Fishless cycle day 12 - The first smidgen of nitrites! :)

[georgef]

Day 12 -

Ammonia - 4 to 5 ppm
Nitrites - .0000000001 ppm (or something close to that...)

Water temp is now 83 (from 88) and still aerating the hell out of it.

Just noticed the slightest bit of color change in the nitrite test for the first time this evening. Looks like the nitrosomonas have finally come to dinner. :)

[Ardan]

Hi,
It can take 2 to 3 weeks to show nitrites.

hth
Ardan

[Zed]

Hi George.

Day 3 of my fishless cycle attempt.
No nitrites yet either.
I did however add 1ml/gal of Cycle in the beginning.
Did you use a bacteria "starter?"

Trying to be patient. :-)
Zed
.

[Carol_Roberts]

True fishless cycle with no "helpers" it took me 4 weeks to show nitrIte.
Carol :heart1:

[gary1218]

I haven't found that fishless recycling takes any less time than recycling with fish. Usually 4-6 weeks.

GARY

[Flexy]

Talking about cycles, my tank has 4 fish(55gallong), nitrates went up after 3 weeks. End of 4th week going down. Should be okay maybe at the end of 3rd or start of 4th. Usually they say 4-6 weeks.

[ronrca]

George,
Are you doing any water change by any chance? Do you have any plants? It is usual that nitrites are taking that long.


Gary,
Its not that fishless will be so much quicker but the biggest advantage with fishless is that you will build a large bio filter enabling you to add many fish right off the start insteadof adding 2-3 fish every 3-4 weeks. Another big plus is that fact the you are not causing stress/harm to the fish during the cycling period.

The only way to kick start a cycle is seeding it from an existing tank. Bacteria-in-a-bottle has not proven to work yet as bacteria requires 02 and a source of food. In a bottle that has been on the shelve for a couple of weeks, it has neither.

[georgef]

First of all, thanks to all who have replied. :)

ronca,
Nope, no water changes, no plants. I've replaced evaporated water with aged water a couple of times to keep the tank full (not even a gallon total), but I'm testing ammonia daily and adding more clear ammonia as required to keep it reading ~ 5 ppm.

I was guessing (hoping) that I should start seeing nitrites at around a week to 10 days.

Zed,
Well, I did add some Proquatics "bacteria starter" that came as a freebie sample with some water conditioner for chlorine removal I bought. Might just as well have added plain water. Truth is, if you see anything that is labeled as a "bacteria starter" that isn't kept in a fridge, there's probably no (living) nitrobacter in it. That's my guess, anyway... ;)

[ronrca]

Shoot! What I meant to day was that it is unusual that you have not seen any nitrites. Something tells me that the bacteria is not growing. If you have not seeded the tank, it could take this long. If nothing happens in the next couple of days, something is wrong.

What about nitrates (just curious)? Ph, temp, gh, etc?

[Rick00]

when i did my fishless cycle it took me almost three weeks for all of the amonia to turn into nitrites...then another month to complete the cycle....

RIck

I have had the best results from fishless cycling when I added a media bag full of seeded gravel and a live plant or two, coupled with enough ammonia to register 5ppm. If you don't seed the tank it can take a long time. Properly seeded I averaged 14 days in total. I never add ammonia after the first day as I found that simply increased the length of cycling time. Bottled bacteria is worthless in my experience and testing.

Dave

[georgef]

Ronrca --

Don't have a nitrate test kit, yet.

pH is 8.4 (yes, I know that's high, :( )
GH is 2.5 - 3
KH is 13
Water temp is 88.

Aw, heck... here's the rest of the particulars, too: :)
55 gal tank
2 Penguin 170's with Biowheels
Sponge prefilters on each Penguin intake tube
1 Hagen double-sponge Biofoam filter
2 airstones (one in each rear corner) with a Hagen Elite 802 running the stones and sponge filter
1 Airstone in the center powered by Rena 200

George

[ronrca]

Something the may increase the cycling is lowering your temp. Bacterica is most active between 68-86F.

Ph is quite high. Is that the ph from your tap?

It is true that continuly adding ammonia will prolong the cycle. When I first cycle my 90G (without seeding it), I added ammonia everyday. Nitrites spiked and never came down. For weeks I waited until finally I decided to do a water change. The next day the cycle was done. Can you add too much ammonia? Yep!

[georgef]

pH from the tap is 7.6. After approx 24 hours of aeration it rises to 8.2 - 8.4 and stays steady there. With a KH of 13, it will be nearly impossible to lower that pH and keep it stable. So far, nearly all of the advice I've received is that unless I want to breed discus, leave the pH alone.

But because of the high pH, I will not put a single fish in my tank until its bio-filter is fully established.

As far as temp goes, I had assumed (mistake!) that a higher temp was better for a little ammonia munch-fest and wild bacterial orgy. :) I'll lower it a couple of degrees.

George

[ronrca]

Wow! That kind of bites that your ph goes that high (and I thought my ph was bad at 7.6 from 7). I agree with leaving the ph alone unless breeding. Ive tried to change my ph and what a pain in the arse. ;)

[georgef]

Wow! That kind of bites that your ph goes that high

Yep, I've still got the tooth marks to prove it. (Boo!) ;)

I tried once to lower it with Proper pH 7.0. The label on the container said "May cause cloudiness in hard water." Yeah, no kidding! It looked like I'd filled the tank with skim milk! I ended up tearing the whole thing down and starting over.

George

[Wolf]

Your ph is nothing. Mine is 10+ out of the tap plus I have to deal with chloramines. My tapwater has so much ammonia I can cycle filters just by leaving them in the water aging tank. It's not much trouble once you figure out how to keep your parameters stable. I use Seachem discus buffer which is expensive but my ph stays at a rock stable 6.5. I would like to not have to use anything at all. Anyone raise discus in 10.5ph water?

[ronrca]

Ouch! Ph of 10+! Why not go into africans instead? JK!

Now that really bites! I also have chloramines but its not a big deal with Seachem Prime! ;)

It would be interesting experience to try! Do you have any runts or have access to any? I know there may be all sorts of health issues but it still would be interesting to find out. Reading is one thing, seeing is believing!

[Wolf]

Actually, I used to keep Africans and they loved the water but I always wanted to keep discus and here I am. It's not too bad conditioning the water my ph stays stable and it cost me about $10 a month for discus buffer. I wouldn't go back to Africans since I switched to discus. Discus are much more challenging and fun to keep for me especially with this water I have. I even got my first breeding pair and free swimmers last week from two fish I bought in February so the water must be good enough. ;D

[georgef]

Wolf --

Just curious... What is your GH and KH out of the tap?

George

[Wolf]

Here are the water parameters given to me by the city from July through September. I am still trying to figure out how to analyse these parameters. It seems as if my water is pretty soft and should be good for breeding once the ph is adjusted but I have no idea what the discus buffer does to the water after i treat it. I think it probably raises conductivity and phosphates. I have actually never done a kh/gh test but I need to get one soon. I'll try to get one tomorrow and let you know how it test.

Total Ammonia (as N) 0.54
Free Ammonia (as N) .28
Calcium 16
Chlorine Residual 2.29
Fluoride 0.72
Magnesium 7
Sulfate 25.1
Total Phosphate 1.14
Total Hardness (as CaCO3) 72
pH (units) 10.2
Conductivity (umhos/cm) 237
Total Alkalinity (as CaCO3) 48
Phenol Alkalinity (as CaCO3) 26
Total Solids 135
Threshold Odor (TON) 0
Total Organic Carbon 2.28
Turbidity (NTU) 0.06
Silica 8.6
UV254 (cm-1) 0.060
Total Coliform (Col/100ml) <1
E.Coli (Col/100ml) <1

[dm]

Wolf, I thought my water was hard and Alkaline.
I think I'll just consider myself lucky from now on.