New tank fishless cycling

[JiJ]

Hi all.

Thanks first off to any and all reading and potentially replying to this.

So the missus and I decided to get an aquarium and did a whole heap of research before starting, and as such decided to do a fishless cycle thinking it looked pretty straight forward..... Yeah right!!!!

The setup is a 120 litre (30 gallon) glass tank.
Up aqua soil substrate and some white decorative sand. (Not as a cap)
One large piece, one medium, two small pieces of bogwood. (All boiled and soaked for a week before putting into the tank).
Aqua one cf500 canister filter with sponges in the bottom basket, (coarsest to finest from bottom to top), sintered glass media in the other two baskets with the last being topped with some filter floss.

Filled the tank with dechlorinated water, got all the equipment in, on and running. Cranked the heat up to 82F and stuck a slice of squid in the tank to get the ammonia levels up. Worked a treat, got the ammonia up to 2ppm according to my api master test kit. At this point I removed the squid and left the nitrifying bacteria to do it's thing. A week later no ammonia drop no nitrites, no bacteria bloom. I tried a small pwc and saw a tiny rise in nitrites so added some kleen off (9.5% ammonia hydroxide, no surfactants, no perfumes) to raise the ammonia to 4ppm. Tested the ph and noticed it was almost bottoming out around 6.0. Tried to raise the ph with some sodium bicarbonate.

After another week with nothing happening and feeling very frustrated we decided to do a massive water charge (about 70%) that was four days ago. The ammonia level dropped as expected to around 2ppm the ph came up to around 7.2 and so we left it.

Two days later we tested for nitrites and ammonia and were very excited to see the nitrites climbing (0.5ppm), no drops in ammonia but a drop in ph down to 6.4. We went to our lfs to get some seeding bacteria which they very kindly gave us, and picked up some api ph up and a few live plants. Raised the ph to 7.0.

Two days later (today) nitrites are at 5ppm but the ammonia doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Shouldn't we be seeing a drop in ammonia by now?

I have tested for nitrates and as expected there are none as yet.

 

[DeeLee2013]

I may have missed this, but have you given the bacteria a food source? EX: a few flakes of fish food? The bacteria responsible for converting ammonia to nitrite are different from the bacteria which convert nitrIte to nitrAte, and both need a food source to grow.

I would do daily water changes (maybe only 30%), and feed the tank every other day as though there were a few fish in it - just a few flakes will do. That will help the bacteria get going. You should see a bloom (cloudy water) in which case you will have a visual indicator that the bacteria is growing in numbers.

Getting the ammonia converted into nitrItes should be relatively simple. The nitrAte conversion is where it can take a while. I would resist tampering with the pH for now until the tank is fully cycled.

Hope that helps!

 

[JiJ]

My understanding is the nitrosomonas bacteria eat ammonia and excrete nitrites.

Nitrobacter eat nitrites and excrete nitrates, these also grow at half-ish the rate of the nitrosomonas.

If I understand that much correctly them it follows that ammonia is present and therefore feeding that bacteria, as long as they consume ammonia they excrete nitrites and therefore feed the other bacteria.

Please put me in my place if I'm wrong.

As it so happens I have seen a drop in ammonia and a massive spike in my nitrItes, off the scales high, so I did a 50% water change to add a few buffers back in to the water and dosed ammonia up to 2ppm.

I'm assuming that is just a waiting game now until the ammonia is consumed in 24hrs and the nitrites disappear. At which point the nitrates should sky rocket, and i should be cycled. Is that right?

 

[Angela1108]

The nitrite sometimes takes longer to go away. If you have nitrites and ammonia is almost gone it's getting there. Sometimes it takes a few weeks to get fully cycled and nitrites and ammonia to 0


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[JiJ]

Ok people, so it's a few days later and my ammonia dropped suddenly. I have planted the tank with glosso, rotala, ludwigia and alternanthera.

Nitrites are still off the scales high. Nitrates are veeeeeeery slowly creeping up. So I know I'm on my way.

My next question is.....

Should I keep dosing ammonia every day, every other day or not at all?
If I should be dosing, how high should I dose to? Just enough to keep the bb active?

 

[Mebbid]

Your low pH is slowing things down. At around 6.5pH the growth of nitrifying slows down. But other than that everything seems on track.

To manage the pH skip the ph UP and add a handfull of crushed coral in a media bag into the filter. The ph additives are junk.