Did I cycle & miss it?

[kristap]

I've been trying to cycle my tank for almost 3 months now and, despite having read lots of articles on cycling, am really confused and frustrated. I made the mistake of purchasing fish, 1 big pleco & couple of danios for a 40g, before learning about cycling. I bought the AP master test kit and began testing my water every other day. There was a small increase in my nh3, and then no2 & no3 but nothing like I expected. So I waited and despite the pleco pooping like its going out of style, there has been no big nh3 turning into a nice n03 presence.

These reading started about a week after I had established the tank:

ph NH3 NO2 NO3
6 0.5 0 0.25
6.2 0.5 0 10
6.4 0.5 0 5
6.6 0.5 0 3
6.4 1 0 0
6.6 0.5 0 0
6.4 0.25 0 0
6.6 0.25 0.25 0
6.4 0 0.25 0
6.4 0 0 0
6.2 0.25 0 0
6.4 0 0 0
6.6 0 0 0
6.6 0 0 0
6.4 0 0 0

and so on. After the ph settled at 6.4, there hasn't been a change in readings for the last month! I've stopped doing water changes and the pleco droppings are piling up - yet still no ammonia or better yet nitrates. argh.

I don't want to put any more fish in the tank until I'm confident that the tank is ready for them and am wondering if I should be looking at bio-spira to make sure. Will it hurt? Help?

thanks,
krista

 

[talloulou]

Any established "cycled" tank will have a nitrate reading. If you don't have nitrates yet you aren't cycled. I doubt the bio-spira could hurt....so if you can find some I'd try it out. Also be sure not to change the filter material while cycling and I also try to avoid heavy vacumn gravels during cycling. Partial water changes are fine though. Also with the testing kit there are directions that must be followed precisely. I know with my kit if I forget to shake the nitrate bottle before testing it throws the test off. Other than that I too am confused about why your getting 0 for all ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[talloulou]

You haven't added any weird chemicals like ammonia lock or anything have you? Cause those too will make your readings inaccurate in some cases.

 

[TomK2]

Puzzling. your ammonia readings and your nitrite readings come and go, but not in much of a predictable sequence. And none of your nitrogen shows up as nitrate either, but water changes can keep the nitrate levels below the test kit lower limit of 5 ppm. And with no water changes for a month, still no nitrate. Perhaps your absence of nitrate is due to a low bio-load, but I am not certain of that. And now everything is zero. That is good. A low pH can inhibit the nitrifying bacteria, but if that were going on your ammonia should be rising.

So I remain puzzled. If no change in a few weeks (still zeroes across the board) I would suspect that either the bioload is low enough that it is just taking a long time for your nitrates to get up to the lower limit of 5ppm, the test kit is bad, or mistakes are being made in its use. Not to imply you are not doing the tests right, but those are the only things I can think of that would explain it.

 

[Jchillin]

I have to agree. One of the results for NO3 is 3? I've never seen a test kit that used that numerical range.

 

[kristap]

No offense taken, I could be doing lots of things wrong but I'd like to fix that When I first got the kit, I did make some mistakes and as a result didn't get any readings on the nh3 or no2 - I had missed the part about the second bottle

As for the no3 reading of 3, that was my interpretation of the scale as the color was about half way between the 0 and 5, an orange-ish yellow that was too dark to be a 0 but lighter than the 5 on my color card.

I haven't added any chemicals to hold or adjust any of the readings or ammonia or anything like that. The only chemical which I have used is a de-chlorinator in the batches of water which I add to top off the tank.

thanks for your help & suggestions. I think I'm going to track down some bio-spira and see if that wont help.

 

[TomK2]

I am curious, what dechlorinator did you use? Thiosulfate based, amquel or amquel like based (marine labs?), or ammolock based (Aquarium pharmicueticals).

I can't see anything wrong with adding Bio-spira, other than its cost. I also know that other makers of nitrifying bacteria know that activity is impaired by low pH (fritz industries, makers of fritz-zyme), but marine labs has not said anything about Bio-spira (anything that is easily found, perhaps buried in one of their industry articles, but not overtly to consumers). So, if Biospira is like the bacteria Fritz industries makes (i don't think Fritz products are available in the USA), You could pay money for bacteria that won't work too well at your pH. Otimal pH is in the upper 7's, nitrification stops at 6 for the Fritz bacteria. Also, Biospira is not marketed as a fix for problem cycles, but a product to be used at the start of a tank to provide instant cycle/biofilter. As such, adding it to a problem cycle is an off-market use, but I see no reason why it would not help. But what are we trying to help? your ammonia is zero, your nitrite is zero, so why spend the money?

I say leave things alone, and see what happens. who cares that we can't explain the test findings, be content that your fish are not exposed to ammonia or nitrite and enjoy the tank.

 

[Jchillin]

I would have to agree. Since you don't have cloudy water (sure sign of a bacterial bloom, which is another way of saying bacterial die-off), and the amount of time the tank has been running, the only "true" problem is the absence of any significant NO3 reading, which can be attributed to a number of things that cannot be pinpointed at the moment.

 

[kristap]

The dechlorinator which I use is made by Tetra and is called AquaSafe. According to the label, the primary ingredient is sodium hydroxymethane.

It's the absence of the no3 which worries me and that's the help that I'm seeking. I don't want to add anything else to the tank and possibly condemn it to death if I mess up any more. If you think the low ph is inhibiting the cycle, there is a piece of driftwood in the tank which is probably the cause for the extra low ph and could be removed.

 

[Jchillin]

Since NO3 is a by-product of the nitrogen cycle, it has to exist in the aquarium, though the ph and/or the driftwood wouldn't mask it's presence IMO.

I'm back to thinking about the test kit and the methodology of it's use. What type of test kit are you using?

 

[kristap]

It's the Freshwater Master Test Kit made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals. The ph and no2 tests are pretty straightforward; fill to line on test tube and add specified number of drops.
The nh3 and no3 tests are component (?right word?) tests in that there are 2 solutions which have to be mixed in the tube. For the ammonia, 8 drops of solution #1 and then 8 more of solution #2. For the nitrate, 10 drops of solution #1, shake, wait, and then add 10 drops of solution #2.
The test kit is only a couple of months old now as I bought it shortly after I started the tanks; when I learned about the nitrification cycle from this site

 

[Jchillin]

Yep, that is the correct methodology, so we can dismiss the testing for NO3 as the cause. Still have the thinking cap on.

 

[Purrbox]

To rule out the possibility that one or more of your test kits might be bad, you could take a sample of your water to the LFS and ask them to test it. Preferably with a different brand test kit than the one you are using, but not strictly necessary. If they get basically the same results, you can be fairly confident that your test kits are fine.

 

[kristap]

Well, since my favorite LFS moved to Egypt (at least that's what the drive now seems like) I went ahead and ordered the bio-spira which arrived this afternoon. I promptly added it and will test the water tomorrow evening to see if there is any no3 yet. If not, I'll give it another day and then make the trek with a water sample.

Just wanted to thank you guys again for your help & insight!

 

[Snuffleupagus]

Maybe your bioload is so small with just the one fish that the few nitrates that come about as the end result of the bacterial processing are in turn freed up by algae for their own use. It seems like it almost has to be something like that -- I mean, 3 months? I was getting annoyed when it took 6 weeks for mine to cycle. And I didn't even have any fish in it most of the time, since I made the early mistake of interpreting nonexistent ammonia readings as a sign that I could keep adding fish, and then almost overnight both the ammonia and the nitrite shot dramatically up and nuked the fish in spite of my frantic water changes.

 

[kristap]

Snuffleupagus - that's an interesting idea. I had thought since my pleco is pooping everywhere (& I'm leaving it until some nh3 shows up!) that there might be enough and was afraid of compounding my newbie error with more fish.

I've added the bio-spira and the only thing that changed .... was the ph. It went up from a 6/6.2 to 6.8 over a few days. Everything is still alive, but still no nitrates.

My next move is to try Snuffleupagus' advice and add another couple of fish to increase the bioload. Just a couple though to avoid a nasty, sudden spike.