Fishless Cycle Barebottom Tank

[Lionheart]

Hey there,

Been trying to cycle a tank for a couple weeks now. I know it can take longer than a couple weeks, but I have never done a fishless or a barebottom for that matter so looking for some advise if I need to change something or stay the course.

55 gallons
2x Aquaclear 70's with prefilters, no carbon, and an extra sponge added to each
Water temp steady 84
Using Dr Tim's ammonia
API test kit (making some judgement calls on halfway points between two readings)


Tap water is: 6 (100) gH, 3 (50) kH, 8.2 pH (drops to 7.4 after 24 hours in tank), 0ppm Am, 0ppm NI, 0ppm NA


Day 1: Filled tank with tap water, 220 drops Dr Tims Ammonia, Prime, Double dose of Stability as prescribed

Day 2: Stability, 1.5ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 3: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 4: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 5: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 6: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 7: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 8: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 9: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 10: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni | 0ppm Na, 220 drops Dr Tims Ammonia

Day 11: Stability, 3 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni | 2.5ppm Na

Day 12: Stability, 3 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni | 2.5ppm Na

Day 13: Stability, 3 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni | 2.5ppm Na




I am not adding Prime daily like I have read elsewhere since Prime removes ammonia, which seemed contrary to the whole cycling process.

I have 2 other tanks I could pull media/substrate from, but I have read that starting clean for discus is recommended.

I am kind of surprised by the nitrate readings. I was not expecting any, but thought I would test for it on day 11 for the hell of it. Thoughts?

There is also a dozen crumbs of something on the bottom of the tank, which is surprising since nothing but liquid has been added to this tank. Perhaps it something from the filters? or the stability?

What are your experiences with a fishless barebottom cycle?

[danotaylor]

G'day Lionheart. Prime doesn't actually remove ammonia, it detoxifies it. In this form it is still available to cycle your BB. The benefit of Prime is that in an ammonia spike/crisis situation you can add 5 times the dose of Prime and it will convert toxic ammonia into non-toxic ammonium and allow your filter to remove it slowly without harming your precious cargo.
Nitrate is often present in municipal water supply. Have you tested your source water for it? If the nitrates present were part of the cycling process you should also be showing nitrite...

[Paul Sabucchi]

Good advice from Daniel

[Lionheart]

So should I be using prime along with stability?

Tap water is free of nitrates, this is why I am puzzled about why I am not seeing nitrites. The ammonia does go down slowly after a few days as you can see from the records above, so is it possible that only a small bit is getting converted to nitrites and it not yet detectable?

My API kit is about 1 year old, but used frequently. The ammonia is new as I had to replace it. Could that be a factor?

[fljones3]

So should I be using prime along with stability?

Yes. They are designed to work together.

[Lionheart]

so discovered the source of my mystery nitrates: my tap water. I has tested 0 for nitrates for as long as I can remember and now it is reading just shy of 5ppm. Any ideas on why this would change?

[danotaylor]

so discovered the source of my mystery nitrates: my tap water. I has tested 0 for nitrates for as long as I can remember and now it is reading just shy of 5ppm. Any ideas on why this would change?

As mentioned above, nitrates unfortunately can be added as a part of the municipal water treatment protocol's...not sure how long you have lived up there, but during the 2014 water crisis when microcystins poisoned the municipal water supply from blue green algae blooms in lake erie, the city radically changed there treatment protocol to try to resolve the issue. I nearly lost all of my fish several times that summer and ended up using 10 x times the Prime dosing and running my water through a carbon filter to make it safe for my fish during water changes. I noticed ever year following, that mid-late summer, when the lake was at it's warmest, I would have issues with the city water supply. Try searching the city water parameters online, the gov't usually has an annual report on the city's water quality.
I really does suck when the city adds more ppm of nitrates to the "clean" water than our target levels...argghhhh

[Paul Sabucchi]

If nitrates in the tapwater become an issue you could consider a nitrate filter, I know folk in the UK with similar issue are happy with the performance of this
https://www.pozzani.co.uk/water-filt...duct_info.html.

[DJW]

I have tested some of these cycle starter products in carefully controlled conditions, and they don't work very well. The best way I have found to start a cycle, if you don't have some live filter media or don't want the risk, is to use a handful of soil from the garden. It has everything you need and its dirt cheap. Nitrifying bacteria live in soil; they don't do well stored in bottles.

Bottled bacteria is a complicated subject. I could post the experiments and results, but the overall conclusion is they don't have what you need and when they seem to work its because the tank would have cycled anyway, from nitrifiers entering the tank incidentally.

If you want to try the soil method, get soil from the same kind of place you would dig for earthworms. Take soil from the top inch of soil in a place where there is some dampness (but not adjacent to an aquatic environment), and where leaves or other plant litter is decomposing. Put some in a jar with water and shake it good. Let settle for a few seconds and pour most of it in the tank. It will be cloudy at first. Every time I have tried this in a sterile tank I had a full cycle in about a week. You still need to feed ammonia to build the bacteria up to match the expected bioload.

[Mr.BigBlock]

I have tested some of these cycle starter products in carefully controlled conditions, and they don't work very well. The best way I have found to start a cycle, if you don't have some live filter media or don't want the risk, is to use a handful of soil from the garden. It has everything you need and its dirt cheap. Nitrifying bacteria live in soil; they don't do well stored in bottles.

Bottled bacteria is a complicated subject. I could post the experiments and results, but the overall conclusion is they don't have what you need and when they seem to work its because the tank would have cycled anyway, from nitrifiers entering the tank incidentally.

If you want to try the soil method, get soil from the same kind of place you would dig for earthworms. Take soil from the top inch of soil in a place where there is some dampness (but not adjacent to an aquatic environment), and where leaves or other plant litter is decomposing. Put some in a jar with water and shake it good. Let settle for a few seconds and pour most of it in the tank. It will be cloudy at first. Every time I have tried this in a sterile tank I had a full cycle in about a week. You still need to feed ammonia to build the bacteria up to match the expected bioload.

Interesting...will have to try this some time.

[Lionheart]

Still waiting on the tank. Day 42..... Below is the updated history. 1ppm of ammonia is clearing in little over a day, so I am going to keep dosing 1ppm until the nitrites start to fall. Testing ammonia and nitrites daily. Nitrates are tested every few days, but has not changed much.

Any other thoughts?


Day 1: Filled tank with tap water, 220 (2ppm) drops Dr Tims Ammonia, Prime, Double dose of Stability as prescribed

Day 2: Stability, 1.5ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 3: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 4: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 5: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 6: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 7: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 8: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 9: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni

Day 10: Stability, 1 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni | 0ppm Na, 220 (2ppm) drops Dr Tims Ammonia

Day 11: Stability, 3 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni | 2.5ppm Na (Nitrates are from tap water)

(Day 12-26 same reading, despite adding prefilters and rings from other tanks)

Day 26: 2 ppm Am | 0ppm Ni | 2.5ppm Na | Added aragonite sand from other tank

Day 27: 2 ppm Am | 0.125 ppm Ni | 2.5ppm Na | First nitrite reading

Day 28: 2 ppm Am | 0.5 ppm Ni | 2.5ppm Na

Day 29: 2 ppm Am | 2 ppm Ni | 5ppm Na

Day 30: 1 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | ppm Na

Day 31: .25 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na | 220 (2ppm) drops Dr Tims Ammonia

Day 32: 1 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na

Day 33: 1 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na

Day 34: .25 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na

Day 35: .25 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na

Day 36: .0125 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na | 220 (2ppm) drops Dr Tims Ammonia

Day 37: .25 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na

Day 38: 0 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na

Day 39: 0 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na | 110 (1ppm) drops Dr Tims Ammonia

Day 40: .25 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na | 110 (1ppm) drops Dr Tims Ammonia

Day 41: .0125 ppm Am | 5+ ppm Ni | 5ppm Na | 110 (1ppm) drops Dr Tims Ammonia

[Lionheart]

1ppm of ammonia now clears in 24 hours.

I also just checked by pH, it's at 6.4, which is full point drop from what it normally is at. From reading around the internets, it looks like this could slow a cycle. Going to do a 75% WC today. Hoping that will help.

[Lionheart]

So after the 75% WC, pH is back to 7.4, nitrites are at the top but not off the chart (which it has been for the last 12 days). And, ha, nitrates are up 10-20ppm. So, fours hours after WC, nitrates are rising.

Think I am going to make sure pH is 7.4 through WC moving forward. And try to keep the nitrites from going sky high...

[Lionheart]

So my cycle finally finished and I thought I would post some tips since there is not a ton of info online about bare bottom fishless cycling. I disclaim that I am not expert, this is just what worked (sort of*) for me after reading what I could about fishless cycles. This was in a 55 gallon tank with 2 AC 70's that had no carbon and an extra sponge in each of them.

1. My cycle did nothing for 26 days. It was not until I added substrate and ring media from my other tank that I saw any trace of nitrites. I got a mesh media bag and just hung it in the tank. I put the ring media in the filters.
2. I took the prefilters off the intakes, since you want the bacteria to grow in the filter, not the prefilter. I just stuffed the prefilters in the filters themselves so they would get some bacteria as well.
3. I added (and still have with the fish) a sun sun wave maker. Apparently, more circulation helps with the cycling.
4. I kept the tank temp at 85. Apparently, bacteria grows faster at higher temps.
5. I kept the lights off. Apparently, algae can grow if you leave the lights on.
6. I ended up using about 6 ounces of Dr Tim's ammonia. I might not have needed that much had I known what I am about to tell you.
6. I started dosing ammonia up to 2ppm until it was being cleared in 48 or so hours. Then I increased it to 3ppm, then 4ppm until it was clearing in 24 hours.
7. I did not dose everyday. I used liquid tests to test for ammonia each day. If it was below the target ammonia amount of 2-4ppm, I dosed just enough to raise it back up.
8. This is the big thing that no one tells you. As soon as I started to see nitrites, my pH started to drop. I was not testing for pH so I did not catch on until later. I noticed as soon as I started doing 75% WC when my pH would drop by about a half point (from 7.6 to 6.8 or lower), the cycle really got doing and I finally started to see a rise in nitrates. Apparently, replenishing the water adds back in buffers that get depleted as part of the cycling process. Because I had it, I used my aged and aerated water. I only used Prime as directed during WC, dosing for the entire tank, not the amount of water I changed.

*Overall, it took 55 total days to cycle, but only 28 days from the point when I added media. There were 7 days where nothing happened until I did a WC, so I think this could have been done closer to 21 days had I been watching the pH.

I mostly learned all this from these two pages:

Dr Tim's Fishless Cycling
Complete Guide to Fishless Cycling - this is the only source that talked about the importance of pH

Hope this helps the next person looking to do a BB fishless cycle.

[DJW]

The drop in pH that you saw is well known.

In the sewer treatment process, where nitrification is managed on a large scale, they have figured out that 7.14 pounds of alkalinity (as CaCO3) has to be added for every pound of ammonia nitrogen that is 'consumed' by the bacteria. You can take this ratio and put it through some mathematical gyrations to get it into the units we are familiar with, the units our test kits use.

For those who like chemistry (hated it in school), here is the generalized equation for the first step in the cycle, the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite (NH4+ --> NO2-):

For Nitrosomonas: 55NH4+ + 76O2 + 109HCO3- + C5H7O2N + 54NO2- + 57H2O + 104H2CO3

From this you can see that HCO3 is being consumed. HCO3 is bicarbonate buffer, or what we call KH. Two ions of bicarbonate are consumed for every ion of ammonium. Some of this bicarbonate is used by the bacteria for its carbon source, and some is used up by the acid that is produced. You can also see that plenty of acid is being produced as H2CO3, which is carbonic acid.

When the pH gets low the bacteria aren't killed (at first, anyway), they just begin to lose their appetite for ammonia. When the bicarbonate is gone they have no source of carbon for growth.

Water changes are a good idea during the nitrite phase of the cycle, for a couple of reasons. First, there is evidence that high levels of nitrite can inhibit the growth of the bacteria you are trying to encourage; and second, it will take longer, once the bacteria become established, to consume the backlog of nitrite.

You were super patient to wait 55 days.

"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." -- Mae West