This Is Taking The P Now...

[oswoldy]

Heya,
Me again!

The story so far,
I started my fishless cycle on the 02/13/09 and realised on the 14/03/09 that Ammonia was 8PPM and not 4 as the colours are hard to tell apart so that was 13days without any drop in Ammonia. I have since emptied the tank and refilled with dechlorinated water and topped Ammonia upto 2ish PPM of Ammonia that was on the 15/03/09 since then until now (I have just done todays test) the Ammonia has STILL not dropped 7 days in!

What is going on its getting to the stage where I may just get some fish and put them in, its been almost a month now and still no sign of NitrItes or a drop in Ammonia!

Mike

 

[Rooster]

You need a little patience !!!! I KNOW its tough, but....errrrrr, its tough !!!
...you NEED to wait - please read the stickies... this could take a month or two !

Or speed up the process by getting a "seed culture" off a local... dont waste your money on shop bought miracle cures and potions

 

[Macko1968]

If it's any consolation, my cycle took just over 6 weeks & when it was done I went off to buy my fish - only to find the LFS would have supplied me with a fully matured filter of my choice for just £2.50 extra.

 

[oswoldy]

Im expecting it to take a while however 3 weeks without ANY change seems a little excessive.

Macko1968:
Where did you go that offered the media for £2.50?

Mike

 

[Rooster]

If it's any consolation, my cycle took just over 6 weeks & when it was done I went off to buy my fish - only to find the LFS would have supplied me with a fully matured filter of my choice for just £2.50 extra.

What was the waiting time for this ? Sounds fishy to me... (pun intended ! LOL)

 

[waterdrop]

Heya,
Me again!

The story so far,
I started my fishless cycle on the 02/13/09 and realised on the 14/03/09 that Ammonia was 8PPM and not 4 as the colours are hard to tell apart so that was 13days without any drop in Ammonia. I have since emptied the tank and refilled with dechlorinated water and topped Ammonia upto 2ish PPM of Ammonia that was on the 15/03/09 since then until now (I have just done todays test) the Ammonia has STILL not dropped 7 days in!

What is going on its getting to the stage where I may just get some fish and put them in, its been almost a month now and still no sign of NitrItes or a drop in Ammonia!

Mike

Im expecting it to take a while however 3 weeks without ANY change seems a little excessive.
<...>
Mike

Unfortunately you can't have it both ways. I suspect what might have happened was this: When you run the ammonia at 8ppm or so, you encourage a -different- species of autotrophic bacteria to grow, create biofilms on the biomedia and become tightly attached to it. A week ago you realized the level had been too high and changed the water. That's good, and had to be done to get the ammonia level down, but it doesn't change the fact that the wrong bacteria have established themselves. It takes a while for these wrong types to die off and make space for the correct two species and then they have to take over the biomedia spots and start growing. So to say that you are seeing 3 weeks without any change is trying to describe the wrong thing. What's actually happening is that you are one week into a whole new thing where you wait for the wrong species to die and the start of a new attempt at fishless cycling. I know the next question will be "how long?" I don't know the answer to that. It would also be hard to say which would be faster, to start over with fresh biomedia and ideally some mature media, or to stay with the existing media (which very well may have significant numbers of the correct species now getting started) with the corrected ammonia levels. And of course this whole thought exercise could be inaccurate because its based on some guesswork about the test result colors.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Macko1968]

This was a place called Aquatic Finatic in North Yorkshire. They basicaly have a number of "new" filters running in their tanks so when you buy one you can choose brand new out of the box or one that's been running in a tank for a minimum of month.

It's the oddest little shop imaginable, in a near derelict farm yard, very Royston Vasey. That said, they seem to know their stuff & I've only lost 2 barbs from the 35+ fish Ive had from them.

 

[Rooster]

This was a place called Aquatic Finatic in North Yorkshire. They basicaly have a number of "new" filters running in their tanks so when you buy one you can choose brand new out of the box or one that's been running in a tank for a minimum of month.

It's the oddest little shop imaginable, in a near derelict farm yard, very Royston Vasey. That said, they seem to know their stuff & I've only lost 2 barbs from the 35+ fish Ive had from them.

Sounds like a "model" shop.... shame a few others dont do this, most are ONLY interested in the shekel