to find someone that wants a big fish. I know how big your tank looks, I have one sitting right behind me while I am typing. A sailfin pleco will get 2 feet long or more at full grown and even one that is only 16 inches long will be as big around as you forearm. My LFS has a few in the 14 to 18inch range in a tank by their front door. I don't know why except so that they can gently warn people how big they get when they are enthusiastic to buy a little 2 inch long one for their tiny 55 gallon 4 foot tank. An adult pleco needs a really big tank, much bigger than a silver dollar.

 

[bob9009]

You make a very good point about my flawed logic in regards to the pleco and silver dollars. The tank that I'm cycling has a 72"x18" footprint so I'm hoping it will be adequate for the pleco for a little while. I'm already exploring options in the 1000+ litre range so he shouldn't be in this tank for very long.

I suppose it could be worse - I was in a aquarium shop a few weeks back and overheard a kid telling not asking, but TELLING his parents that he was getting a 'scum sucker' to clean up his tank. They called over an employee who, to my relief, asked how big their tank was. The kid held up his hands about 1.5 feet apart and said "HUGE". Satisfied, the employee bagged the fish and they paid for it and left. I felt bad that a bristlenose was on its way to some pretty horrible conditions, but when I finally made my way over to the tank they'd been in front of, my jaw dropped. They were 'common' plecs, not bristlnose.

I understand that they're generally salesmen rather than hobbyists, but isn't product knowledge part of being a good salesman?? It's like selling a Formula 1 car to a kid who's just got his driver's licence.

 

[waterdrop]

I understand that they're generally salesmen rather than hobbyists, but isn't product knowledge part of being a good salesman?? It's like selling a Formula 1 car to a kid who's just got his driver's licence.

...last time I looked, our western societies all seem to have pretty big business infrastructures aimed at doing pretty much exactly that, if they possibly can!

 

[bob9009]

^^^ lol

In all seriousness, I'm on day 22 and I've decided that N-bacs are just an 'in joke' that experienced fishkeepers play on us newbies. It's like making the apprentice go look for a left-handed screwdriver. It's a myth!

So can I put my fish in now??

 

[OldMan47]

Not a very good idea Bob. You will find yourself doing daily 80% or bigger water changes if you do.

 

[waterdrop]

Well, I would assume you are having another chuckle Bob, except that you say "in all seriousness"... so if you are not joking, be aware that OM47 is serious. Nitrites are very real and a somewhat worse poison than ammonia as far as fish are concerned. The nerve damage and death they cause is quite real and the Nitrospira that we try to coax to grow in the filter are unfortunately sometimes pretty slow to develop. Take a look at other fishless cycling threads, it can be fun to read through old ones and see that people finally did "get double zeros" at the end of their process.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bob9009]

Sorry for the scare - I was *trying* to be funny. I'll try not to make it so cryptic in future

From what I've read, even relatively low concentrations of nitrite will do damage so I'd hate to think what horrible torture 100ppm would be for a fish (if it didn't die right away).

waterdrop - I've tried reading through other fishless cycling threads but I usually get sidetracked trying to analyse their cycle and use it to predict how mine should go I've never made it far enough to read about the elation that occurs when people get those magical double zeroes. I'll go have a look now.

Thanks for all of your assistance (and patience) so far guys. I really appreciate it.

 

[OldMan47]

I'm very happy to hear you were not serious. I have seen people who thought, really believed, we were putting them on. Unfortunately they acted on that premise without the post and then we got to play "how can I save them". I have almost no sense of humor when it comes to fish welfare. The closest I can come is extreme sarcasm.

 

[bob9009]

Once again, I'm sorry for any distress I caused. I also take fish welfare very seriously - that's why I elected to do the fishless cycle in the first place.

On a more positive note, I took your advice from another thread and did a big water change (85 - 90%) last night. After it was done, I 'rechaged' the water with baking soda and 2ppm of ammonia. When I did the water test about 14 hours later, it came as no surprise that ammonia was down at 0ppm. What shocked me was the 0.5ppm reading for nitrite and 40ppm for nitrate!! Just as you guys said, I think the N-bacs might have been in residence for a while.

Hopefully the double zeroes aren't too far away

 

[waterdrop]

Glad to hear it Bob. Keep up the good work! ~~wd~~

 

[bob9009]

The filter is now processing 5ppm of ammonia (and the resulting nitrite) in less than 24 hours!! It shouldn't be long now!!

 

[waterdrop]

Good to hear bob!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bob9009]

I have another (probably stupid) question:

As you probably know, I'm in the last phase of cycling my new filter (waiting to get double zeroes 12 hours after adding 5ppm of ammonia).
Has anyone tested whether it's possible to speed up this last phase by adding ammonia more often (i.e. whenever I get double zeroes)? I know it's a bad idea to add ammonia more than once every 24 hours in the nitrite spike phase, but I can't see any drawbacks to topping it up more often now. Have I missed something?

 

[waterdrop]

I believe it continues to be a bad thing to increase the ammonia top-ups beyond once per 24 hours, the reason being that it simply results in higher excess amounts of nitrite(NO2) and nitrate(NO3), with the nitrite being more than is needed to stimulate maximal growth of the nitrite oxidizing bacteria. There are some indications that excess nitrate(NO3) and even nitrite(NO2) quickly become a drag down of optimal nitrite oxidizing bacterial growth rate.

We shouldn't fool ourselves that we fully understand what optimal ammonia dose spacing frequency and amounts would really be though. Its a very active area of interest and study in those sections of microbiology that are getting grants pertaining to waste water treatment plants that use the same freshwater autotrophs that we do. In your case though I think its clear that its much safer to go with the known methods of process rather than risk making things even slower.

~~waterdrop~~