Fishless Cycle Questions

[fish wrangler]

I wasn't using the strip specifically for pH, it is a 5 in 1 strip test that had pH. I didn't see any bottle KH or GH at petsmart. I picked up a bottle of prime and some tabs. I checked the nutrients, and got the tabs with more macro nutrients. Once I have the time to swing to home dept to get the ferts I will use DIY tabs

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[fish wrangler]

Ammonia-0 ppm...nitrite-5.0 ppm (maybe more)...nitrate-80 ppm.

When i tested nitrates last time they may have been 40 ppm amd I just couldn't tell the difference between the two.

Nitrites are driving me nuts. 13 hours and i can turn 2ppm ammonia into nitrites...camt say same for nitrites

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[dalto]

You have to be patient. I know it sucks.

That being said, if it is high enough that you can't read it accurately I would do a water change.

 

[fish wrangler]

Tomorrow i will do another 50% wc...im tired and dont want to stay up to late tonight.

I'm happy I can convert the ammonia to nitrites that fast though.

Should I dose back up to 2ppm?

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[fish wrangler]

I added 1.65 ml this morning. I didn't test, but it should have gotten up to 2.0 ppm. When I get home I am running out for some diy co2 things. I will test and probably do a wc afterwards

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[dalto]

You don't need to redose ammonia every day. I would only do it a couple of times a week. It you dose ammonia every day it won't really hurt anything but you may have to keep doing water changes as your nitrites spike out of control.

 

[fish wrangler]

Tested everything except ammonia, KH, and GH. pH is 7.4, nitrites are 0ppm, and nitrates are crazy high. Adding 1.65 ml ammonia and if O have 0 nitrites tomorrow night I believe i am cycled

I never added ammonia yesterday or today so that is why I didn't test for it, from previous readings I knew there would be none.

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[dalto]

Sounds like you are close!

 

[fish wrangler]

I added enough ammo that should make it 2ppm. I will retest in 24 hours to see where everything stands

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[trennamw]

Fingers crossed!


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[fish wrangler]

ITS DONE!! passed 24 hour test with flying blues, yellows, and reds lol. 1 huge water change in order

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[dalto]

Congrats!

Change it all

 

[fish wrangler]

Congrats!

Change it all

How would changing 100% of the water affect my plants?

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[fish wrangler]

THANK YOU FOR THOSE THAT HELPED!!! Everything was a success, and even my baby snail survived being taken from the tank and put back in. I will get the first fish tomorrow after work

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[fish wrangler]

If I rinse the old filter pad in tank water and add that water directly to the filter with a new filter pad will that instant cycle the new pad?

Should i be worried about a mini cycle of i just replace the old pad with a new one?

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[trennamw]

That's not quite enough to get a new filter pad populated. It would seed it instantly, but it wouldn't have enough to be considered cycled.

Yeah removing the filter pad would likely be problematic this early on. Why are you asking? Which filter do you have again?


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[fish wrangler]

My old filter pad is nasty, lots of junk amd crud on it so I didn't know if a rinse in tank water or a new pad would be better.

I have the TopFin 30 HOB filter that came with my tank.

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[dalto]

That is the big problem with the filter pad based filters.

Given how new your tank is I would be very careful with replacing the pad.

My best recommendation would be to cut the old pad up into pieces and stuff as much of it as you can into the filter with new pad. Hopefully that will seed it. You may still have a mini-cycle but there is not much you can do about that with a single pad-based filter.

 

[fish wrangler]

Ok, I will have to try that on Sunday. I am going out of town today, and won't have time to do that.

Right now I have a new filter pad in, but the old filter pad is flowing into the new one. No BB lost that way, and it kight seed the new pad a little.

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[fish wrangler]

I ended up rinsing the old filter pad with tank water and adding that nasty water into the filter. Tested today and got 0,0,20 ppm. Pwc tonight is in order

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