Cycling/ Quarantine

[nkim1994]

Fishless Cycling/ Quarantine help?

So I am fishless cycling my tank.

I have a 20 gallon 12d x 24w x 17t, running an Aquaclear 30 with to biobags and sponge, took out the carbon for my plants.

Water Params :
Ammonia: 1ppm
Nitrite: 1ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm
pH: 7.6

I started cycling 8/17/2014, with Dr. Tims One and Only, and Ace Hardware Janitorial Strength Ammonia, so this is normal, I'm guessing... I have a few questions though...

Do I redose to 2ppm Ammonia, when it is at .5ppm, or does it actually have to be less.... and I should wait to redose till nitrites is 0ppm or under .5ppm?

I redosed the other day when I hit .5ppm Ammonia and .25 Nitrite... And today it was down to about 1ppm maybe a little less.

Do you think the cycle will take longer without Dr Tims ammonia o.o?

Secondly I was going to get a QT tank...

I was thinking a sterilite 17 gal storage box, (considering the little 2 gallon i used for plants is too small even for juveniles I'll get), get a smaller Aquaclear 20 run it on the back of my tank.

If move the Extra biomedia from my main tank to the smaller filter, and move it to the QT when I need it, will it jumpstart a cycle? So I dont have to cycle the QT? Will it upset the Main tank cycle, if I move the extra biobag?

and will my pH go down when the cycle is done? I know it will if I add my drift wood.

Sorry for all the questions
I'm just new and want to do things right, thank you^^

 

[dalto]

OK, let me see if I can answer all those questions.

• Try to keep your self at 2ppm until your cycle is complete, redose as needed.
• Your cycle will be done if 24 hours after adding 2ppm of ammonia you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites.
• You don't have to use Dr Tim's Ammonia.
• For Qt tanks I would recommend getting a sponge filter. You can run the sponge filter in your main tank in addition to the AC 30 you already have. Then when you need the QT tank up and running you can just pull it out and drop it in the other tank.
• Your tank being cycled should not have any bearing on your PH either way. If you want to lower your ph you will need to use another method.

 

[nkim1994]

one thing so redose to 2ppm everyday? even if there is ammonia in tank and it does not drop below .5ppm? Wont kill the plants with too much ammonia right o.o

Oh I forgot when it does cycle, I heard you do water change to get rid of huge nitrate build up... how big of water change? it wont kill the cycle o.o

sorry just thought of that question lol

 

[dalto]

Just to be clear. I mean you should bring your tank back to 2ppm each day. Not add 2ppm each day. I am not a plant expert but I can't imagine that 2ppm of ammonia would be toxic to plants.

Also, what you have been doing which is redosing once you hit .5ppm of ammonia will work fine if you are more comfortable with that method. I have always preferred to keep it around 2ppm each day but I don't think it will have a huge difference in cycle time either way.

Your nitrates will likely be huge by the end of the cycle so you should do a 100% water change.

 

[nkim1994]

okay thank you for replying... Maybe Ill try dosing it back to 2ppm everyday, hopefully it makes the colonies bigger and stronger^^

and if i have to do 100% i guess ill wait on putting that wood piece in.. haha I only have a bucket to get water out^^

Thanks again^^

 

[PNWaquarist]

The advantage to using Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride is that the concentration is known. The Ace ammonia is not standardized (should be somewhere between 2-10% by mass) and the ammonia is volatile, so its concentration in the bottle is slowly decreasing over time. So you'll have to use your ammonia-testing kit to know how much of the janitorial ammonia to dose. That said, both sources of ammonia are equally effective.

In theory, your pH should go down while cycling, as the bacteria you're growing produce acidic waste. However, you may not see much of a change, especially if your water has a high carbonate content (KH). Your driftwood will leach tannins into the water and acidify it, but this is a very slow process and its impact on your pH will be pretty modest.

If your nitrites approach 5 ppm, I would knock the daily ammonia doses down to 0.5 ppm until the nitrite levels fall back closer to 1 ppm. (See the cycling instructions on the DrTim's Aquatics web site.) Many, including Dr. Tim, believe that high levels of ammonia inhibit the growth of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria. This is controversial, but I'd say that Dr. Tim knows his bacteria better than anyone else. At the very least, if you have a nitrite spike, your ammonia-oxidizing bacterial colony is well-established and doesn't need to be flooded with excess ammonia anymore.

Good luck. I used Dr. Tim's bacteria and it worked great. Cycled my tank in nine days. My cycling pH and temperature were 8.0 and 82 F, respectively.