Adding NH every 4 hrs...WEIRD???

[@rtemis]

Ok aquarium gurus. I am still waiting for nitrites to come down to zero. Over the past three days my nitrites and nitrates were very high. I’ve added ammonia every night until it reads 2ppm. This morning at ~9:00am, I checked the ammonia and it was yellow as can be or 0ppm. I decide to add some more to bring it back up to 2pmm. It’s 1:30pm pacific and the ammonia is gone. Jeez, do I have to add ammonia every 4 hours? Got any suggestions? Is the norm? Here are the test perfomed between last night and this afternoon.

8pm last night.
NH=0
NO2=5
NO3=80
Added the usual dose to bring up Ammonia to 2ppm

9pm last night. Ammonia up
NH=2
NO2=5
NO3=80

9am this morning.
NH=0
NO2=5
NO3=80
Added the usual dose to bring up Ammonia to 2ppm.

9:30am this morning. Ammonia up
NH=2
NO2=5
NO3=80

1:30pm this afternoon
NH=0
NO=5
NO3=80

 

[neilanh]

No, once a day is fine.. I'd also add to 4ppm if you have no fish. This will build you a huge amount of bacteria, that will enable you to drop in all of the fish you have planned at one time right after your cycle completes (within 48 hours). After 48 hours you start to have to be careful, as only the amount of bacteria that there's food for will survive.

 

[Purrbox]

Actually if you keep dosing the ammonia daily until your ready to add fish there's no need to worry about the bacteria dieing off. Just don't forget to do a large (90%) water change right before adding fish to get the Nitrates down.

 

[@rtemis]

neilanh...

Thanks...I'll bump it up a couple of notches....BAM! (stealing Emerils tag line) Are the nitrite and nitrate numbers I reported the norm? I read to ignore the nitrate numbers until the nitrites come down. Is this so?

Purrbox...

Ok, thanks. I will wait until nitrites drop to 0. I just thought the numbers were high. Most people doing fishless cycles were getting lower numbers than I was.

 

[neilanh]

Yes, those are normal. You've built up a good supply of NO2, now you just wait for that type of bacteria to form. Once that's done, your cycle will complete.

The NO3 numbers don't really mean anything right now. But, once you start to see your NO2 decrease, you should see the NO3 increase. But, many test kits are known to not read accurately on the NO3 when you have that much NO2 in the system.

 

[marchmaxima]

many test kits are known to not read accurately on the NO3 when you have that much NO2 in the system.

Yeah, don't freak out like I did. My numbers went completely haywire 4-5 days ago for a few days. Then everything returned to normal, but in the mean time, I thought I'd had a complete tank meltdown or something!

 

[@rtemis]

ok marchmaxima...I'm just following doctors orders...BE PATIENT!
Nitrites are off the chart. Ammonia is disappearing which is a good thing. I keep replenishing the ammonia so my mini buggers don't die off. Come on Nitrates catch up! Now I wait until my nitrites drop to 0. WAPITA :butt: this cycling is! Someone come out with a fishless cycling for dummies

 

[marchmaxima]

If it helps, check out any of my threads over the last couple of days where I've posted a link to my daily test results.

You and I are using slightly different methods but it will give you somewhat of an idea what to expect.

 

[Purrbox]

Is 5ppm Nitrite the highest your kit reads? If so you may want to do a large water change (perhaps 50%) right before you next dose of Ammonia to try to get it back down to readable levels.

 

[@rtemis]

Purrbox...yes, 5 is the highest my test goes on my NO2. Both my nitrites and nitrates are high. After the 50% WC, how much ammonia do I add? read below.

NO2=5
NO3=80

This has been happening for about for several days. On 3/3/08 I got frustrated and did a 90% water change. Now I could see lower numbers on the tests. My nitrites dropped to 2 and nitrates dropped to 20. You can see my progress here: Google Docs - Aquarium Cycling Revised As you can see the numbers just jumped back up after a day or so.

I appreciate everyone's input on this forum. Several members said my numbers were normal and to keep adding adding ammonia up to 4ppm. I have heard and read several contradicting stories about fishless cycle. IN Dr. Chris Cow's article it says to back off to 1/2 the dossage after nitrites show up. I did this on 2/28/08 on my spread sheet. But no matter, the numbers jumped up and on 3/4/08 the nitrites were up to 5. OBTW, You can read Dr. Chris Cow's Fishless cycle article here: Fishless Cycling

I think there should be a well writen sticky about fishless cycles with pure ammonia, and one with raw shrimp. It seems the test results using raw shrimp differ from using pure ammonia. Any thoughts?

Crazed and Confused! LOL

@rt

 

[marchmaxima]

IN Dr. Chris Cow's article it says to back off to 1/2 the dossage after nitrites show up.

I also followed this article. I started with 1/2 a prawn (I had no idea how much I needed to add), but that only gave me 0.25-0.5 ppm of NH3 for a few days.

I added two more whole prawns and then the NH3 spiked to 4ppm. But as soon as I started getting Nitrites, I took out the half and a whole prawn leaving me with just the one whole one. The test results didn't really change, so that method (at least for me) worked as the article said.

There may be several ways you can achieve the same result, hence the conflicting advice here and there.

 

[Wallygator]

Ok color me confused. So you want ammonia to be present if not high when starting a new tank?? I have been struggling to get the ammonia OUT of my 20 gal to get it started. I had a 75 gallon tank I kept for 12 yrs and ammonia wasnt really an issue, but I cant seem to clear it out of the smaller tank now. Can someone float me a clue please.

 

[Purrbox]

I'd probably cut back to just 2ppm of Ammonia daily. If the Nitrites get too high it can cause the cycle to stall for awhile and end up taking longer. A water change will help ensure that this doesn't happen and get the Nitrite levels back where you can track them a little better. Something else that helps is bumping the temperature to 80F or so. This will speed things up since the bacteria reproduce faster at higher temperatures.

Wallygater - what we're discussing is Fishless cycling. This is a method of cycling an aquarium (establishing the beneficial bacteria that converta Ammonia to Nitrite and then Nitrate) that involves dosing Ammonia (pure ammonia, raw shrimp, or even fish food) to cycle the aquarium so that fish don't have to suffer through the high Ammonia and Nitrite levels during startup. When fish are involved you want to keep Ammonia and Nitrite levels under 1ppm and preferably under 0.5ppm for their safety.

 

[@rtemis]

purrbox, temp is set to 80 degrees from the beginning. So I guess I'll do the 50% water change to get the numbers lowered and only increase the NH to 2ppm.

Thanks,

@rt

 

[@rtemis]

Ok kids, I did a 50% WC tonight. My numbers are as follows:

NH=.50
NO2=~1.5
NO3=40

The nitrites are readable as well as the nitrates. I'm going to wait until morning to boost up the ammonia. I'll only add 1/2 the amount I've been adding to bring it up to 2ppm.

Sweet dreams...

@rt

 

[Wallygator]

um.. sorry to jack your thread Artemis, I get that you are trying to get the biological filter going initially at start up. but...then what? How long does this go on? Is that what you are referring to that at some points the Nitrite turn to Nitrate. Does the tank start to balance out a bit after the biological filter gets going? When do you need to start treating to counter act high ammonia levels?
I guess because I wasnt a fish killer I figured I had the maintenance thing figured out, but I feel preety newbish now.

 

[@rtemis]

No worries Wallygator about the highjack. This is a learning experience for all. I am doing a fishless cycle and being a newbie, I ask a lot of questions. The folks on here have been very helpful and for some reason, I am just a bit confused. There is so much information on the net that one gets confused. Then you add the LFS on top of everything. It's hard to pick the right choice when setting up an aquarium. I decided not to be cruel and do a fishless cycle. I was game and my 9 year old didn't want the fish to die with a standard cycle with fish. She has been very patient!

My numbers just shot up and I believe a small water change might help boost the cycle. And yes, I was wondering about times, how much ammonia once nitrite shows up. I think I might do a write up about a newbies experience trying to do a fishless cycle when I'm done. I've been keeping a spread sheet of my progress.

Anyway, good luck with you setup. Cheers, artemis

 

[Purrbox]

A fishless cycle will last approximately the same amount of time that a traditional cycle with fish does. On average this is 6 weeks, give or take a couple of weeks for other variables. One thing you can only do with Fishless cycling is boost the temperature higher than the fish would like, which will shave some time on the cycle (generally a week or two). Something that you can do with both methods it to add some seed material (used filter material, gravel, decor) from a healthy established aquarium, which can also shave off a few weeks.

With either method you'll eventually get to the point where Ammonia is being converted to Nitrite and then Nitrate just about as fast as it's being added (slight delay with fishless since you're adding it in one dose instead of gradually throughout the day as with fish). So you'd have 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, and rising Nitrates. This is the point when the aquarium is considered cycled.

With fishless cycling you continue adding your daily dose of Ammonia after the aquarium is cycled until you are ready to add fish to make sure there isn't any dieoff of the beneficial bacteria. Also at this point you would want to turn the temperature back down to the level for your fish. Then right before adding fish you do a LARGE water change (approximately 90%) to get the Nitrates down, then you can add all the fish to fully stock your aquarium at once since fishless cycling builds up a large beneficial bacteria colony that can support a fully stocked aquarium.

 

[Wallygator]

Appreciate that @rtemis! I want to get my 75 gallon back up, but I dont currently have room for it. I also wanted to get a little wiser about aquarium upkeep before I tackled the larger tank again.
I havent been adding ammonia to tank, but I know tap water is high in ammonia and we add a little water regularly because of evaporation (often here in dry frigid MN).