The Time Has Come......

[LionessN3cubs]

.....To say something has gone wrong somewhere! got ya water!


I had a field trip to go to for my 8 year old today and in getting ready I forgot to do my testings/adding this morning. It didnt get done until around 2:30pm ...nitrite was still over 1.0 after about 30 hours. That shouldnt be right after all this time. I've been dropping ammonia in UNDER 12 hours for over 2 weeks...but the nbacs just aren't there or aren't growing or something

PH is fine at 7.6
Temp is 88-89-

every few days/week I have to add to the tank...the air in my apartment is super dry and its just sucking up the water like no tomorrow but I'm always very careful to temp match as best I can and to add dechlorinator.

what do I do now?

 

[tim1]

Do you have any airstones? I think your temperature might bit to high, and the bacteria are not getting enough oxygen because of this.
Then again, I'm no expert. I would wait for BTT...

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Do you have any airstones? I think your temperature might bit to high, and the bacteria are not getting enough oxygen because of this.
Then again, I'm no expert. I would wait for BTT...

I had an airstone but I disconnected it to hook the air pump up to my sponge filter..but still, lots of bubbles being blown into the water, plus lots of surface agitation from the water level always being a bit too low from the evaporation and such. I did just take 1 of the 2 heaters I had in there out tonight...maybe that will help? argh I dunno but something can't be right

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Lioness,

There is a definite fight between temperature and oxygen saturation when fishless cycling, but in my experience 88-89 should be ok so long as you have adequate aeration which you say you do. I wouldn't turn the temp up any though.

What have your nitrite readings been showing recently? Off the chart?

If so, it may be that it has taken your N-Bacs the 30 hours to process the back log.

I don't think you are experiencing anything out of the ordinary, even if the N-Bacs are taking 30 hours to process 5ppm of ammonia, the N-Bacs have a tendancy to get stuck around the end point of fishless cycling and can sit there for a few weeks sometimes. One day soon, you'll wake up and your nitrite will be 0, i promise.

Patience my friend. (i know i keep saying that, it must be annoying you by now? )

If you really think something is wrong, a big water change won't hurt and can sometimes kickstart things. Other than that, just sit back and wait and keep testing.

Cheers

BTT

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Hi Lioness,

There is a definite fight between temperature and oxygen saturation when fishless cycling, but in my experience 88-89 should be ok so long as you have adequate aeration which you say you do. I wouldn't turn the temp up any though.

What have your nitrite readings been showing recently? Off the chart?

If so, it may be that it has taken your N-Bacs the 30 hours to process the back log.

I don't think you are experiencing anything out of the ordinary, even if the N-Bacs are taking 30 hours to process 5ppm of ammonia, the N-Bacs have a tendancy to get stuck around the end point of fishless cycling and can sit there for a few weeks sometimes. One day soon, you'll wake up and your nitrite will be 0, i promise.

Patience my friend. (i know i keep saying that, it must be annoying you by now? )

If you really think something is wrong, a big water change won't hurt and can sometimes kickstart things. Other than that, just sit back and wait and keep testing.

Cheers

BTT

Thanks for the help BTT.

I dont have a backlog of nitrite. I did a big water change ages ago when my PH dropped. SOME of the nitrite always processes as I dont show a nitrite level above 1.0 when I test anymore..unless its 5.0 but I dont think so. I mean, Im sure if I tested too early it would show higher because of adding 4ppm of ammonia...but at the 12 hour mark its usually 1.0...and still at 1.0 at 24 hours...and now I know at 30 hours its still 1.0. I had a nitrite spike before I did the big water change to boost my PH so I know Im past that point...it just refuses to drop it to 0.

I've also seen it be very erratic at times in the last 2 weeks. There HAVE been days I tested and it was at .25-.50 but now again the last couple of days its 1.0 again. argh I dunno!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

have a read of stormy79's fishless cycling post, the final few pages of comments about nitrite make interesting reading and may be of some benefit to you.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Lioness,

I've noticed you from time to time being a diligent reader of other threads, despite being quiet on your own! Anyway, nice to hear from you.

I wanted to call your attention to a discussion we had with RDD over in one of the other threads (can't remember whether it was stormy or which one at the mo) but anyway it concerned how to define the endpoint of fishless cycling.

In his Add and Wait writeup, then sentence to is wait for ammonia and nitrite to drop from 4-5ppm to zero in 10-12 hours, but in the discussion we talked about how the N-bacs could indeed be processing a ton of nitrite but just not getting it quite down to zero by 12 hours. He seemed to feel that because the nitrite amount gets so multiplied, the filter may be actually fine to go with fish when it gets to this near-final stage. I think the discussion was speculative and I'm not sure MW and BTT are quite on-board with this, but thought I throw it out.

To repeat for clarity, my take is that if the fishless cycling seems very near the most final stage: you are adding 4-5ppm ammonia at the beginning of a test period - then at 12 hours you are always seeing ammonia has dropped to zero, but nitrite doesn't quite drop to zero until a few hours later than 12 (say, nitrite is less than 1.0 at 12 hours but drops to zero a few hours after that..) then it may be that your filter is effectively cycled.

This would seem especially true if you plan to initially stock at some medium level that is not right at the top of your maximum stocking capacity, thus meaning the bacterial level of the filter will drop back a little anyway when you stock. It also puts a little more urgency on testing for nitrites and being ready to do water changes after stocking but one should be doing that anyway as good practice.

Anyway, I know your nitrites may still be processing slower than this but thought I would point this out as a type of encouragement and a discussion to keep an eye on.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup that's the topic I'm referring to.

You're right I'm not 100% convinced but I'm receptive to the idea.

I generally err on the side of caution and I think this is erring on the side of danger, I can totally understand the impatience with the final stage of cycling particularly when that last little bit of nitrite won't go away. However I also think anyone who'se going through all this to keep fish will probably be keeping them for many years to come. When you put a couple of extra weeks waiting for the cycle to finish into the wider context of many years enjoyable fishkeeping it's not that big an ask to just be patient until you're absolutley sure it's done.

I've never seen anyone finish their cycle this bit earlier and post up results and so on afterwards so no evidence that things will be fine.

I'd be interested to see someone do this if anyone wants to take the risk

 

[iankent]

I've never seen anyone finish their cycle this bit earlier and post up results and so on afterwards so no evidence that things will be fine.

Miss Wiggle - I did just that. My view being that continually adding ammonia was pushing my nitrites SO high off the chart, that building up enough bacteria to clear them would be little more than pointless

if you have a look at my full water tests here: [URL="http/www.my-aqua.net/aquariums/7/water/"]http/www.my-aqua.net/aquariums/7/water/[/URL] you'll see that even though I "gave up" early, my nitrite and ammonia levels have been very steady since - while this doesnt prove that you can give up the cycle early, it's an indicator that we're simply trying to build up too many n-bacs using the add and wait method

edit: i'm no expert and this was my first aquarium, so statistically my results mean very little but still, worked for me!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thankyou for the stats.

pleased it worked for you.

anyone else had experience of this

 

[waterdrop]

MW, I also have a related theory that one of the wildcards often present at this end-stage of fishless cycling is the amount of plant debris. For me of course, I've thought about it while sitting there viewing Oliver's tank, watching the new plants sprout new leaves but also watching many of the original leaves die and break down. Here I am adding 4-5ppm ammonia in the morning, but all day long some unknown amount of dead plant material is being converted into still more ammonia by the heterotrophs, making it somewhat unknown how much total ammonia is really present for the 12 hour processing test period. (In my case, the broken tank episode left the plant roots unrooted for several days and weakened the plants.)

Just seems a common wildcard because fishless cycling folks who have plants must have a very wide range of circumstances related to this. Its tempting to write off the plant debris as too small an ammonia contributor to matter, but personally, I have a hard time judging that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[iankent]

waterdrop - something else to consider is the plants are also taking in ammonia and nitrate, which might offset the amount of ammonia the rotting leaves etc. are producing - I dont know though, not a clue where to start trying to calculate that one!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

doesn't dead plant matter usually give off nitrite not ammonia?

waterdrop - something else to consider is the plants are also taking in ammonia and nitrate, which might offset the amount of ammonia the rotting leaves etc. are producing - I dont know though, not a clue where to start trying to calculate that one!!

i agree, no way of calculating it really, but i would imagine that to have enough plants to have enough plant matter to create a measurable amount of extra ammonia, you'd also have enough plants to take in the extra ammonia produced.

 

[iankent]

doesn't dead plant matter usually give off nitrite not ammonia?

found this link - [URL="http/www.fishandfins.co.uk/king-british-...-treatments.htm"]http/www.fishandfins.co.uk/king-british-...-treatments.htm[/URL]

Fish release ammonia through the gills & by going to the toilet in the water in which they live. Uneaten food & plant debris also decomposes, releasing ammonia, which is toxic to fish. Ammonia may be converted to nitrite, which is also toxic and may kill fish if left untreated.

i thought it was ammonia, and that site confirms it, but still not 100% sure

 

[Miss Wiggle]

just anecdotal evidence, but when i've found a dead fish or had a lot of decaying plant matter i've seen nitrite not ammonia. could be that the ammonia given off is handled fine by the bacteria but this produces more nitrite than there was ammonia so this is what you see a reading of. i've also always wondered cos plants take in ammonia do they convert it to anything so when they die it's given off as something else, or does it stay as ammonia?