Yellowish water during fishless cycle

[howmanyds]

I'm about 3 weeks into my fishless cycle; I've been adding enough ammonia every day to keep it at 4ppm, plus a pinch of flake food. After each day I still have never seen the ammonia below 2 or usually 3ppm. My nitrites shot up about a week ago and are still high (10+) and nitrates are slowly coming up (20 or so). I've also raised the temp to around 86 this week to help the bacteria grow.

The water is getting very yellow, probably because of the flakes. Without a pleco doing his job, should I stop adding the flakes for the cycling? Do the flakes help that much in addition to the clear ammonia I've been adding?

 

[shellieca]

The flakes aren't necessary IMO. The cloudy water is normal & eventually goes away. You don't need to dose ammo until it drops to 1 or lower. You may want to do a PWC since nitrites are so high, if they stay too high for too long it can stall a cycle. Looks like your cycle is progressing!

 

[howmanyds]

Don't the bacteria need to be able to handle all 4ppm of ammonia per day by the time it is done cycling? So it's okay to not refill the ammonia until they're consuming more of it?

 

[shellieca]

I'd say its your choice. The "standard" is to let the ammo drop to 1 or so before upping it back to 4. You want everything to have time to process, if that makes sense.

 

[howmanyds]

It took two 80% water changes to get my nitrates back down to a level that the stick can read (~3 ppm) And that seemed to give a healthy bolt to my tank's cycling. Now the tank is fully cooperating with my 4ppm per day of ammonia I'm adding. It's great to see the test tube stay yellow every morning!

However it didn't take long for the nitrites to shoot back up off the range of the stick. Nitrates are also off the stick range. Should I keep doing water changes every couple days! Will that speed up or slow down the process?

 

[shellieca]

Glad things are moving along. You'll want to keep the nitrites & nitrates readable otherwise your cycle may stall if they stay off the charts.

 

[howmanyds]

In all the articles I can find on cycling I don't see anyone warning that during this second phase of cycling one needs to do so many water changes. I am now doing a double 80% water change daily to bring the nitrites down from sky high to about 3.0. Every 24 hours they are sky high again. Is this normal for a 75 gallon with ammonia added to 4ppm daily?

 

[shellieca]

You're using strips to test your water, correct? I would suggest either getting a liquid test kit OR take a sample of your water to someone who uses a liquid test kit to see if the results match what you're seeing on the strips? My understanding is that if the nitrites or nitrates stay sky high for a week or more the cycle can stall. You can cut back on your water changes & see what happens, there's not guarantee one way or the other when it comes to cycling.

 

[howmanyds]

Yes, I'm using strips.

 

[howmanyds]

Okay folks: I'm at 8 weeks of cycling with the same sky high (about 80 ppm) of nitrite after each 24 hour period that I had four weeks ago. I also have about 40 ppm of nitrate each day. Every two to four days I'm still doing a big water change to get the nitrite back down to a tiny amount which takes about an hour of water going in and out. (Sidenote: yesterday I overflowed the tank TWO times during the same water change - need to pay better attention.)

I'm wondering now if I should have just gotten a batch of sacrificial goldfish.

 

[shellieca]

Okay folks: I'm at 8 weeks of cycling with the same sky high (about 80 ppm) of nitrite after each 24 hour period that I had four weeks ago. I also have about 40 ppm of nitrate each day. Every two to four days I'm still doing a big water change to get the nitrite back down to a tiny amount which takes about an hour of water going in and out. (Sidenote: yesterday I overflowed the tank TWO times during the same water change - need to pay better attention.)

I'm wondering now if I should have just gotten a batch of sacrificial goldfish.

I really suggest having your readings checked with a liquid test kit. You say nitrItes are 80 & nitrAtes are 40? I'm sorry that doesn't make sense to me. With an API Test Kit nitrItes are single digits down to .25. I haven't used the 5-in-1 strips in so long I don't recall how they're labeled but I thought it was the same. I would do daily 40-50% water changes to get the nitrItes down, not necessarily to 0 but 5 or less. A fish IN cycle wouldn't have necessarily been better, I've done several & have a tank right now that is at the 3 month mark & STILL doesn't appear cycled.

 

[sgr7781]

might need to do pwc. sometimes it stales before the end...

 

[howmanyds]

What is the 'p' in pwc?

 

[Coyne]

Partial Water Change

 

[howmanyds]

Oh - I was confused because I guess sgr hadn't read the above that I've been doing full water changes every couple days.

Could there be a problem with my ammonia? It's clear ammonia from Smart and Final. Contains ammonium hydroxide and surfactant.

 

[shellieca]

I hate to say this, my understanding is that its NOT supposed to have surfactants in it. When you shake it up, does it bubble up? A lot of people have been to find pure ammonia only at Ace Hardware.

 

[OhNeil1969]

Surfactants are definitely a big no no. I used the Ace hardware industrial strength professional version for my last fishless cycle.

It's been a couple of years since I did my last cycle but I seem to recall that once I started to see nitrItes I only dosed with ammonia to ensure that the first set of bacteria stayed fed. The goal is to ensure that the first bacterial colony does not starve and die off. Like a previous poster stated, once you see 1 ppm ammonia then you should redose, but don't overdose (I didn't go all the way back to 4 ppm, stayed at around 3 ppm).

Once the nitrItes appear then it's just a matter of waiting for it to fall to zero. NitrItes are the waste by-product of the 1st bacterial colony. It's presence will lead to the growth of the second colony that will begin to consume the nitrItes. You'll know they're present by the appearance of nitrAtes (their waste by-product). Once the nitrItes hit zero, you'll have a fully cycled tank. At that point you should do a water change to lower the nitrAtes and start adding fish. You should add slowly to ensure the colonies can keep up with the new tank inhabitants. I have overstocked up front in the past, but that will require multiple PWC's until the tank stabilizes.

A couple of tips I found useful in establishing a vibrant bacterial colony is to have the tank fully decorated during the fishless cycle. The bacteria will live on the surface of the decor allowing for a larger more effective colony to grow. I also limited the amount of water changes I performed during the cycle. The only time I found it necessary to do a water change was after an accidental ammonia overdose (one that happened because I was using the test strips instead of the liquid test kit - from my experience I have found test strips to be very inaccurate). Even with that overdose, that 60 gallon tank cycled in less than 2 weeks.

Like I said, during this whole process I would just dose with enough ammonia to keep the first colony alive. Overdosing will accomplish very little at this stage of the game (IMHO).

 

[howmanyds]

Thanks. I don't think I have ever overdosed more than 4ppm of ammonia. I find it strange that I'm getting so many nitrites daily and even nitrates if the surfactant is inhibiting the bacterial growth. But nevertheless I will go check out Ace Hardware tomorrow. I am also getting an API test kit for nitrite from Amazon in a few days.

These stories of two week cycles have been very disappointing to me - but I usually find out that they have had access to existing media which I unfortunately did not.

 

[howmanyds]

It bubbles!
I'm kicking myself right now - 9 weeks ago I went around to a whole bunch of markets looking for a non-Sudsy ammonia which seems to be all anybody stocks. When I found clear ammonia sitting next to sudsy ammonia at Smart and Final I jumped for joy. Somehow I didn't think to check its ingredients since I had found one or two posts online from others who had used the same brand for cycling.
Who'd have thought clear ammonia was sudsy too.
Grrrrr.
(Thanks for the reminder to check sudsiness)

 

[howmanyds]

I also did a silicate test and there are about 8-10 ppm. Is that going to cause any problems other than brown algae?