Please help me through this cycling hurdle!

[Water Wiggler]

Two days ago, After over 3 months of cycling, I was ready to get some fish. I did my 90% water change the night before and was practically out the door to buy fish when I tested the water and found...nitrites! You lovely people diagnosed this as ammonia in my tap water.

Needless to say, I'm switching to Prime! I haven't added Prime, yet. All I've done is go back to adding ammonia daily. The ammonia is being processed just fine, but my nitrites have not disappeared. How do I proceed?

I have my heart set on getting some celestial pearl danios, and the last thing I want is for them to go belly up because of something I did wrong! Thank you so much in advance for your help!

 

[Sands_88]

I would wait until the nitrite has been processed before you go and get your fish. After 3 months fishless cycling, I'm assuming you don't want to do a fish in cycle now!

 

[Masha]

How much ammonia are you adding? Most people add 4ppm which is really much more than is needed for most fish stock bioloads. It also causes really big nitrite spikes.

Dose up to 2ppm, and do water changes to reduce the nitrites to a measurable level (that might take several huge water changes). Keep going, hopefully the cycle will be complete soon.

 

[jrc0528]

What type of filtration are you using on this tank as it's going thru the fishless cycle? BB will do best given a suitable place to colonize. I live by the coarse ceramic biomedia and have excellent results with it. As I mentioned on another post, I recommend getting a corner filter or two (depending on your tank size and fish load) and fill it 2/3 with the biomedia and a layer of filter floss on top. Occasionally you'll need to pull it and change the floss, just don't disturb the biomedia or try rinsing it or anything. It'll look kinda gross after a while, but it'll be doing its job!

Even my 20 gal with two large goldfish (who I feel are overfed, but their my mom's) reads 0.0s for ammonia, nitrate, & nitrite and I am lucky to do monthly water changes! I have a 5 gal sump under it with over a quart of biomedia as the second stage (after a multi-layer filtration stage).

 

[PB_Smith]

What type of filtration are you using on this tank as it's going thru the fishless cycle? BB will do best given a suitable place to colonize. I live by the coarse ceramic biomedia and have excellent results with it. As I mentioned on another post, I recommend getting a corner filter or two (depending on your tank size and fish load) and fill it 2/3 with the biomedia and a layer of filter floss on top. Occasionally you'll need to pull it and change the floss, just don't disturb the biomedia or try rinsing it or anything. It'll look kinda gross after a while, but it'll be doing its job!

Even my 20 gal with two large goldfish (who I feel are overfed, but their my mom's) reads 0.0s for ammonia, nitrate, & nitrite and I am lucky to do monthly water changes! I have a 5 gal sump under it with over a quart of biomedia as the second stage (after a multi-layer filtration stage).

Actually when it starts looking gross, it isn't doing it's job anymore, at least not as well. You need to rinse the ceramic media in old tank water occasionally otherwise you end up with a layer of dead bacteria/biofilm on the surfaces and it isn't as efficient.
That is one of the major benefits of a "moving bed" type filter, or media reactor, it is always sloughing off the old bacteria layer and promoting the growth of new, young bacteria which are far more efficient and effective.
A light rinsing will remove that dead layer without disrupting the BB colony very much.

Personally I like Seachems Matrix and DeNitrate as bio-media, tons and tons of available surface area, external and internal.

 

[jrc0528]

Good point PB... mine haven't gotten to that point quite yet. My last purchase of biomedia was Seachem's Pond Matrix in a 4L bucket, it's the same stuff (perhaps a few larger bits mixed in) and quite a bit cheaper, especially versus the FluVal stuff!

I wonder if it's possible to design a moving bed with the pond matrix?

 

[PB_Smith]

Good point PB... mine haven't gotten to that point quite yet. My last purchase of biomedia was Seachem's Pond Matrix in a 4L bucket, it's the same stuff (perhaps a few larger bits mixed in) and quite a bit cheaper, especially versus the FluVal stuff!

I wonder if it's possible to design a moving bed with the pond matrix?

I don't see why not.
I have considered the exact same thing. Maybe a 3 or 5 gallon water bottle upside down, holes drilled into the top (bottom) for water flow and a good pump and viola', you have a mondo sized media reactor that could use Pond Matrix.

have seen and made the same thing with soda/water bottles, so.....

seriously, it would work if you have the space. the roughly round shape of Matrix and it's relatively light weight means it will tumble and jumble around enough to keep it from getting mucked up.
Something like Fluval ceramic noodles would never work in an application like that.

 

[PB_Smith]

Good point PB... mine haven't gotten to that point quite yet. My last purchase of biomedia was Seachem's Pond Matrix in a 4L bucket, it's the same stuff (perhaps a few larger bits mixed in) and quite a bit cheaper, especially versus the FluVal stuff!

I wonder if it's possible to design a moving bed with the pond matrix?

yeah, Denitrate, Matrix and Pond Matrix are all the same material, pumice I believe, but the different sizes are for use in different flow rate scenarios.
Pond Matrix is for high gph flow rates as you often have in large systems like ponds.
Matrix is suited for general canister filter use and flow rates in the ranges most often used by them.
De-Nitrate is best when used in a low flow rate, >50ghp, set-up so it can really build up large anaerobic bacteria colonies.

All three will work for home aquariums, but it does help to understand how the different ones work in different applications/flow rates and what they are best suited for.

 

[Water Wiggler]

I would wait until the nitrite has been processed before you go and get your fish. After 3 months fishless cycling, I'm assuming you don't want to do a fish in cycle now!

You betcha I'm waiting and not doing a fish-in cycle! Ha, ha! You lovely people convinced me not to do my original plan, which was to add neon tetras. They don't do well in an immature tank. Boy, is my tank immature! I have my heart set on celestial pearl danios. I can't order them for another two weeks, anyway. I just added some frogbit, which will hopefully propagate, help my water, and add some cover for my future spazzy fish!

 

[Water Wiggler]

How much ammonia are you adding? Most people add 4ppm which is really much more than is needed for most fish stock bioloads. It also causes really big nitrite spikes.

Dose up to 2ppm, and do water changes to reduce the nitrites to a measurable level (that might take several huge water changes). Keep going, hopefully the cycle will be complete soon.

I am doing 2ppm. At the end of my cycle, my PH was going nutty when I was adding 4 ppm. Thank you for confirming that 2 ppm is ok! I will do water changes and add my Prime. I also got some Stability. I may have wasted my money on that, but otherwise I don't think it'll do any damage.

The fish that I want can't be ordered for another 2 weeks, so I'm not as worried as I was before about time. I'm going to get celestial pearl danios!!! Blue velvet shrimp will join them at a much later date when my tank is mature! I can't wait!

 

[Water Wiggler]

What type of filtration are you using on this tank as it's going thru the fishless cycle? BB will do best given a suitable place to colonize. I live by the coarse ceramic biomedia and have excellent results with it. As I mentioned on another post, I recommend getting a corner filter or two (depending on your tank size and fish load) and fill it 2/3 with the biomedia and a layer of filter floss on top. Occasionally you'll need to pull it and change the floss, just don't disturb the biomedia or try rinsing it or anything. It'll look kinda gross after a while, but it'll be doing its job!

Even my 20 gal with two large goldfish (who I feel are overfed, but their my mom's) reads 0.0s for ammonia, nitrate, & nitrite and I am lucky to do monthly water changes! I have a 5 gal sump under it with over a quart of biomedia as the second stage (after a multi-layer filtration stage).

I've got an AquaClear 20 with a sponge layer and two layers of coarse ceramic biomedia. Does that make you proud? I have java moss and just added some frogbit. That should help the water out eventually. When this is all done, I'm going to get some celestial pearl danios and some blue velvet shrimp at a much later date!

 

[Water Wiggler]

Actually when it starts looking gross, it isn't doing it's job anymore, at least not as well. You need to rinse the ceramic media in old tank water occasionally otherwise you end up with a layer of dead bacteria/biofilm on the surfaces and it isn't as efficient.
That is one of the major benefits of a "moving bed" type filter, or media reactor, it is always sloughing off the old bacteria layer and promoting the growth of new, young bacteria which are far more efficient and effective.
A light rinsing will remove that dead layer without disrupting the BB colony very much.

Personally I like Seachems Matrix and DeNitrate as bio-media, tons and tons of available surface area, external and internal.

Good to know about the dirty biomax! I have the Fluval biomax. I would switch it out for the Matrix, but my nitrites will have a party. Maybe five years from now!

 

[jrc0528]

Good to know about the dirty biomax! I have the Fluval biomax. I would switch it out for the Matrix, but my nitrites will have a party. Maybe five years from now!

No, just add the matrix in a corner filter and wait several weeks before removing the fluval if/when it gets too nasty to clean up. Once the new is established it is safe to remove the old. This is one reason I say to have redundancy... when the time comes to switch out the old or even clean it your tank likely won't so much as mini-cycle!

 

[Water Wiggler]

How much ammonia are you adding? Most people add 4ppm which is really much more than is needed for most fish stock bioloads. It also causes really big nitrite spikes.

Dose up to 2ppm, and do water changes to reduce the nitrites to a measurable level (that might take several huge water changes). Keep going, hopefully the cycle will be complete soon.

It just occurred to me that my cycle may never be complete due to the .50 ppm of ammonia in my tap water. I could do water changes all day long and I'll always have nitrites and ammonia. The only reason why I finally saw 0 nitrites at one point, I think, is because I didn't do a water change and just let the water sit there.

Even with Prime, I'm going to see nitrites and ammonia when I do a water change because Prime doesn't reduce it only detoxifies, right? I guess this explains why I'm in my 4th month of cycling. I feel like the only course of action is to just hope that Prime does its job and hope that my fish don't die. That will be hard for me to do because I want to see a complete cycle. When I tested my tap water in the beginning of my cycle, I didn't have ammonia. Sigh.