Wow, Look! It's... Another Fishless Cycle Diary?

[nork]

Hello, this is my second post ever on these forums. Long time lurker, but only registered about 10 minutes ago.

I have picked up a brand new 60 US gal tank and stand on the cheap.

Not having a tank in many, many years and previously knowing nothing of nitrogen cycles (I guess I was lucky to have surviving fish!), we (wife and I) wanted to introduce our new home and our 4 year old daughter to a new tank. We've researched for months, and decided now is a fantastic time for us to start. We're trying to do this by the book so that our first fishy lesson for our daughter is "this is how much you feed them" rather than "this is how you flush them down the toilet".

I've setup the tank this past Saturday with rinsed (and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed) playsand, granite and slate rocks, two 3" round airstones, a Penguin 350 OTB filter, two Rena 100W heaters. I've filled the tank with our city water, it sat for 24 hours and then I added the instructed amount of Stress Coat and started the filter and airstones up. I've gradually bumped the heaters up to the low 80s over the last couple of days, and last night at 8 PM, using the calculator at the top of the page ( ), I added 11 ml of 10% pure ammonia (from Ace Hardware).

Tested the water after a couple of hours later with an API ammonia liquid test kit and booyah, the reading registered at 4.0, possibly a tad bit greener (but not near the next level up on the test card(8.0)). This morning before I left for work, I bumped the heaters up another couple of notches to the mid-80s.

So, here is the beginning of my diary. Hopefully it's smoother than it is rough, but you guys seem to know your stuff when it comes to being pinned against the wall. I look forward to chatting with you, getting help from you, and helping you when I can.

I do have a question, I've read conflicting information. Is it best to leave the hood lights off during this cycle, on a 12-16 hour ON cycle, or a constant 24 hr on?

Right now they're off.

Tested regular tap water at 7.6 pH

Malawi Cichlid Tank

Day 1: Added 11 ml of 10% ammonia, tested at appx 4-5 ppm.
Day 2: Ammonia 4-5 ppm; pH 7.6+ (my API test kit only recognizes up to 7.6)
Day 3: Ammonia 4-5 ppm; pH 8.6-8.8; temp holding at 90*F
Day 4: Ammonia 4-5 ppm; pH 8.8; temp 90*F
Day 5: Ammonia 4-5 ppm; pH not tested; temp at 90*F
Day 6: Ammonia 4-5 ppm; pH 8.8 or higher (it's almost neon pink, it's not within the color range on my API high pH test card)
Day 7: Ammonia 4-5 ppm; pH not tested; nitrites 0 ppm; temp holding at 84*F
Day 8: Ammonia 4-5 ppm; pH not tested; nitrites 0 ppm; temp holding at 84*F
Day 9: Ammonia 4 ppm; pH 8.4; Nitrite .25 ppm; Nitrate 5 ppm; temp holding at 84*F
Day 10: Ammonia 2-3 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 5 ppm; temp holding at 84*F
Day 11: Ammonia .25 ppm; pH 8.2; Nitrite 5 ppm; Nitrate 5 ppm; temp holding at 84*F
Day 11: Ammonia test about 45 minutes after the initial test reflected an ammonia reading of 0 ppm, so I added 9 ml to get back up to 4 ppm.
Day 12: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite between 1-5 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F; Added 9 ml of Ammonia
Day 13: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite between 1-5 ppm: Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F; Added 9 ml of Ammonia
Day 14: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite .5 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F; Added 9 ml of Ammonia.

From this point on, testing will be done every 12 hours.

Day 15 AM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F
Day 15 PM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH 8.2; Nitrite tested twice at .25 ppm, once at 0 ppm; Nitrate 5 ppm; temp holding at 84*F; Added 9 ml of Ammonia
Day 16 AM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F
Day 16 PM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F; Added 9 ml of Ammonia
Day 17 AM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F
Day 17 PM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH 8.2; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate 5 ppm; temp holding at 84*F; Added 9 ml of Ammonia.
Day 18 AM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F
Day 18 PM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F
Day 19 AM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm (blued in appx 2 mins); Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F
Day 19 PM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F; Added 9 ml of Ammonia
Day 20 AM: Ammonia 0 ppm; pH not tested; Nitrite 0 ppm; Nitrate not tested; temp holding at 84*F

 

[greengoddess]

I'm a newbie too but I heard that it's best to leave the lights off all the time during a fishless cycle (unless you have plants). Leaving the lights on will grow the world's fastest and biggest algae party.

 

[nork]

I do have a couple of anubias attached to the rocks, but they're pretty easy going plants, I may just give them a couple of hours of rays. If it looks like they start to die off, I think I might rather chunk them rather than turn the lights on.

 

[waterdrop]

The anubias will need at least 4 hours of light to register that they've seen any light at all. But 4 hours might in fact be just about right to give them what they need and yet to slow down the inevitable algae that will happen from the combo of ammonia and light. Are you UK or US?

Your work as a lurker seems to have been good, your post indicates that you have got a lot of things right. Be sure to get in the good habit of keeping both a paper notebook (or PC I guess) log in your aquarium room and also a good log of test results etc. here for the members to help you with. In your paper one, the aquarium notebook, don't hesitate to note all sorts of obvious things.. "I bought this today from such and such store.. I added this or observed that." This stuff becomes invaluable later. Your daughter can also do some annotation with fish pictures.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. Welcome to TFF!

 

[nork]

I'm US, Oklahoma City to be exact.

I've seen your name around here quite a bit, waterdrop. If I thought hard enough, I might even be able to call you out by your first name. I got a lot of great info, tips, and tricks in the fishless cycling thread that rss/rdd (can't remember his name right off hand) started a couple of years ago, which you took part of if I remember right. 30 something pages of helpful information. The calculator at the top of this page is one of the best things I've found surrounding this entire subject.

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[nork]

This afternoon I was finally able to track down an API High pH test kit, API nitrite test kit, and an API nitrate test kit. I've been unsuccessful in locating any API Freshwater Master Test Kits except for at one local pet supply store for almost $50!!

I'm all for Mom and Pop shops, but when Pet Smart and Petco's empty shelf has a price tag posted of $31.99, I decided to pass since I already have an Ammonia and pH test kit and bought the rest seperately from a couple of different Pet Smarts.

I have another question.

In a few weeks when I do my big water change, what is the proper step by step process to do this?

The filter media is where the vital bacteria is, right?

So should I turn off my filter completely, drain 90% or more of the tank, then refill with tap water, apply Stress Coat, and then turn my filter on? If I'm supposed to treat the water with dechlorinators BEFORE I re-fill the tank, then how do you suggest I store over 50 gallons of displaced water for treatment? I don't have 10 5 gallon buckets, but is this an investment I should make?

 

[waterdrop]

ok, you just dose the conditioner directly into the tank! Just use an amount appropriate for the full tank water volume. You don't ever have to store water except that its a great idea to have at least one catch-bucket that the water siphons out in to so that you can draw a cup from that for temp matching over at the sink and so that you have a container of old tank water to clean your filter media in if you're cleaning your filter this particular time.

Yes, the two species of bacteria we want grow directly on the media in the filter. If you happened to have a particularly white sponge you could actually see them as a yellow or brown stain left on the media after all the brown debris is rinsed off. The bacteria cling very tightly to the media so are unlikely to be dislodged by squeezing/rinsing, however its important to treat any cleanings done during cycling very gently as this is not the norm. Normally media cleaning doesn't start until after cycling has been over for a few weeks.

Be aware that fishless cycling might take you only 3 weeks if you are extremely lucky. A more likely scenerio is longer with most of the longest ones ending around the 60 to 80 day mark. The two species of bacteria are very slow growers so there's little way to change this, other than bring them in already grown on someone else's mature media.

In the weeks of cycling you must have done the hard work of learning to do stocking plans and working out your final stocking plan and then figuring out if the species you've planned will really be available to you at the big water change weekend. Its a bit of a scheduling headache, and it doesn't always go right. Yes, with 90% water changes you usually can't get away with leaving your filter running (I can get to about 75 or 80% with mine still running and I often do!) so you have to turn it off and drain past the intake and down to the substrate (down to the substrate is the definition of a "90%") Anyway the big water change is a normal gravel-clean-water-change but you just don't recharge the ammonia (well, some people do it the night before and give one last dose of ammonia that they test as having gone to zero the next morning and they get fish without changing that water.) We'll have lots of changes to flesh this out in the coming weeks before you get close to getting fish.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[nork]

Yeah I didn't want to have the filter on when the water level was high enough and end up cycling through un-treated water or water treated so recently it hasn't had time to completely dechlorinate and end up killing the bacteria in my filter I've worked so hard to acheive.

A couple of months wait time isn't too bad. Of course everybody would like to bring home a tank and stare at a bunch of pretty fish that same night, but our tank has air stones bubbling, pretty rocks, and plants we can watch grow in that time.

Plus the chemistry behind all of this has been very exciting so far, I'm almost liking this process!

 

[waterdrop]

Good, yes, that's good thinking. Its reasonable to worry about if you're thinking through the process. The way I do it is to dose half my dechlor into the churning water of the incoming stream shortly after I start to fill the tank and then I dose the other half near the end or right afterwards. Conditioner does its thing almost instantaneously. Likewise it turns out there's little worry of the unconditioned tap water being able to damage your bacteria that way, it would take a longer sustained time for the chlorine/chloramine to hurt the bacteria. They are tougher than that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[nork]

Updated day 3.

3 down, XX to go!

 

[nork]

Here's a pic.

I just took this about 20 minutes ago after removing a lot of the rocks. I didn't like the layout, so I'll rearrange tomorrow.

You can see our two anubias in the front two corners, the little guys are spreading out and enjoying their agua world so far.

 

[waterdrop]

90F is too hot, you need to be adjusting that down to 84F/29C. WD

 

[nork]

Really? I've been seeing that people have been having some of the best luck with temps up into even the lower 90s.

This isn't advised as far as your knowledge and experience goes?

 

[nork]

Updated day 4.

I've kept the temp at 90*F, I've read multiple fishless cycle how-to's and a lot of them have mentioned temps in the lower-mid 90s.

For example: http/www.cichlidforums.com/knowledgebase/idx.php/16/039/Beginners-Basics/article/The-Sacrifish-Aquarium-Cycle.html

Should I lower them for the sake of the cycle or for the sake of the plants? Because I'm more concerned about the cycle than I am two $4 plants.

 

[waterdrop]

Well we've had mixed reports from people experimenting in the lower 90s, some feel it might speed things up a tiny bit beyond the mid-eightys but some report its a risk of having a sudden bacterial die-back at a later point. I don't know, it might be good if you help give us another experience of what happens in the 90s.

~~waterdrop~~