Wheres the ammonia?

[ajhainey]

I'm a little confused. I dutifully bought an ammonia test kit when I got my biorb back in February. Put one hardy looking goldfish in and waited for the much mentioned 'cycle' to kick in. Tested every few days...never any ammonia...put it down the the biorb being mega efficient, put another goldfish in 3 weeks later carried on testing every few days....never showed any ammonia....eventually I stopped testing frequently and wrote it off as merely strange..

Two weeks ago I got a tropical tank (180 litres) and put 5 tetras in it to 'cycle' - its been a week with the fish in and _still_ no ammonia....so I bought a full testing kit (different ammonia test, nitrite, nitrate, ph) - still no ammonia, no nitrite, on nitrate - ph a little high. Retested the biorb as well and it too has absolutely no trace of ammonia, nitrate, nitrite.....Recently I had to treat for whitespot in the biorb and took out the carbon filter material and ran with 'whitespot plus' for nearly two weeks - still no spike of any kind...This seems just wrong compared to the tales of other folks

Is this good or am I doing something wrong? Maybe my tests don't work??? Do I need to add more fish to the new tropical tank to kick this thing off?

Thanks in advance...

aj xx

 

[tstenback]

I am confused about the goldfish in the biorb perhaps the filtration system is superb on these as i am unfamiliar with them but i would think that you should have something there, certainly nitrates if nothing else. But in the 180L tank with 5 tetras you may not see anything in there for a while as that is not a big bioload for that size of tank. What type of tetra are you using? HTH

 

[ajhainey]

They are neon tetras - they're 'rescues' from a mixed tropical/goldfish tank when they couldn't throw off a whitespot infection (too cold I think) as I thought they'd do better even in my brand new tank than where they were. At 25C in the new tank all except one has thrown off the whitespot completely (without treatment in fact) and generally look much more lively so I think it was probably the right choice.

I'm going to supplement them with another 5 tommorrow as they do look a bit lonely and won't shoal properly. Maybe also a algae eater of some kind as well because the recently developed slime layer on everything in my tank is starting to look rather unattractive. Any recommendations for one that will survive a cycling tank?

Other than that I'll keep testing and wait and see - and as I'm paranoid I've asked a friend to bring me her _known to be working as she has seen it graph a cycle_ test kit and I'll check both tanks with that too....better safe than sorry....

As for the biorb it did have plants in it too until recently maybe they used the nitrate? If the new tests show nothing as well then I guess I'll be recommeding it as a superb low maintence tank

Thanks for the help, this is my first time keeping fish so please bear with all the newbie questions!

aj xx

 

[Fordaz]

I have a BiOrb... went through the normal spikes when I set it up the first time. However, it's never spiked since, even after adding more fish.

Ammonia and Nitrite have been solid 0 since the cycle ended.

Don't get any bottom feeders for your algae, not in a BiOrb. The stones in the bottom are too jagged and will damage their delicate undersides.

The best thing (or pretty much the only thing) you can get for the BiOrb that will eat algae is a shrimp or two. I recently introduced 2 ghost shrimp and they gobbled everything up.

 

[tstenback]

I'm going to supplement them with another 5 tommorrow as they do look a bit lonely and won't shoal properly

shoalling is a defensive mechanism as where there is no present danger to the fish they may not shoal very tightly at all, Even if you increase the numbers. But they will look much nicer with the increased numbers.

Thanks for the help, this is my first time keeping fish so please bear with all the newbie questions!

That is what this forum is all about. So keep the questions coming

 

[ajhainey]

Cheers all! I'm wondering now if the new tank is just too lightly loaded to have started the cycle and I missed the biorb one while I was away and my friend was looking after the tank, thinking back that was fairly soon after I got the it....I guess we'll see after I add the new fish....What kind of 'cm of fish' would you recommend to cycle a 180litre? Will 10 neons and 2 bottom/algae eaters of some kind be enough/too much?

Oh and to reassure you fordaz the bottom feeder is for the new (normal) tropical tank, not the biorb. I remember dire warnings in the manual about the gravel in the biorb being too spiky for them..plus it doesn't seem to algae up too badly anyway - the new one is much worse already...

Didn't think of shrimp though for the biorb...hmm could they live in a coldwater/goldfish tank??

Thanks again! See below for the current overall plan for the new tank btw (as I see many folks have this in their .sig) Feel free to comment...I know the angel fish are going to be a risk but I'll add them last and if it goes wrong and they start lunching on tetras then _obviously_ I'll just have to get rid of the kitchen table and have a 2nd tank just for them -hehe-

aj xx

 

[Fordaz]

I think a Ghost Shrimp needs around 24/25 C to survive... so no-go on the coldwater I'm afraid.

 

[tstenback]

if you are looking to increase the bio load in the tank add the zebras not the bottom feeders. The zebras are much hardier and can stand the water conditions of the cycle where a lotof bottom feeders can not as they are less tolerant. HTH

 

[ajhainey]

ok - no shrimp for the goldfish biorb and no bottom feeder for the tropical. Just 5 tetras and 5 danios for the tropical and the black moor for the goldfish bowl.

Thanks muchly guys - I'm off to the shop!

aj xx

 

[ajhainey]

Doh! Tested my tank this evening (a whole 5 hours after adding the new fish) and suddenly I have nitrite (about 0.1ppm according to my test kit)...still no ammonia/nitrate - but hey whos complaining. At least i know my test kit works now...I can see from elsewhere on the net up to 1ppm is acceptable during cycling so I'm not going to worry too much yet...due a water change tommorrow anyway.

For those interested btw the danios at my lfs were looking rather peaky so I took two matching pairs of male guppies instead....

Now I just need to find a way to reliably count 8 hyperactive tetras every morning and hope I haven't gone from underloaded to overloaded with the fish for cycling

aj xx

 

[Fordaz]

Probably shouldn't have started with Tetras, they're pretty sensitive to water changes.

Chances are you'll lose a few of them before the cycle is over.

Guppies are a bit dodgy these days from my LFS, they seem to be dying for no reason. I hope you got a good batch.

 

[ajhainey]

I know the tetras weren't the best idea - but as I mentioned above they were 'rescues' from a mixed coldwater/tropical tank and I thought I might as well give them a chance....As for the guppies it seems to depend on the store/chat room - some recommend them for cycling, some say the new stock are overbred and weak....I'm hoping these are sturdy ones, the shop thought they'd be fine, but in some ways they would think that wouldn't they ...Everybody seems lively enough so far - so heres hoping

Also have to admit to major stupidity with my test kits....my original ammonia kit is a 'one bottle' test, and as my new 'master testkit' is from the same manufacturer I assumed its ammonia test would be the same deal. Its not...its a two bottle test (water+bottle1, shake, wait 30secs, bottle 2 shake, wait 1 min) - hence I have now found my ammonia

However all is not lost I think - my tank is due a 10% change tommorrow and its currently looking not too bad (last night) at about

<edited as ITE and ATE wrong way round AGAIN! Thanks tstenback >

Ammonia 0.35ppm
Nitrite 5ppm should read 0.1ppm (i.e well under 1ppm)
Nitrate 0.1ppm should read 5ppm (i.e well under 25ppm)

I've been using the Hagen 'cycle' stuff that came with my tank and it looks like its having some effect as I already have a trace of nitrate....I'll test every night and see how it goes...Anyone want to give me some idea of what acceptale levels are during the cycle? All the graphs I've seen seem to be in mg/l not ppm.

Anyway wish me (and the inappropriate cycling fish) luck!

aj xx

 

[tstenback]

try to keep the nitrITE readings as low as possible with water changes. Shoot for <1ppm. HTH