Whitey's Fishless Cycle Log

[Whitey_144]

Hi everyone,

after quite a few threads of asking advice, i now have all i need to start a fishless cycle.

my DIY stand and tank is in place (i'll post photos later to show the progress so far). The only thing i don't have at the moment is lighting (i need to do some re-wiring to the tropiquarium88 hood first - will be lowlight)

The first question is how to start cycling. I might be able to get some mature media this week, so i plan to fill the tank with dechlorinated water today and get the heater,filter & airpump working, then start cycling from tomorrow. Is this ok, and then if i manage to get some mature media to add it in later or should i wait for the media? (not guaranteed i can get it).

I'll raise the temp to 29degrees as i understand this is optimum temp for the bacs. what dosage should I be using for ammonia? it's a 130litre tank. I have the boots household ammonia, it says contains ammonia solution 9.5%W/W...? is it a case of putting in some and testing to get up to right amount and remembering e.g. half a cap is right dose?

Also, i have bought seachem Dark Flourite substrate which i will rinse in a minute, can i put this in the tank today, mid cycle or at the end? i'm not sure if it would effect the log results?

Thanks for your help!
Adam

 

[Aqua Tom]

Hi everyone,

after quite a few threads of asking advice, i now have all i need to start a fishless cycle.

my DIY stand and tank is in place (i'll post photos later to show the progress so far). The only thing i don't have at the moment is lighting (i need to do some re-wiring to the tropiquarium88 hood first - will be lowlight)

The first question is how to start cycling. I might be able to get some mature media this week, so i plan to fill the tank with dechlorinated water today and get the heater,filter & airpump working, then start cycling from tomorrow. Is this ok, and then if i manage to get some mature media to add it in later or should i wait for the media? (not guaranteed i can get it).

I'll raise the temp to 29degrees as i understand this is optimum temp for the bacs. what dosage should I be using for ammonia? it's a 130litre tank. I have the boots household ammonia, it says contains ammonia solution 9.5%W/W...? is it a case of putting in some and testing to get up to right amount and remembering e.g. half a cap is right dose?

Also, i have bought seachem Dark Flourite substrate which i will rinse in a minute, can i put this in the tank today, mid cycle or at the end? i'm not sure if it would effect the log results?

Thanks for your help!
Adam

Hooray, its time to start cycling.

Get the substrate & give it a good wash then get it & heater installed. Then fill with water & dechlorinate it. Switch the heater on while you wait for your media. Bear in mind that the water will not be cirulating so give it a swish with your hands now and again to dispearse the heat.

The amount of Ammonia for that tank is 6.84ml acoording to our site calculator but I would go a bit lower maybe 6.5, bung this in & test for ammonia an hour or so later, remember you are swishing for the heat so that should mix it fine. To dose the ammonia get a childs 5ml dosing syringe, available from any chemist, the end of this fits perfectly into the boots ammonia bottle allowing for very accurate dosing.

Next install the filter with your mature media inside, or without if you cant get it. Prime the filter, top up the tank with declorinated water switch it on & hang around for an hour or so, using this time to check for leaks etc. after the hour test for ammonia again & adgust as nessasery.

welcome to your cycle

 

[Whitey_144]

Hooray, its time to start cycling.

Get the substrate & give it a good wash then get it & heater installed. Then fill with water & dechlorinate it. Switch the heater on while you wait for your media. Bear in mind that the water will not be cirulating so give it a swish with your hands now and again to dispearse the heat.

The amount of Ammonia for that tank is 6.84ml acoording to our site calculator but I would go a bit lower maybe 6.5, bung this in & test for ammonia an hour or so later, remember you are swishing for the heat so that should mix it fine. To dose the ammonia get a childs 5ml dosing syringe, available from any chemist, the end of this fits perfectly into the boots ammonia bottle allowing for very accurate dosing.

Next install the heater with your mature media inside, or without if you cant get it. Prime the filter, top up the tank with declorinated water switch it on & hang around for an hour or so, using this time to check for leaks etc. after the hour test for ammonia again & adgust as nessasery.

welcome to your cycle
[/quote]

Thanks tom!

i have rinsed and put in 1/4of the flourite that i have, which covers the flooring lightly, i'm loving the darkness and size of it! (i may need another bag though!) the rest i will put in in the morning, i just wanted to see how much it clouded up...not alot so far. I'm going to put in a cheap sponge filter tonight to get some of the remaining dirt out from the gravel. And i'll switch the heater on tonight too.

Thanks for the caluclation, i will start the dosing tomorrow at the same time as my new filter.

Do i need to de-chlorinate this water? i read something about chlorine or chloramine naturally leaving after 24hrs and the other after a week? i guess i need to dechlorinate so that the good bacs can start though?

also does anyone know how i can upload photos? mine seem to be 1.5mb jpegs, but i'm using a mac so not sure how to reduce the size?
cheers,
adam

 

[Aqua Tom]

Definitely declorinate the water


btw in my first post i said "heater" when i ment "filter".




to upload photos you need to join an image sharing site such as photobucket or imageshack. these then convert the photo to a shareble file.

i personaly use http/photobucket.com/ no reason why, it was just the first one I found

 

[BIG BAD BARRY]

Chlorine does dissipate from water but chloramine does not. It is liquid and toxic to fish and animals.
As peoples water tests show that tap water can vary when the companies add extra chemicals.
The good dechlorinater will help remove both and other stuff as well.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with the guys. Chlorine vs chloramine advice above is correct, dechlor your water. Get it all running with the heat moving toward 29C/84F (you want to think of your water as your "bacterial growing soup" and not your fish water of the future.) Get the filter running with the new non-mature-media in it for now and calculate your dosing just like Tom said: See what the calculator says, back off that some, dose, wait and hour or so, measure with your API ammonia test and make sure the dose didn't seem to overshoot. If it looks anywhere close to the 4ppm color you're good to go. Days or weeks from now once you get ammonia to drop to zero ppm, you can then try the dose recommended by the calculator (or some similar ml amount that's very close but seems easier to repeat in your little syringe or whatever) and then just check that that also looked close to 4ppm after the fact.

We've watched dosing anywhere from 1ppm to 5ppm get things started ok but I somehow have this speculation that giving it a nice starting hit more in the upper range like 4ppm somehow makes sure there is a good dose for those one or two stray autotrophs that have made it past the city chlorine product treatment and are hiding in some obscure low circulation spot within your tank or filter (it's probably incorrect and even a non-testable trace of ammonia would do the trick but what the heck, it's just a seat of the pants feeling from watching hundreds of threads, which for some insane reason I do, lol.)

Now if you really do get your mature media donation, you'll be ready! It's much better to already have had the ammonia circulating for a bit, so it's obviously thoroughly mixed and ready to go. Be creative about getting lots of media surface area sharing between any mature media you get and your new media pieces which you may end up cutting in various ways.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Whitey_144]

Thanks everyone, I've now added a link to my tank setup album in my signatire (there is also an album on photo bucket of my tap water API colour test).

My tap water PH went from 7.8 to 8 after 24 hours, i still have to add redwood roots and plants later on so will my PH come down a bit naturally for when i stock with possible angelfish apistos?

AquaTom, i set up a photo bucket album, do i then have to save those files to my desktop again in order to upload inside the thread?

I'm going to go and enjoy setting up my new filter and dosing de-chlorinator and ammonia.

 

[waterdrop]

Tap water (after sitting 48 hours) pH is often a little closer to the general range your running tank might end up being (not including influences like wood.) The pH of a fishless cycling tank is worse for predicting what the running tank might be. WD

 

[Whitey_144]

Thanks WD,

I think i'm seeing proof of that now, it looks like the A-bacs are kicking in because i have some nitrite, what level i'm not sure, the colour code looks similar to me, but its deffinately no longer baby blue! woop woop!

https/spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Alz_PxmLya1adEV4aEljS0w1YXNHVlMzNmdhWTBBYVE&hl=en&authkey=CNiF7LIL

the high PH test is kind of going reddy colour, so i think it's 8.3 at the moment. I think i'll wait to the end, to see what my true PH will be, i have redwood to go in and a few pieces of driftwood, will the redwood reduce PH? or is mopani and other types better at that? i was planning to put them in in my last cycle week, to keep some of those tannin colours in the water, but could i put them in soon and they'd still be fine at giving the tannin colour and lower PH long term?

My free microhabitat 8 arrived today too, I'm going to keep cherry shrimp, would dark flourite 4mm gravel be ok for shrimp? because i need at least one more bag for my 30gallon, so i could use the leftover.

Also does anyone here own one of these? there seems to be holes by the sponge for the water to be sucked through before the pump, but they are at the top...i can't work out how the water would be sucked through the whole sponge rather thatn just across the top??

cheers!
Adam

 

[Skins]

The process has started

 

[Aqua Tom]

The wood may reduce your ph, but not by very much. Mine did for a while but water changes soon change that.

My ph is 8.2 so i have decided to live with that.

 

[Whitey_144]

yep its started! yeah Tom, i think thats what i will end up doing, i just hope my Angels climatise ok, still if i end up buying from a local LFS, i guess their water is probably quite similar.

Where does everyone get their filter wool from? i'm buying from Aqua essentails anyway, so should i just get this:

http/www.aquaessentials.co.uk/eheim-ehfisynth-1-litre-p-1770.html

i assume i can just tear this off? or do people know of any better?

 

[OldMan47]

I have never tried an angel at a pH of 8.4 but mine are thriving at a 7.8 pH.

 

[waterdrop]

Some of the easiest fishless cycles to interpret are those that are just bare tank (even blacked out bare tank) or just gravel/sand. As soon as you add wood or plants you have another factor affecting the pH that can also change during the course of the fishless cycle (and of course you'd ideally like to think your test results are only changing because of the bacterial colonies, not other additional things.) But these changes are usually not dramatic like the changes the bacteria can make, so people get along ok, especially if they just remember to take them into account as possibilities.

WD
ps. angel apistos OM?

 

[Whitey_144]

thanks oldman, glad they like it in 7.8! i think when my tank settles it will be around PH8, so shouldn't be too bad.

WD, i think i'll wait til nearer the end before i put in the wood, i'm in no rush, i've also seen some more wood online that i might get too got a bit carried away shopping online yesterday, lol

sorry i don't know what OM means, do you mean what else? I will get 6 Juvenile Angelfish 1m &2f Cockatoo Apistos. I know neons are too small, but i'm tempted to get some cardinals (8?), I'm going to wait to see how big they are in the LFS, not sure it's wise for later down the road when the angels get bigger, otherwise maybe a small group of Harlequin Rasboras (6/8). I also want at least one catfish, but there's so many to pick from! at the moment i'm leaning towards the King Tiger Pleco, but i still have a lot of catfish research to do... I guess a catfish could be quite fragile? so if my PH is ok, i'd probably introduce him last.

i'd like a catfish that would help eat the algae, but not the standard BN pleco. i think the King Tiger has a more meaty diet, so if he's happy with another catfish maybe something else..