Yet Another Cycling Question

[Larissa]

Hello all,
About 3 days ago I began cycling my tank (fishless) and was able to get some used filter pad from my LFS to speed thing up. I have been monitoring my water parameters daily to twice daily and have found that I have almost untraceable ammonia but nitrites between 0.3 and 0.6. It seems like my tank is in the second stage of cycling. Perhaps as I was transporting the fitler pad the de-nitrifying bacteria dyed off but the other didn't and now it's playing catch-up. I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this as it seems a bit strange.
Many thanks,
Larissa

 

[chipper_222]

Hey Larissa,

Do you know what your Nitrate levels are?

Chip

 

[Spooky76]

Hi Larissa, the problem is that as you said, bacteria die off. It depends how long it was out of the water really. If it was kep in warm water from the LFS it shouldnt all have died.

Other problems are that if you have NO fish in your tank, the bacteria has no ammonia to feed off, so they die...you needed to have fish in your tank when you put the media in your tank....did you have them in ?

If you did then your cycle is working...thats what you should expect. If you have fish in the tank, I would do a 25% water change just to lower your nitrite levels and I would think your nearly there. But after your water change check your water again after an hour to be sure.

 

[Hollymolly4]

Are you adding any ammonia? It may also just be going thru a mini cycle depending on whether you're adding an ammonia source or not.
Good luck and good on you for doing a fishless cycle!

 

[raptorrex]

Hello all,
About 3 days ago I began cycling my tank (fishless) and was able to get some used filter pad from my LFS to speed thing up. I have been monitoring my water parameters daily to twice daily and have found that I have almost untraceable ammonia but nitrites between 0.3 and 0.6. It seems like my tank is in the second stage of cycling. Perhaps as I was transporting the fitler pad the de-nitrifying bacteria dyed off but the other didn't and now it's playing catch-up. I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this as it seems a bit strange.
Many thanks,
Larissa

i would just keep adding my Ammonia and doing stats. you are at a good place for being only three days into a cycle. keep us updated.

 

[Larissa]

Thank's for everyone's replies. The nitrite continues to rise - at leat I think - my test kit is a little hard to read (nutrafin master test kit), and ammonia seems to be stable. Now I just have to wait for the nitrites to drop and I am ready to add fish!!! Hopefully all will go smoothly, but fish keeping seems to be quite an in-exact science so anything could happen!
Many thanks,
Larissa

 

[Larissa]

The nitrate is dropping!!! WooHoo! It was a solid 0.3 again today after coming down from it's spike. Hopefully (touch wood) in a day or two it will be completely cycled and I can add some fish - I'm thinking head and tail light tetras perhaps. Yay!
-Larissa

 

[Spooky76]

Hey Larissa,

Well done, its not easy doing this. Sounds good and all the hard work will be worth it.

Good luck, have fun choosing your fishies

EDIT : Also - depeding how much ammonia you added, you might get away for 5 - 10 small fish to start with. Head and Tail are nice fish, also Phantoms, Red eyes, lemons are quite hardy little tetras.

 

[Larissa]

Thanks for the input, now the fun can really begin! Which tetra?.....Hmmmmmm...

 

[Spooky76]

Depending on your tank....I bought some Blue Rainbow dwarfs which are great little fish and soooo colourful and quite hardy.

I would start with simple fish like tetras while your filter and water really settle down and you get into the water changes etc, then you can look at cichlids etc. Its just they like really good water and cost more money.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

Stu

 

[rdd1952]

The nitrate is dropping!!!

Do you mean the nitrIte is dropping? Your nitrate should never drop on it's own as it can only be lowered via water changes. Over this time, hae you been adding ammonia every day or just waiting on what was present to drop?

 

[Larissa]

Yes, nitrIte is what I ment - not nitrAte, sorry. They are very easy to miss-spell! NitrIte is down to 0.1 today. It's almost there! I have a quick question. Since I used mature filter media, how "mature" does that make my tank? - Taking into consideration it seems like I had some becteria die off and a nitrite spike. Any ideas would be helpful since I can guage when to add some of the more sensitive fish like Otos etc.
Many thanks,
Larissa

 

[Larissa]

Hello Everyone,
My nitrite levels have been at 0.1 for 3 days and do not seem to want to go to zero. Is it normal for it to take this long or am I just being impatient?
Thanks, Larissa

 

[rdd1952]

It isn't normal during a fishless cycle for the nitrite to drop slowly. Usually, the nitrite spike is extremely high and when it drops, it literally goes from off the chart high to zero overnight. During the time you have been cycling, have you been adding ammonia daily or every time it dropped back to zero? If you only added ammonia once and then waited for ammonia and nitrite to drop to zero, I'm afraid you haven't done anything as the ammonia processing bacteria would have died off once the ammonia dropped back to zero and no more food (ammonia) was added.

 

[Hollymolly4]

Congrats on an almost done cycle! I always thought a mature tank meant it's been running for a few months at least. Not just cycled. Correct me if I'm wrong but that is how I understand it.