Fishless Cycle Help Please

[r8please]

Hi all,

I am currently in week 4 of a fishless cycle and have had some odd readings since the start. You will see I had nitrite and nitrate from very early on.

I have attached a log of my readings which will hopefully help.

In the last week I have seen both nitrite and nitrate drop considerably but am still seeing ammonia. As you can see in the log, I have seeded the new tank with existing media and have used API Quick Start.

I'm hoping someone can tell me what to do next. Do I top up the ammonia?

I have a Fluval Roma 200, an all new tank (until I squeezed the existing media into the tank). I'm using Dr. Tims as an ammonia source and testing with NT Labs multi test.

TIA

 

[Aiken Drum]

Up until recently your ammonia was dropping, your nitrite is no longer detectable, so your cycle was progressing. Looks like something stalled your cycle, which happens a lot. Maybe that big water change killed everything off. Why are you doing water changes during a fishless cycle? Are you sure you added a dechlorinator when you did that water change?

I would question your nitrate test. Are you sure you are doing it correctly? Are you sure you was doing it correctly previously? I would actually expect to see much lower nitrate at the start of your timetable, and much higher at the end. I would get a 2nd opinion on the nitrate. Either try a different test kit or get a test done at your local fish store to compare. Its commonly said that high nitrite can cause falsely high nitrate readings, so you could be seeing that.

Nitrate isnt important to test for during a fishless cycle though, so you could completely ignore it for now.

We get a lot of traffic on this forum with people struggling to cycle a tank, and by far more people have trouble with fishless cycles than fish in. What you are seeing is very common. The only real solution is stick at it, be patient. Or do a fish in cycle. From what you have said, apart from the needless water changes, you arent doing anything wrong. You could try some bottled bacteria to see if that helps. Increasing the temperature to 28c speeds things up a little too.

 

[r8please]

Thanks Aiken,

I was advised to do a water change as my cycle may have stalled. I have the temperature at 28c already.
Should I top up the ammonia back to 4.0? Do you have a recommended bacteria?
With regards to a fish in cycle, I do have 4x Zebra Danio in my smaller tank that were originally used to cycle the smaller tank.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Some people do advocate a water change if their cycle appears to be stalled. I would say those first 2 water changes where at points when there was no sign of this. The first 20% change was just 3 days after you had started and the day after you had topped up your ammonia. And the second 75% change just 4 days later. Gonna need a lot more patience than that.

I would just top ammonia up to 2ppm.

As to a recommendation for bottled bacteria. We have recently had a member with very good results from Tetra Safestart. My personal recommendation would be Dr Tims One + Only as its the product ive personally had best results with. Dr Tim Hovenec is credited as being the person to first identify the bacteria responsible for the nitrogen cycle and developed the first product, Tetra Safestart. One + Only is a development from Safestart. Thats not say you will see a quickly established cycle. These products are hit and miss, mostly miss. At best you may see the length of cycling reduced from several months to several weeks.

 

[r8please]

Great thank you. I will top up the ammonia to 2.0 and wait.

Thanks for your help.

 

[ColdKoi]

Yea I’d have to say the same. Do not do a water change or any kind of cleaning of the tank during the cycle, unless ammonia gets way out of hand from an accidental overdose or something.

You’re back on track with the seeded filter media, just try to keep that ammonia above 1ppm and try to have some patience!

I’d question the validity of your nitrate test results, I don’t think it would be physically possible for a tank to generate 80ppm nitrate in 3 days no matter what you did. Heck, my majorly overstocked and overfed 29g comet tank doesn’t even generate 80ppm nitrate in 2 weeks. That would be a ridiculous amount of processed ammonia/nitrite, not to mention the fact that the reading just plateaued between water changes

 

[r8please]

Thank you Cold Koi. This is still a massive learning process for me so this cycle is going to be anything but smooth sailing I’m sure. I am beginning to doubt the NT Labs test. I may try the API test instead

 

[ColdKoi]

I would definitely try a different test if you’re able to acquire them without too much hassle.

I just don’t see how it would be possible to go from a 0 to 40-80 reading in just a couple days in that large of a tank. Then the fact that it plateaus between water changes makes absolutely no sense, nitrate is the end result of the nitrogen cycle, if something produced 40-80ppm at such an alarming rate it should just keep climbing until it is reduced with a water change.

 

[r8please]

Hi Guys, a little update on the cycle. For the last 3 days my readings have been

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 8 (could be higher)
Nitrate 80 (could be higher)

I am dosing 2ppm every day, should I be thinking about a water change to bring the ites and ates to readable levels?

TIA

 

[Aiken Drum]

I would do water changes to keep nitrite to readable levels. Nitrate is irrelevant.