Fishless Cycling - Everything You Wanted to know...

[ERN02]

Thanks for all the advice, we appreciate it! I did read another post about overdosing on ammonia, and it suggested taking a sample of tank water and diluting it 50% with regular tap water, and then testing ammonia again on this new diluted sample. I've done this, and that shows about 3ppm (or so), so I'm pretty confident that we don't have over 8ppm now. The ammonia test also works on our tap water, which has about 1ppm on its own. Our tap water also has about 20ppm nitrates, and tank tests show this same level.

I guess I'll try another major water change and let you know what happens. Thanks!

[ERN02]

Hi all. I did a major water change, like Froggy Fox recommended. I probably did about 90% change. I refilled with dechlor, warm tap water, with the filter off. I started the filter up again and after a couple hours, tested. Ammonia was about 1.5ppm (way down!), nitrites .5ppm and nitrates 20ppm (as before), and actually my pH dropped a bit -- it had always been 7.0 (tank and tap) and it was 6.5 now. I'm not concerned about the pH drop, but it's interesting....

I then added just a couple drops of ammonia and let it sit overnight. This morning it was about 3ppm or so. I think I'll leave it as is and test again in a few days. Sound right?

Again, thanks much for the advice. I do think that ammonia overdose must have totally stalled our cycle -- I just thought that first major water change I did 3 weeks ago would have started it up again.

[SANND]

Sounds like you're on the right track. You could probably add just a tad bit more ammonia to get it to .5 but as long as you're getting a cycle is what's really important.

[ERN02]

Good news...maybe. On February 7 we celebrated our ammonia level finally hitting 0, and we started added daily ammonia to bring it to 4ppm. We checked for a few days to make sure it was still getting to 0 in 24 hours, and it was! We've been checking nitrites regularly since then and a few days ago, that dropped to .5ppm! We were cautiously optimistic since this has been a long road (setting up our tank and starting the fishless cycling way back in December). So, we decided to check to ammonia -- after 18 hours it was still 4ppm, and after 24 hours, AND after 36 hours!! After 48 hours, it had dropped to 2ppm and remained there when we last checked which was 72 hours after we had last added the ammonia dosage. We had been using the dosage that was bringing us to 4ppm, but maybe the dosage gradually needs to go down? We haven't added ammonia since. What could cause this sudden stall??

[FroggyFox]

well if you haven't done any water changes your nitrates are probably sky high...that could cause some stall.

What are your nitrite, ammonia and nitrate readings right now?

Honestly though, I'm not sure whats causing it to stop at 2ppm...and the fact that this tank has been somewhat fishless cycling for two months now...I'd be tempted to just call it good.

Maybe you should try doing what you did in January again...do a huge water change, test after an hour or so, if you're still reading nitrates then do it again...just be sure not to have your filter running so you don't have any chance of chlorinated water getting into that bacteria. If I had to guess, I'd say the same thing will happen as happened after the last big water change.

I just read back a bit...why don't you lower your temperature to about 80? If for some reason your thermometer was a few degrees off and the tank got up to like 86, then that can kill bacteria too.

[ERN02]

Thanks for the tip on temperature -- it was definitely getting in those upper ranges sometimes. We've set it lower. The ammonia slowly creeped down to near zero, so we are adding more again, just monitoring carefully. Nitrites are about 0.5-1ppm and nitrates are 5-10ppm, so not high at all.

We are tempted to just call it done soon! But we'll see what another week gives us.

Again, thanks for always answering my newbie questions!

[FroggyFox]

hey no problem we were all newbies at some point, just hope what I'm saying helps! As long as you have the patience to get through it, another week would be great.

[prhelp]

Okay, I'm still not clear on something. When I add the tap water to the tank, before I actually add the first batch of ammonia, should I add any conditioner (eg, Amquel) to the water? Or should this be done only after the final water change, prior to adding fish, if I choose to use it at all? Seems to be a little lack of clarity here. Thx in advance.

[FroggyFox]

Unless you are on well water (not treated with chlorine) then yes, you ought to add conditioner to the tank before the ammonia. The chlorine would probably break down and you'd start growing bacteria after awhile, but bacteria probably aren't going to be growing well while the chlorine is present. Amquel can have some undesired effects regarding ammonia test kits, I'd suggest something like Prime or a generic water conditioner that takes chlorine out.

[ishar]

I would say, as a general rule of thumb, you should *never* allow chlorine to enter your set-up tank. It is just much easier that way at any point of the life of the tank. This way you don't have to worry about recycling your tank or about any mini cycles. And whe you are starting, I would think it would take a *lot* longer to start the cycle if you have chlorine in it to start off with.