29 gallon fishless cycle!!

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Tyler3533 said:
Ok thanks for the reply! Should I do any sort of water change soon? Or should I wait tell the ammonia gets lower like around .5, do a 15% change and redose to 4ppm?

I wouldn't do any PWC unless your nitrites show up as the darkest color on your chart (that is 5ppm but since it's at the highest measurable value you can only know it 5 or higher it could be 5ppm or 10 or 20ppm and like I said nitrites above 10 can stall your cycle). Your nitrites are not this high yet so I dont you need a PWC. You might not need a water change at all until after its cycled (can turn 4ppm of ammonia fully into nitrates (meaning no nitrites are seen) in 24hrs). Then, you want to do a large PWC to get rid of the nitrates.
 
Ohh and I'm tempted to help with the calculating part so here goes (the warning is I'm a chemist so I do it the long way - just ignore it if you're bored out of your mind and skip to the very last part)

Here is what is called the dilution formula (essentially you are taking a concentrated solution (your 10% ammonia) and diluting in your tank to obtain a dilute solution):

CconcentratedxVconcentrated=CdilutexVdilute
Where C stands for concentration and V for volume. The concentrated will be your bottle of 10% ammonia and the dilute will be your tank.

You want to know how much volume of concentrated solution to add so solve for that (I'll abbreviate the names somewhat):

Vconc = (Cdil x Vdil)/Cconc

The important part it to keep Cconc and Cdil on the same units, in this case ppm, and whatever units you use for Vdil is what Vconc will come out as. You won't need to use gallons on concentrated stuff only mL so we will need to convert the volume of your tank to mL.

Plugging in the numbers:

Cdil:
This one is the easy one, it's whatever you want your ammonia at, but this assumes no ammonia to start with so if your ammonia is 0ppm (you might see this happen towards the end your cycle) then its 4ppm but if it's say 0.5 then you want to add enough the get to 4ppm so it's 3.5ppm. Whatever the difference between between what your ammonia is at and the level you want it at - that is your Cdil

Vdil:
Like I said we want mL here.
Your tank is 29gal and you can assume that 10% of that volume is taken up by decor and substrate so let's go with 26.1gal.
Multiply by 3785 to go to mL (don't have a calc right now and I'm too lazy to close the app and use my phone).

The hard one:
Cconc:
We need this in ppm so we need to go from 10% (I'll assume it's weight to volume which what these usually are, the other thing it could be is volume to volume but I doubt it, I can explain why if you want so let me know if you're curious - but I did this when I cycled my tank and it worked fine) to ppm (parts per million).

Part per million can be thought as for example 1ppm as 1g of substance (ammonia in this case) for every 1million grams of solute (water in this case).
So back to the 10% we are assuming weight to volume so 10g of ammonia for every 100mL of solution. This is a dilute solution so we can use the density of water to go from volume (the 100mL) to mass (we want grams). The density of water is 1g/mL so 100mL is 100g. So now we have that the conc solution is 10gammonia/100gsolution we need parts per millions so the 100g should be 1million g. So we need to multiply top and bottom by 10,000. That gives us 100,000g ammonia per million that is 100000ppm
Cconc = 100000ppm

So for your tank:

Vconc = (Cdil x (26.1x3785)mL)/100000ppm

Cdil = 4ppm - ammonia level your tank is currently at.

Hope this helps :)
 
Lol I had the wrong thread, so sorry still informative I'd you'd like to read, but only for fishless cycling, don't add any ammonia with your fish in there.
 
XimeD said:
Lol I had the wrong thread, so sorry still informative I'd you'd like to read, but only for fishless cycling, don't add any ammonia with your fish in there.

This is the fishless cycling thread... Lol
 
paytertot said:
This is the fishless cycling thread... Lol

Yeah lol I realized after I typed it, I just started using the app vs the computer and it won't let me edit it. I'm posting in way too many threads lol
 
XimeD said:
Yeah lol I realized after I typed it, I just started using the app vs the computer and it won't let me edit it. I'm posting in way too many threads lol

Hahahaha I always use the app
 
XimeD said:
Lol I had the wrong thread, so sorry still informative I'd you'd like to read, but only for fishless cycling, don't add any ammonia with your fish in there.

I read it. But wouldn't say I understood all of it haha. But I'm about to test my water soon. So we shall see what it looks like today. I'll post here to update
 
Just did a quick test. Ammonia seems to be at 1 ppm and nitrites off the chart. Gonna be a water change tomorrow so nitrites are readable since that can stall your cycle. Also gonna redose ammonia to 4ppm in the morning. Will update then!

** will nitrites be ok over night?
 

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Just did a 15-20% water change and nitrites still look to be off the chart? What should I do?
 

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You need to do a bigger change than that. Think of it like this.. if those nitrites happen to be like 10ppm, even a 50% change will only bring it down to 5ppm. I doubt they're that high but I'm just saying.
Try this- take a test tube and fill it half way with tank water, then half with tap, and test it. That will show you the results of a 50% change. If its still too high, do that again with 1/4 tank water and 3/4 tap. That would be a 75% change. This way you know how much to change ahead of time. But I'm sure the 50% will be good enough.
 
paytertot said:
You need to do a bigger change than that. Think of it like this.. if those nitrites happen to be like 10ppm, even a 50% change will only bring it down to 5ppm. I doubt they're that high but I'm just saying.
Try this- take a test tube and fill it half way with tank water, then half with tap, and test it. That will show you the results of a 50% change. If its still too high, do that again with 1/4 tank water and 3/4 tap. That would be a 75% change. This way you know how much to change ahead of time. But I'm sure the 50% will be good enough.

Ok thanks for the help I will do that when I get home. But a few questions.

1. What should my nitrite level be around?

2. I heard that doin a water change can stall your cycle.. Is that true? If so how much is too much while cycling
 
Water changes won't stall your cycle. High nitrites or ammonia will.
You just want to change enough to bring nitrites into a readable level, with some wiggle room. 1ppm probably would be good. Just make sure you dose ammo back up as needed.
 
paytertot said:
Water changes won't stall your cycle. High nitrites or ammonia will.
You just want to change enough to bring nitrites into a readable level, with some wiggle room. 1ppm probably would be good. Just make sure you dose ammo back up as needed.

Looks like I'll be doing more than 50% :(

What caused the sudden spike in nitrites?
 
Tyler3533 said:
Looks like I'll be doing more than 50% :(

What caused the sudden spike in nitrites?

The ammonia being processed. You don't have to do a water change unless any parameters become off the charts or u accidentally dose ammo above 4ppm
 
Did the water change. Everything is better now. Water is less tannined as well too very happy right now
 
What's up with my nitrites? They are high again? Should this keep happening? Or is this normal reading 2 weeks into cycle today
 

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Perfectly normal and expected! It typically takes twice as long for your nitrite>nitrate bacteria develop when compared to amm>nitrite. When you have time, do another wc to drop your nitrites down to 1ppm or lower- I would recommend atleast 75-100%. Temperature match & condition the water. Then only add 2ppm of ammonia and we can go from there! :)
 
jlk said:
Perfectly normal and expected! It typically takes twice as long for your nitrite>nitrate bacteria develop when compared to amm>nitrite. When you have time, do another wc to drop your nitrites down to 1ppm or lower- I would recommend atleast 75-100%. Temperature match & condition the water. Then only add 2ppm of ammonia and we can go from there! :)

Ok. Is it ok to turn filter off when doing that. And how do I temperature match with only one heater? Which has to be turned off web Doug water changes..
 
Tyler3533 said:
Ok. Is it ok to turn filter off when doing that. And how do I temperature match with only one heater? Which has to be turned off web Doug water changes..

Use a thermometer to make the tap match the tank before filling.
 
It's a good habit to be in to turn off filters/electrical appliances when sticking your hands in a fishtank. Just don't take an extended lunch break in the midst of wc. :)

A thermometer definitely would help but using your hand is actually accurate within a degree or two. Have you noticed if your nitrates are starting to increase yet?
 
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