Tour De France (i'm Cycling!)

[waterdrop]

Yeah, the KleenOff sounds fine, I wouldn't worry about it.

It could be that the prawns balooned the ammonia level early on when you weren't measuring and you actually are one of our rare cases of getting the "wrong" species of ammonia oxidizing bacteria. These "wroing" bacteria may have dumped a ton of nitrite into your tank and then died after you switched to ammonia-addition-based cycling and lowered the levels to 4-5ppm. Then what happens is that these "wrong" species are now a bunch of sticky biofilms full of dead bacteria taking up spaces on the biomedia so that the Nitrosomonas can't find as many spots to base themselves (do you think I could work this into something to compete with spongebob? ) and so you get the mysterious nitrite still hanging there and yet your A-Bacs don't seem to be establishing themselves!

That's all pure speculation of course and the lucky thing for you is that all you really have to do is have patience and keep doing the same old fishless cycling process and it will eventually right itself all by itself, no matter what it really is! Personally I'd go for the 90% water change, gravel clean, and recharge with ammonia and at least you'll have some peace of mind that you cleared a little more of that prawn water out of there and done something. Busywork helps with patience, lol.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angel47]

Hello again,

Just to update. I did a 60% water change and here are my test results. I'll just pop the last test result prior to water change as well so there is some before and after comparison:

Day 13
Date 18/07/09 @ 09:30hrs
Ammonia 2.0
Nitrite 2.0
Nitrate 10
Further info: 60% water change and filter wash. Added 'Cycle' bacteria boost (yes, I know it probably doesn't do anything but it came with the tank so I may as well use it up!)

Day 14
Date 19/07/09 @ 12:30hrs
Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite 5.0
Nitrate 20
Further info: None

Day 15
Date Today 20/07/09
Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite 5.0
Nitrate 40
Further info: None


Should I add some ammonia now?

 

[waterdrop]

Shouldn't need to. Ammonia should go down to zero on its own, and it won't hurt for it to sit there at zero practically a whole day until you test, see it, and add the next dose of ammonia because it met the test (ammonia going to zero ppm sometime in the previous 24 hours is what should happen before you make an ammonia at at the appointed hour.)
It helps sometimes to remember that great big giant biofilters with great big bacterial colonies that are mature will show zero ppm ammonia and nitrite basically any time you test the water and yet those colonies are thriving, not starving! The only "Gotcha" I like to watch out for is if a beginner is reading the ammonia test result incorrectly and thinking the result is saying for instance 1.0ppm (for example, on the API test they feel they are seeing a green tint to the test water) when in fact its really a yellow zero and they're just reading it wrong for some reason... hope you don't feel there's any chance of that in your case, is there?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angel47]

Hi Waterdrop. Hope you are well.

I dont think I'm reading it wrongly, not with the ammonia anyway. I watch it change colour from yellow to a definite sort of apple green, although its not always easy to tell the exact colour of the test water against the API charts thats for sure. Some of the changes are very subtle. Now the nitrite I'm not 100% sure about. I'm pretty certain its 5.0 because although its not as dense a colour as the card shows, the 5.0 shade of a sort of dusky darkish pink (to my eyes anyway ) appears to be closest to the 5.0. If it isn't 5.0 then its 2.0 but that seems to be slightly too pink for the colour it is turning.

 

[waterdrop]

yeah, on the ammonia a way you can compare is if you have tap water that has no ammonia you can run a test of that at the same time and then compare its yellow with that of your tank water test, side by side.

wd

 

[Angel47]

Hi Waterdrop

Good idea, I may do that. Did my test today but no change to any of the readings.

 

[Angel47]

Hi again,

OK so here we go. I haven't been on for a while as had other stuff going on so quick recap.
Since changing the water 9 days ago I have been stuck with this:

Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite 5.0
Nitrate 40

I have tested it today (Day 20) and have got this reading:

Ammonia 0.5
Nitrite 2.0
Nitrate 20

Is something finally happening?

Thanks

 

[waterdrop]

pH still 7.6? Trend is looking good.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angel47]

Hello Waterdrop, hope you are well.

Should I be doing anything?

 

[Angel47]

Should I start to top up on ammonia now? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing now the ammonia has come right down?


Thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Ah, ok, I -think- I understand your question... Looking back it looks like you've never again added ammonia since way back when you took out the prawns and put in some unknown amount of the Kleen-Off and acheived what at first you recorded as 4ppm of ammonia, then somehow it seemed a bit higher, but then ever since then its been gradually coming down but has never actually reached 0.0ppm yet. Is that roughly the correct story? So the adding of ammonia is not yet a familiar thing to you I guess.

What we hope will now happen will be that the A-Bacs (ammonia processors) are now getting to be a large enough population to start processing all your ammonia in about 24 hours or less, which means you'll be starting to add ammonia (to reach 4 or 5ppm) each day. So what you have to do is establish a good "hour" as your "add-time" which will be the hour of the day (each 24 hours) when you would always add ammonia if ammonia had dropped to zero within the previous 24 hours. You want to pick an hour such that its a time when you are usually home and also such that *12* hours later from that is *also* a good time for you to be home, because later on in your fishless cycling you'll want to have added ammonia and to test 12 hours later to see if its dropped to zero. So, for example, you might pick 7pm as your time to add ammonia. The idea would be that the next morning at 7am you could run your tests and still have time to get out the door for the days activities. Now let's say one day you test at 7am and ammonia has dropped to zero ppm. Would you add ammonia right then? No, you'd just leave it sitting at zero ppm and wait until your "add time." At 7pm you'd perhaps test again, to get nitrite and pH numbers or whatever, and then you'd add ammonia. Only ever adding ammonia once in any given 24 hour period will help to not build up so many excess nitrites and nitrates during the fishless cycling process. This helps to cut down on the side-effects they have, like causing pH to drop and slowing N-bac development.

So let us know what time of day you pick for your "add-time" and be sure and tell us when you first reach a true 0.0 ppm ammonia level and then do your first ammonia add since way back at the beginning!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angel47]

Yes, thats exactly right, I haven't been at zero yet and so haven't done the ammonia thing yet.

OK, I think the best 'add amonia time' would really be in the morning at 7.15am (hope I've understood that properly. I know you've got yours the other way around but it will be easier for me this way if its not wrong) as I have far more time to test when I'm home in the evening. I'll let you know when I'm into the next stage.

Thank you for your help

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, , actually my own add-time was in the morning too.. it was just that later on I noticed a few on here who added in the evening and then got to post up their excited "12-hour-results" during the morning gaggle of conversation we usually have, and it got me to thinking of that as kind of fun... anyway all of those things are rather trivial and can be switched around whenever anyway

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angel47]

Ok, something has finally happened

I tested my ammonia tonight and really wasn't sure if it was zero or 0.25 so I tested it against my tap water (which I have previously logged at zero) as per good advice from Waterdrop and they were exactly the same colour. Nitrite came up a lovely big fat zero too. PH 7.6 as its always been. Forgot to do nitrates in my excitement.

Anyway, I have now added 5ml of ammonia as per forum calculator and I will test in 24 hours.

Hope I've got that right!

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds right to me Angel.