So now I've caved to my inner sane voice. Fish back to the LFS, and fishless cycling round 2. So now, is it simply a matter of the same original process? Add ammonia, monitor and wait for the bacteria to do their thing? Since the biofilter crashed, does this impact the time it will take for new bacteria to reform and start working again?
10g cycling version 3.0
- Thread starter kjwcpm
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eco23
Aquarium Advice Addict
First we need to figure out what went wrong. I tend to get threads mixed up, so forgive me if there's questions I've already asked.
You cycled at 4ppm, right?
How long did the total process take?
Did you use any bacteria supplements / cycling products?
What did you stock initially?
Did any fish die in the tank?
You had an ammonia spike? If so, how large?
Any no2 spikes?
Are you 100% certain the cycle was fully complete?
Was it dropping 4ppm down to 0 with 0 no2 in 24 hrs?
Did anything happen at the end of your cycle like a sudden pH drop?
Anything else random like maybe the tank sat dry during the last pwc before adding fish, new filters, heavy cleaning, redecorated?
You cycled at 4ppm, right?
How long did the total process take?
Did you use any bacteria supplements / cycling products?
What did you stock initially?
Did any fish die in the tank?
You had an ammonia spike? If so, how large?
Any no2 spikes?
Are you 100% certain the cycle was fully complete?
Was it dropping 4ppm down to 0 with 0 no2 in 24 hrs?
Did anything happen at the end of your cycle like a sudden pH drop?
Anything else random like maybe the tank sat dry during the last pwc before adding fish, new filters, heavy cleaning, redecorated?
No worries eco. It's always good to reset the stats anyway.
Just before leaving for vacation, the tank was showing ammonia dropping, NO2 through the roof and no NO3. Put in a 4ppm dose of ammonia, some food and a raw shrimp as we would be away for a full week.
Returned from vacation and found 0 ammonia, 0 NO2 and light NO3 (maybe around 5ppm). Redosed to 4ppm ammonia. 24 hours later converted to 0 ammonia and 0 NO2 with light NO3.
Original stock was based on LFS recommendation (I know, not always a good idea). In this case, it was rough. A school of zebra danios, some ghost shrimp and a Melini Cory. 4 of 6 danios died in tank. The ghost shrimp looked fine and the cory was actually looking lively and healthy too.
Rechecked parameters...ammonia was up to 1ppm with no sign of either NO2 or NO3. Brought the fish back to the LFS, did a 50% PWC and readded new water with Prime.
The original process took just under three weeks.
I've avoided adding cycling products for now, based on feedback from this forum.
I haven't seen a giant spike. Just a gradual rise of ammonia with no NO2 or NO3 present. That's what made me assume I was back to the beginning.
No NO2 spikes post first cycling.
I thought the cycle was complete, but I obviously could have been very wrong.
pH did drop when I did the 90% PWC from around 8.2 to 7.6.
Tank never went dry. I can't think of anything that changed between the original cycling process and when I introduced fish to the tank.
Just before leaving for vacation, the tank was showing ammonia dropping, NO2 through the roof and no NO3. Put in a 4ppm dose of ammonia, some food and a raw shrimp as we would be away for a full week.
Returned from vacation and found 0 ammonia, 0 NO2 and light NO3 (maybe around 5ppm). Redosed to 4ppm ammonia. 24 hours later converted to 0 ammonia and 0 NO2 with light NO3.
Original stock was based on LFS recommendation (I know, not always a good idea). In this case, it was rough. A school of zebra danios, some ghost shrimp and a Melini Cory. 4 of 6 danios died in tank. The ghost shrimp looked fine and the cory was actually looking lively and healthy too.
Rechecked parameters...ammonia was up to 1ppm with no sign of either NO2 or NO3. Brought the fish back to the LFS, did a 50% PWC and readded new water with Prime.
The original process took just under three weeks.
I've avoided adding cycling products for now, based on feedback from this forum.
I haven't seen a giant spike. Just a gradual rise of ammonia with no NO2 or NO3 present. That's what made me assume I was back to the beginning.
No NO2 spikes post first cycling.
I thought the cycle was complete, but I obviously could have been very wrong.
pH did drop when I did the 90% PWC from around 8.2 to 7.6.
Tank never went dry. I can't think of anything that changed between the original cycling process and when I introduced fish to the tank.
eco23
Aquarium Advice Addict
Yeah, something definitely seems off. Was the tank consistently dropping the 4 parts of ammonia every day before you left and it seemed the cycle finished? Had you just done a massive water change before leaving? The nitrAte is a hint to me that maybe the cycle wasn't actually finished. Usually the nitrAte will be super high at the end of a cycle because of all the conversion that'd been happening, unless you had constantly been doing water changes at (what seemed to be) the end of the cycle.
Granted the Danios aren't necessarily compatible with the 10 gallon, but regardless, I couldn't begin to comprehend 6 Danios and a Cory pumping out more than 4ppm of ammo in a day...so initial overstocking isn't even a possibility for me as a cause of the toxin spike.
As for now, I'd just keep doing what you were doing before you added fish. Just keep dosing up the ammonia and testing.
Honestly, it just seemed like the cycle wasn't done. Under 3 weeks is usually too fast unless you had a good portion of seeded media. It could have been a faulty test, or something else weird that happened.
Either way, I'd vote to just pretend the hiccup didn't happen and keep going as usual. Just be sure to post all your results here so we can follow along
. It's not remotely like you're starting over..you've still got plenty of BB in there.
Granted the Danios aren't necessarily compatible with the 10 gallon, but regardless, I couldn't begin to comprehend 6 Danios and a Cory pumping out more than 4ppm of ammo in a day...so initial overstocking isn't even a possibility for me as a cause of the toxin spike.
As for now, I'd just keep doing what you were doing before you added fish. Just keep dosing up the ammonia and testing.
Honestly, it just seemed like the cycle wasn't done. Under 3 weeks is usually too fast unless you had a good portion of seeded media. It could have been a faulty test, or something else weird that happened.
Either way, I'd vote to just pretend the hiccup didn't happen and keep going as usual. Just be sure to post all your results here so we can follow along
. It's not remotely like you're starting over..you've still got plenty of BB in there.
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librarygirl
Look It Up
Hm, I hate to use the expression but.....I think something fishy is going on.
Very funny, LG!
I'm not panicking just yet. Need to see what happens with conversion over days, not hours. Just thought it was odd.
librarygirl
Look It Up
Sorry, I didn't mean to make you panic, I was just joking!
Oh no panicking here. Just patiently waiting for those pesky bacteria to GET BACK TO WORK!!!!
Right now daily alex. Consistently at about 8 or 8:15 AM each day.
librarygirl
Look It Up
Ammonia .50ppm, NO2 .50ppm, NO3 5.0ppm. Kinda weird not to see the NO2 spike, but then again I'm recycling what was once an "almost cycled" tank. Honestly, I don't think I can complain here. Redose and check again in the morning.
Bad news is Hurricane Irene. Right now were on a direct path, and CT is notorious for power outages due to trees down.
Bad news is Hurricane Irene. Right now were on a direct path, and CT is notorious for power outages due to trees down.
librarygirl
Look It Up
Yep we're bracing here in RI too. I'm actually really glad I don't have fish in the tank in case power does go out. Hopefully keeping the filter media wet will at least keep my media OK enough to continue the cycle when the power comes back on!
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