Wigster's Tank Journal - Cycling

[coldcazzie]

8.4 is ideal for a fishless cycle

 

[Wigster]

Results updated once more, Nitirites finally dissapeared after a day with no testing as I wasn't at my house!

Only thing is my Nitrates are, from what I can tell probably about 100ppm (The API test shows a blood red colour, which doesn't match any of the chart, but I guess seems to be about 100ppm)... so my question is... would it be time for a water change, as I understand nitrate readings this high can stall the cycle? Any thoughts ?

 

[coldcazzie]

It won't do any harm to do a 100% water change (or as close as you can get) you might also be able to see the nitrates climbing better if you do.

If you want to, then go for it! If not, then see how it goes for a couple of days.

 

[Wigster]

Well I removed everything apart from substrate from my tank today and did a 60% water change... cleaned the filter also... Only problem is now I think I must have some how messed up the filter, when I plugged it in, nothing happened, then took it apart again and re-fitted it, and it worked.. went out for a few hours and it had stopped whilst I was gone. Got it going again now, just really hope it was a one of thing, as an un-reliable filter is the last thing I want when I finally have fish.

Nitrate's haven't seemed to have dropped after my 70% w/c, but could that be because I was kicking up the substrate so much whilst vaccuming it?

Pics of my new layout and rocks to come tomorrow .

 

[coldcazzie]

It could... or it could be that they were higher than they seemed due to the test kit being rather inaccurate! The main point is, you have them. That means things are working. Life is good

What filter is it?

 

[KittyKat]

The snail is a Physa, that doesn't look like one of the species which breeds without control.

I recommend that you get your nitrites into readable territory, as the filter could very well be processing the 14 ppm of nitrite that 5 ppm of ammonia gives within 12 hours. The nitrite reading on day 27 way have been off the scale as for *very* high readings, the water will go purple for a second or so and then the cyan of 0 ppm, even though there is a lot of nitrite in the water.