Is My Tank Cycling Again?

[Coltrane9]

Quick recap:
55G, had African Cichlids for about 7-8 months, decided I want to do something more community-type.

So I filled a Styrofoam box with the African' water, and put the filter on that box, and let it run...

Then I emptied the entire tank out, hosed it down, put in new substrate, and filled it back up.
I then put the filter back on it, and let it run for a day.

I just assumed that that would work fine... But apparently not. I've got about 1 to 1.5PPM Ammonia right now.
Thing is, I tested our tap water, and it's about a 1PPM. Is it just that the 50Gs of 1PPM Ammonia was too much for the filter to deal with?

Should I now just wait? I'd do a Water Change, but I guess that won't help much. When I WCs before I suppose adding 5Gs or so a week wasn't enough to make a difference.

 

[eco23]

Quick recap:
55G, had African Cichlids for about 7-8 months, decided I want to do something more community-type.

So I filled a Styrofoam box with the African' water, and put the filter on that box, and let it run...

Then I emptied the entire tank out, hosed it down, put in new substrate, and filled it back up.
I then put the filter back on it, and let it run for a day.

I just assumed that that would work fine... But apparently not. I've got about 1 to 1.5PPM Ammonia right now.
Thing is, I tested our tap water, and it's about a 1PPM. Is it just that the 50Gs of 1PPM Ammonia was too much for the filter to deal with?

Should I now just wait? I'd do a Water Change, but I guess that won't help much. When I WCs before I suppose adding 5Gs or so a week wasn't enough to make a difference.

How long was the filter running without an ammonia source (fish, pure ammo, etc)?

 

[eco23]

Do you currently have the fish in there?

 

[Coltrane9]

Oh yeah, and 1 additional thing.
I did buy 10 Neon Tetras that first day, assuming that everything would just be fine b/c of the filter and such...

But they really do appear to be perfectly fine, which seems weird if the ammonia is 1 or 1.5PPM, right?

They're not struggling at all, swimming all around, eating all the time, etc.
I bought a bottle of Safe Start, and apparently it didn't do anything.

 

[Coltrane9]

How long was the filter running without an ammonia source (fish, pure ammo, etc)?

I took it off, and cleaned the tank, putting the filter back on in about 2 hours.
Then got fish the next day.
So maybe 18 hours without a direct source (fish)

 

[eco23]

Was the filter running just water for a few hours while you cleaned the tank, or for days / weeks?

Okay gotcha

 

[eco23]

There's 2 sides to this. While the vast majority of your beneficial bacteria lives in the filter, it is also on every surface of your tank. So you definitely lost a good portion of it by replacing substrate and cleaning.

The water itself contains virtually none of the bacteria.

The 1.5 ammo reading is probably caused by a mixture of 2 things... 0.5 of it from the fish and 1.0 from the tap water. If you used the dechlorinator it detoxified the ammo in the tap water, but the fish are putting in more than your biofilter can handle m

I'd go do a 75% or two back to back 50% water changes to get the ammo below .25 ASAP.

You've got to treat this mini cycle with daily pwc's until the bacteria can recuperate.

 

[eco23]

It was very smart of you to keep the filter running though. That gives you a tremendous advantage, because otherwise you'd be starting all over. You've just gotta stay on top of the pwc's until the ammo and nitrItes are at a constant 0 again. What test kit are you using? Do you have nitrIte and nitrAte readings now?

 

[Coltrane9]

I'm using dechlorinator, yes.

But wouldn't putting fresh tap water of around 1PPM Ammonia really not help much?
Even if it's "Detoxified", isn't it still 1PPM Ammonia?

 

[Coltrane9]

It was very smart of you to keep the filter running though. That gives you a tremendous advantage, because otherwise you'd be starting all over. You've just gotta stay on top of the pwc's until the ammo and nitrItes are at a constant 0 again. What test kit are you using? Do you have nitrIte and nitrAte readings now?

0 Nitrites, let me go test the Nitrate real quick.

 

[eco23]

Forgot to mention...Don't forget the dechlorinator and to temp match with the large pwc's!

 

[eco23]

No, the dechlorinator detoxifies the ammo and it is not harmful to the fish. It is basically a false positive on your test kit. The other .5 is toxic though and the fish will start feeling it soon...if not already.

 

[Coltrane9]

So I just tested it:
0 Nitrites
Basically 0 Nitrates, I have the API kit, and it's never quite yellow yellow for 0, but it was pretty close to yellow. 0-2PPM maybe

And Ammonia was somewhere between .5 and 1PPM, those 2 color squares are almost the same, but it wasn't 2ppm.

So let me just make sure I'm correct.
If I test the ammonia straight out of the tap, and it comes up 1.5PPM
And then I put in a dechlorifyier it's essentially 0PPM ammonia going into the tank?

 

[eco23]

So I just tested it:
0 Nitrites
Basically 0 Nitrates, I have the API kit, and it's never quite yellow yellow for 0, but it was pretty close to yellow. 0-2PPM maybe

And Ammonia was somewhere between .5 and 1PPM, those 2 color squares are almost the same, but it wasn't 2ppm.

So let me just make sure I'm correct.
If I test the ammonia straight out of the tap, and it comes up 1.5PPM
And then I put in a dechlorifyier it's essentially 0PPM ammonia going into the tank?

The dechlorinator (we all use Seachem Prime here) binds with the ammonia (found in the chloramines) and converts it to a non toxic form. So, it essentially becomes a false positive on an API test kit. The ammonia the fish produce, however, is toxic and can only be controlled with partial water changes (pwc's). There are some products that help absorb ammonia the fish produce, but this prevents the biofilter from reestablishing.

Keep doing daily 50% pwc's and test everything daily. If you have nitrAtes it means that there is still beneficial bacteria converting the ammo for you If you don't see nitrAtes, that unfortunately means you have an uncycled tank.

 

[Coltrane9]

The dechlorinator (we all use Seachem Prime here) binds with the ammonia (found in the chloramines) and converts it to a non toxic form. So, it essentially becomes a false positive on an API test kit. The ammonia the fish produce, however, is toxic and can only be controlled with partial water changes (pwc's). There are some products that help absorb ammonia the fish produce, but this prevents the biofilter from reestablishing.

Keep doing daily 50% pwc's and test everything daily. If you have nitrAtes it means that there is still beneficial bacteria converting the ammo for you If you don't see nitrAtes, that unfortunately means you have an uncycled tank.

OK, thanks.
That makes sense I guess.
So tomorrow I'll plan on putting the dechlronitor in a bucket of tap water, and testing that.

Then doing some water changes this week.
So if it turns out that the dechlorinator + Tap = 1PPM or so, and I do water changes and the tank gets down to 1PPM does that mean it's really 0?
Does the false positive go away? Or is the way to be sure that it really is 0 or a false positive, to look for Nitrates?

 

[eco23]

OK, thanks.
That makes sense I guess.
So tomorrow I'll plan on putting the dechlronitor in a bucket of tap water, and testing that.

Then doing some water changes this week.
So if it turns out that the dechlorinator + Tap = 1PPM or so, and I do water changes and the tank gets down to 1PPM does that mean it's really 0?
Does the false positive go away? Or is the way to be sure that it really is 0 or a false positive, to look for Nitrates?

There's no point in testing the bucket of dechlorinated water. It's gonna show the same as out of the tap...but it will be a false positive if you dechlorinated it.

The bacteria will eat up the ammo whether it's been rendered non toxic or not, and when your tank is cycled it will always read 0 ammo, 0 nitrItes and varied nitrAtes.

The end product of a cycled tank is nitrAtes. So if they're there...it means there is at least some bacteria converting it. You've just got to keep doing pwc's until the ammo and nitrItes are constantly at 0. The false positive should be eaten by the bacteria within 24 hours if your tank is cycled.

 

[eco23]

If you have dechlorinator now...you need to do a large pwc tonight. Anything over .25 is deadly. Even if a large portion of the 1.5 reading is a false positive...the remaining amount is dangerous. Try and get it done tonight, if not now.