Journal: Restarting a Fishless Cycle (with naturally soft water).

[threnjen]

in acidic water (pH below 7.0) ammonia automatically ionizes into ammonium which is basically harmless.

This is also wrong. The ionization of ammonium/ammonia is a constantly occurring process with changes of pH and temperature. It is not a line where, when crossed, a change occurs. The change is happening all the time.

Whatever the source was for that italicized part of your text, it is totally incorrect I'm afraid.

 

[threnjen]

If this is true it may explain why my betta has been doing so well since I started letting the pH in his tank be 6.5 (and why I never see nitrites or nitrates). But if that is true why do we treat ammonia as such a universal problem when many community fish can deal with that lower pH as long as it's stable? But it sounds too good to be true. And I'm not sure how reliable the article and its resources are.

It's actually not too good to be true, people just don't "get" it. Very few people know about the NH3/NH4 thing and even fewer people understand it. The person who wrote the article you linked to, while otherwise a pretty good article on nitrification, obviously didn't understand it. After all, he was quite emphatic that levels of .5-.1 ammonia hurts the fish, and his failure to explain the NH3/NH4 thing shows me he does not understand it. That's why that article sucks. A lot of his info was fine, but a failure to explain the most important part of understanding ammonia was left out.

A pH of 6.5 means an ammonia level that is basically negligible. But the stuff that people pass around/are taught about ammonia in this hobby is pretty much completely bogus. The API test reads 1.0ppm ammonia, CALL THE POLICE! In actuality a neutral pH 7.0 at 25.5C results in a harmful ammonia concentration of .006. Big whooopty do.

If your betta tank tests at .5ppm ammonia at ph 6.5 and a standard temp around 25C, the harmful ammonia in there is .000955. It is basically nothing. Considering the level of free ammonia where it starts to be considered "harmful" at long exposure is .02, I think we can all agree that your betta is going to be totally fine.

There is a lot of crying wolf in this hobby simply because the chemistry is very difficult for most to understand properly. you either do your best to spread the word of education, or you just give up and tell everyone what they want to hear. You're obviously an intelligent person and will have an easy time understanding the more intricate elements of your water chemistry.
/end soapbox

 

[trennamw]

Wow that was awesome!!! Thank you. I'm going to have to read that again when I have more time to take it in.

The last time I spent a lot of time in forums was about cloth diapers, another type of "how to make ammonia go away in your unique water conditions", and there too I saw a lot of articles like this that sounded good but then not so much.

I definitely want to understand that chart better, as I'm sure I continue to do too much to my water.

The quote about ammonia being no biggie in lower pH was from the same article.

 

[trennamw]

(I knew you'd be a great resource Threnjen, when you told me you'd cycled a 5 gallon bucket to understand how it works)

I agree about spreading the knowledge. I've had a terrible time so far because of faulty half understood info that was relayed to me, often by people who I was told were experts. I'm pretty sure 2 months of conflicting info was why a tiny bit of fin rot in one fish led to losing both (I was told to treat both since it's bacterial, and after treating the healthy fish it started fin rot, then both got worse with each treatment).

 

[trennamw]

Oh holy moly. That took all of 30 seconds to understand. I can't believe they don't print a chart like that and stick it in with the test kits.

By that standard my bettas have never ever endured ammonia above .002. Even when the pet store told me my ammonia was super super high and the reason why the snail or betta was getting sick. Turns out I never had anything living in toxic levels of ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate.

The other thing they said was pH swings, as it was going from 7 to 6 a lot. Rarely, down below 6.

But I'm beginning to think it was part pH, part using a dechlorinator with nothing to help slime coat, part total lack of minerals, part temperature swings. I just learned the heater in those tanks just raises 2 degrees over room temp, and that room was pretty darn cold at night through the winter. Their tank lights put off a lot of heat in daytime too. They were likely going through a 10 degree swing each day. (Yesterday Betta Bob got a heater with a thermostat that stays at 78).

Well that helps put it all in perspective. So how do I know when to change water? If I have .25 ammonia, 6.5 pH, 78 degrees, zero nitrite or nitrate, GH and KH about 3-5 and stable, and I haven't added anything to the water (increasing tds) ... In this case it's the betta tank ...

 

[trennamw]

A little test tube and pipette rinsing experiment ...

On the left is what happens when you accidentally fill a test tube using the pipette from last nights ammonia dose. On the right is a tube filled using that same pipette just rinsed once with plain water. The right one doesn't register even .25 ppm ammonia.

The lesson, I think, is to forget the ritual of dunking test tubes in tank water after rinsing so tapwater "residue" won't skew results.



Nitrites are plummeting! Left is full strength, right is diluted to 10% tank water 90% distilled because I can't see the difference between 1, 2, and 5ppm. Looks like I'm at about 5ppm nitrite (down from 20, 24 hours ago). By my math maybe tomorrow night nitrite will be gone!?



Didn't test nitrates, don't really need to know at this point.

PH still 8.2, temp 85 F. Another 2 ml ammonia going in (equals about 2ppm).

 

[trennamw]

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 9:

Ammonia and nitrite 0.

Nitrate super high.

PH steady at 8.2.

Gonna put in another 2ppm ammonia to test and read up on what's next. Working 12 hours next 2 days so might not have time to do much but feed existing bacteria, and plan the transition ...

At what point do I turn down the temp, remove the seeded media, etc?

It'd be best for me to get fish Sunday ...

 

[trennamw]

Hmm ... Well ...



Ammonia back up to .5 ppm, nitrite 1-5 impossible to read zone ...

It's possible I forgot to add ammonia a few nights back, which may account for it appearing to be done and now working more slowly. I also took the seeded filter media out for a few minutes last night but it's hard to believe a few minutes could kill bacteria. More coral in the filter wouldn't hurt would it? And I took the bio balls out of the filter but they're bobbing and rotating in the water itself. Just don't have room for everything in the filter box.

Ah well. Onward!

Doing a partial water change tonight, going to start seeing how coral alone does in my water.

Before water change ... GH at 3 "drops" and KH at 11. PH steady at 8.2.

 

[trennamw]

It's also possible I never missed a dose but did dose twice last night ... The things that happen when it's a 12 hour work day and it's the actual live fish getting the most attention.

 

[trennamw]

Day 11 (I think) ...

Ammonia .5ppm
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5

Which I take to mean (1) yay the nitrite to nitrate bacteria finally caught up, so the ammonia is being converted all the way to nitrate. And (2) boo I don't have quite enough of either to cycle 2 ppm in 24 hours.

Not sure what to do next ... Except wait and continue to feed ammonia. From what I've been told the bacteria get more dormant at a lower pH so could be I'll see a bump now that the pH is back up for the Last 12 hours.

PH is back up to 8.2. Temp at 90 for some reason though I didn't change the heater setting. Is that because the heater isn't fully submerged?

 

[Pandicorn]

Bah! Hang in there bud! you're doing great, just one day, overnight, nitrites will be 0!! Trust me it happens!

 

[trennamw]

Day 12 ... Just 15 hours after a 3+ ppm ammonia dose (woke up in the middle of the night and remembered).

Ammonia 0
Nitrite appears to be under 5 ppm (lighter purple tube is a diluted sample because I can't read the darker colors).
Nitrate up over 40 again.

I see lots of opinions on what it means to be done, and what to keep doing in terms of ammonia dosing the next few days. I don't plan to stock all at once so I'll likely dose lightly, water change Saturday night, check Kh pH and GH Sunday morning, then get a few fish.

My thought on the soft water that I've seriously doctored is that I'll check Sunday morning that KH is at least 3, and then get seachem's mineral supplement. Equilibrium if I decide to plant, or replenish if I don't.

Tds meter and life spectrum food are on their way from amazon ... I'm considering waiting a week for fish and getting live plants after all, just because it's so messy to change things with my sand.

 

[trennamw]

Day 13 ...

The tank has been managing 3ppm a day for a few days now, nitrates are again high with 0 ammonia or nitrite.

pH had a big drop from 8.2 to 7.4. KH also lost about 4 points. I'm going to have to keep a very, very close eye on KH after I get fish in. I imagine it'll take awhile to find a sweet spot that maintains itself pretty well.

Got Seachem Equilibrium today, so I'm about to take out all the water and replace it with fish-ready water. That will have a much lower GH, KH, and pH than I maintained for the cycle. I also decided to do live plants after all, and got a bunch of those for nothing (Craiglist!) ... I think I'm going to be up really late tonight pulling apart my tank and putting it back together! Watching what moving water, and water changes, did to my sand-based aquascape the past month has been instructive. I'm glad I had a chance to see that before putting fish in, while it's still pretty easy to totally remodel.

Awright ... it's bucket time!!

 

[mbrew345]

Bah! Hang in there bud! you're doing great, just one day, overnight, nitrites will be 0!! Trust me it happens!

That's exactly what mine did. Mine did that one Tuesday. I brought my ammonia back up to 2.0ppm and tested during the day watched nitrites slowly rise to .50ppm and >24 hours everything was back to zero (cept nitrAtes of course). Fish shopping today woot

 

[trennamw]

The transition went well. I changed water, spent about 6 hours total rescaping it and getting water back in. Took a few tries to get the GH and KH right now that I'm not using the cichlid salts and buffer to deal with my "almost RO" tap water.

I stocked to 40% according to aqua advisor, by adding 6 each glowlight neons and harlequin rasboras. I'm checking constantly and even with some accidental over feeding the ammonia and nitrite are zero, with stable pH. Nitrates are declining a little after adding a few live plants.

I did choose to put in 1 ppm ammonia after my final water change, to purposely get a little nitrate in the water for the plants. The ammonia and nitrite were 0 and nitrate 5ish when fish went in.

 

[trennamw]

A pic of the biowheel in the filter. It's super dark and is spinning very slowly. But marineland packaged a chart in the box that demonstrates how a slowly spinning bacteria populated wheel clears ammonia as fast as a faster spinning one.



The seeded media is still sandwiched in there. The rubber bands are holding a square of water polishing pad (meant for a canister filter), which is an experiment on my part. It does seem to keep the water clearer. The water polishing pad went in a week ago and is already dark brown, and I've learned yucky looking is good for the tank.