Ammonia not reducing

[Stylix1981]

Hi,


Its been 4 days since i put ammonia into my tank and it is still sat at 4ppm.


Is it normal that it hasnt reduced at all yet?


Thanks

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Stylix1981

Hi,


Its been 4 days since i put ammonia into my tank and it is still sat at 4ppm.


Is it normal that it hasnt reduced at all yet?


Thanks

If you haven't added any bacteria to consume the ammonia, this is totally normal. When done naturally, this part of the process can take close to a month to happen. As the ammonia starts to decrease, test for Nitrites as that is the next step of the process.

To speed things along, you can add some used filter material from a healthy cycled tank which will basically inoculate your tank and speed up the whole process. If you have access to it, you can also use a live bacteria product that adds the bacteria you are trying to create. I am a big fan of Fritzyme #7 for freshwater and #9 for saltwater ( you didn't say what type of water you are keeping. ) They have a much higher rate of success than many of the " bacteria in a bottle" products.

Hope this helps.

[Stylix1981]

Originally Posted by Andy Sager

If you haven't added any bacteria to consume the ammonia, this is totally normal. When done naturally, this part of the process can take close to a month to happen. As the ammonia starts to decrease, test for Nitrites as that is the next step of the process.

To speed things along, you can add some used filter material from a healthy cycled tank which will basically inoculate your tank and speed up the whole process. If you have access to it, you can also use a live bacteria product that adds the bacteria you are trying to create. I am a big fan of Fritzyme #7 for freshwater and #9 for saltwater ( you didn't say what type of water you are keeping. ) They have a much higher rate of success than many of the " bacteria in a bottle" products.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, it is a fresh water tank. I shall just test every few days until it starts to dip. I dont mind it taking a while

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Stylix1981

Thanks, it is a fresh water tank. I shall just test every few days until it starts to dip. I dont mind it taking a while

The key to cycling a fish tank is patience.

[Stylix1981]

So i am doing fishless cycle, no bacteria and no seeding material with live plants in tank. I figured i would test every 3-4 days for the ammonia to come down, I know it takes a while without live bacteria or seeding material.

I tested my water on the 23rd and my ammonia was at 4ppm.


I have re-tested the ammonia level today and it is 0ppm, so i went ahead and tested nitrites and nitrates it appears that my nitrites are 5ppm and my nitrates are 10ppm (pics attached).


I know this is too fast for my tank to be cycled and showing nitrates, so does anyone have any ideas whats happening and should i still bring ammonia back up to 2ppm?


Thanks

[Aiken Drum]

You are still seeing nitrite so you arent cycled.

You are established enough to cycle out 4ppm of ammonia in 4 days. The nitrate test is pointless until you are cycled because the nitrate test also detects nitrite, so any nitrite will give a false reading for nitrate. Dont bother testing for nitrate while you are still cycling as the result cant be trusted, you may or may not have nitrate present.

Test daily. If ammonia is below 1ppm then redose back to 2ppm. When you can dose 2ppm ammonia and your ammonia and nitrite are both zero 24 hours later you are cycled.

[Stylix1981]

Originally Posted by Aiken Drum

You are still seeing nitrite so you arent cycled.

You are established enough to cycle out 4ppm of ammonia in 4 days. The nitrate test is pointless until you are cycled because the nitrate test also detects nitrite, so any nitrite will give a false reading for nitrate. Dont bother testing for nitrate while you are still cycling as the result cant be trusted, you may or may not have nitrate present.

Test daily. If ammonia is below 1ppm then redose back to 2ppm. When you can dose 2ppm ammonia and your ammonia and nitrite are both zero 24 hours later you are cycled.

Thanks


I knew it not near cycled but i wasnt sure if i would see nitrite that quickly. especially when i have a few plants in the tank that i assumed consume ammonia and nitrite

[Aiken Drum]

In my experience you normally see ammonia being reduced after about a week, and after 2 weeks you might be seeing 2ppm of ammonia being cycled out completely in 24 hours but still have nitrite present. The ammonia to nitrite normally completes much quicker than the nitrite to nitrate stage, which normally takes another 4 to 6 weeks.

Generally plants prefer ammonia to nitrite and nitrate, and nitrate over nitrite. They only really consume nitrite if there is no ammonia or nitrate available. Also, unless you have nutrient hungry plants they wont take up noticable ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. The plants that take up appreciable nitrogen are floating plants that get lots of light and have access to atmospheric CO2, high demand plants that need high lighting, injected CO2 and lots of nutrients, or terrestrial plants that are grown out of the tank with their roots emersed. Those typical low demand aquarium plants won't take much nitrogen out of the water.

[Stylix1981]

Originally Posted by Aiken Drum

In my experience you normally see ammonia being reduced after about a week, and after 2 weeks you might be seeing 2ppm of ammonia being cycled out completely in 24 hours but still have nitrite present. The ammonia to nitrite normally completes much quicker than the nitrite to nitrate stage, which normally takes another 4 to 6 weeks.

Generally plants prefer ammonia to nitrite and nitrate, and nitrate over nitrite. They only really consume nitrite if there is no ammonia or nitrate available. Also, unless you have nutrient hungry plants they wont take up noticable ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. The plants that take up appreciable nitrogen are floating plants that get lots of light and have access to atmospheric CO2, high demand plants that need high lighting, injected CO2 and lots of nutrients, or terrestrial plants that are grown out of the tank with their roots emersed. Those typical low demand aquarium plants won't take much nitrogen out of the water.

So i dosed another 2.5ml ammonia yesterday (29th) and tested after half hour to check level and ammonia was at 2ppm. I have just tested ammonia again tonight and it is at 0ppm. So the ammonia is dissappearing within 24hrs. This seems to be happening too quickly as it is only the 3rd time of dosing with the ammonia or is this normal?



The Nitrite is still at either 2 or 5ppm, the colour is too close between them both.


So should i keep dosing the ammonia until i have 0 nitrites?


Or am i doing something wrong for ammonia to be dissappearing this quickly?



(If it makes any difference i have started to get what appears to be brown hairy algae on some of my rocks)

[Aiken Drum]

Every cycle will run to its own timeline. Have 2 identical tanks sat next to each to each other, go though the same process on them both, and one could take longer than the other.

I wouldnt worry about ammonia cycling out quicker than you expect, thats just whats happening. It doesnt mean you are doing anything wrong. Just keep doing what you doing, redose ammonia every day if it has dropped below 1ppm until you see zero ammonia and nitrite 24 hours after dosing 2ppm ammonia.

You are dosing high levels of nutrients. Far higher than a tank full of fish will produce. So some algae is to be expected. Can you take a photo of the algae? It could be diatoms which is a normal stage of a tank establishing and usually these diatoms disappear on their own after a couple of months once the nutrients in the tank get used up.

Edit. Just a thought. Do you still those test strips with the carbonate hardness test? Would be interesting to see if they are still showing zero/ low KH.

[Stylix1981]

Originally Posted by Aiken Drum

You are dosing high levels of nutrients. Far higher than a tank full of fish will produce. So some algae is to be expected. Can you take a photo of the algae? It could be diatoms which is a normal stage of a tank establishing and usually these diatoms disappear on their own after a couple of months once the nutrients in the tank get used up.

Edit. Just a thought. Do you still those test strips with the carbonate hardness test? Would be interesting to see if they are still showing zero/ low KH.

So i do have test strips left, the results are:
PH - 7.2
KH - 3-6
GH - 7-14
Nitrate - 100mg
Nitrate - 10mg


I know they are not too reliable as the kh and gh were half one colour half the next lol, but i have liquid tests for them so will get more accurate ones later.


I have also enclosed pics of the rocks and a close up of the brown stuff

[Aiken Drum]

Whats interesting is back in one of your earlier posts you say your tap water had zero hardness and now you are showing quite high general hardness and fairly good levels of carbonate hardness. You also reported acidic tap water, and its alkaline in your tank.

Could you just confirm the units the 2 water hardness test are in. Usually either ppm or dGH/ dKH.

Looking at those rocks they appear to be limestone (calcium carbonate). These will slowly dissolve in the water and raise GH, KH and pH.

KH gets used up by the nitrogen cycle and when its gone the microbes can no longer process the ammonia into nitrate. You normally replenish KH with a water change. The low KH you previously reported from your tap would have hampered your cycle establishing, but you are having no problems which i found interesting. Those rocks could be providing a steady supply of KH and it could be why your cycle is progressing well when others seem to take longer.

Very interesting indeed.

Yes, that brown stuff look like diatoms. They are feeding on nutrient inbalances, particularly nitrate from the water, and silicate from the surface of rocks, substrate and the glass tank. When things settle down and you get your nitrate to lower levels, and the silicate gets used up they usually go away on their own. They usually hang around for a couple of months. You might consider a water change before you dose your ammonia again to get the nitrate down somewhat, and until they clear up on their own it is easily wiped off. If they hang around longer term, you might want to look at the possibility of high silicate in your tap water. But for now just manually clean it up if you find it unsightly and see if it clears up once things settle down.

[Stylix1981]

Yeah my previous water test are from the tap, it seems to change after being in the tank and adding dechlorinator.

I will run another tap test incase the water has changed as i know in this area they can change sources.

The test strips state Carbonate Hardness (KH) dH and General Hardness (GH) dH.

The rocks are not meant to be limestone but i will double check that.

I will run tests with liquid after my lil one in bed later for all and post results.

[Stylix1981]

Apparantly the ocean rock raises ph etc, i didnt know that when i bought it lol

[Aiken Drum]

Yeah. All those white rocks are probably calcium carbonate, so some form of limestone. That explains whats happening

Nothing to worry about as your pH and hardness are now at good levels. Just be aware that doing a water change will drop these levels until the new water has chance to disolve the minerals again, so smaller more frequent water changes would be beneficial to maintain stable water parameters. And if you should ever take those rocks out some time in the future you would lose that buffering.

[Stylix1981]

Originally Posted by Aiken Drum

Yeah. All those white rocks are probably calcium carbonate, so some form of limestone. That explains whats happening

Nothing to worry about as your pH and hardness are now at good levels. Just be aware that doing a water change will drop these levels until the new water has chance to disolve the minerals again, so smaller more frequent water changes would be beneficial to maintain stable water parameters. And if you should ever take those rocks out some time in the future you would lose that buffering.

Thanks


I don't plan on taking them out lol, im still trying to get the driftwood to stay sunk enough to put it in the tank and then decor done lol.


Another question if you don't mind. I have read various posts regarding water changes and adding dechlorinator. Is it best to add the dechlorinator to the bucket of fresh water before putting into the tank or is it ok to add it afterwards?


I have read both views on here and it confuses me, also i only have the 1 bucket so it makes it a little diffiult to dose the water before hand as i need the bucket when emptying water out.

[Aiken Drum]

Stick the driftwood on the tank, then weigh it down with a bag of sand for however long it takes to stay put.

Personally I dose enough dechlorinator to treat the whole tank into the tank and then refill the tank. If you are refilling with buckets then just put your whole dose of dechlorinator in the first bucket. Dechlorinator works on contact, so it doesnt take any time to have an effect as long as it gets mixed in with the tank water which happens if it goes in the first bucket or if you poor it into the water stream if you refill with a hose. I would expect the vast majority do this.

There will be few water changing tricks in here.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...er-379754.html

And rather than refilling with a bucket, a 10 litre plastic watering can from wilko might be a better idea. Getting a food safe hose will make refilling even easier if you have a mixer tap with hose adaptor.

[Stylix1981]

Would cleaning the diatoms off the rocks not disturb any bacteria that is potentially growing on them?

[Aiken Drum]

Possibly. Its only going to be a marginal amount compared to whats growing in your filter and substrate. If you are ok looking at it, just leave it though. Its not really hurting anything while its on your rocks, you might want to make sure it doesn't cover your plants.

[Stylix1981]

so I just took around 4.5 - 5 litres of water out of my tank and scraped some of the algae off using the end of the gravel cleaner while emptying water. I have finally managed to waterlog the driftwood enough to place it in the tank (pic at the end).


Would you advise testing water parameters after 20 minutes, as you said to change water before adding ammonia?


Edited to add:


I have tested my tap water and also run all tests after completing the water change (left it half hour)


Tap water readings are:


KH - 2, GH - 2, PH 6.8


so i am thinking that maybe there has been a change in our water source, which is common in summer months.


Tank Readings are now:


KH - 5, GH - 9, PH - 7.6, AM - 0.25, Nitrite - 2, Nitrate - 5