Half way through?

[eco23]

I'll have to test and check. Seems like on my charts I have some 12-hour and 24-hour measurements. The reduction in nitrites from 5 to 2 occurred in a 12 hour period.

Jimmy, you may have been done cycling for a while. Did you just add the ammonia? Wait exactly 24 hours from the time you added it, test, and if ammonia and nitrIte are both at zero...you're done.

 

[JimmyA]

How much ammonia did you want me to add, 4ppm? Yes, I'll wait 24 hours. I've gotten too excited and have some 12 hour measurements and 24 hour measurements. My chemistry professor would have wooped my butt!

 

[eco23]

How much ammonia did you want me to add, 4ppm? Yes, I'll wait 24 hours. I've gotten too excited and have some 12 hour measurements and 24 hour measurements. My chemistry professor would have wooped my butt!

If you've already added it today, whatever level is already there is fine. Otherwise just 2-3ppm is good (I don't know how many of your drops = ppm).

 

[JimmyA]

I will report back at 1:20 p.m. tomorrow. Trying to get close to 4 ppm.

 

[eco23]

I will report back at 1:20 p.m. tomorrow. Trying to get close to 4 ppm.

Anywhere between 2-4 is fine.

 

[JimmyA]

Hope I can get fish tomorrow!

 

[librarygirl]

Ok so what happened?! lol Did they go to zero?!

I'll trade my blue nitrIte tube for your purple one

 

[librarygirl]

oops, hasn't been 24 hours from last night yet. doh lol Let us know tonight what happens!

 

[JimmyA]

Right, not officially 24 hours yet. Right now it doesn't look good. Nitrite is about 5, nitrate is 20 ppm, and Ammonia is .50. Maybe I should just go to Tahiti!

 

[jetajockey]

This is one of the issues I've seen with fishless cycling. I'm not sure why people are so adamant to use such a large amount of ammonia.

I get the whole 'well it so you can add a full stock right away' thing, but bear with me here.

A real bioload of ammonia produced by animals is not going to be a huge amount all at once, it's going to be a gradual and consistent amount, if no converters are present, then it will be a gradual ramp up. A lightly stocked tank could even take days, if not weeks, to get up to a few ppm ammonia, and that's assuming the ammonia => nitrite bacteria are not present in sufficient numbers to do their job.

As long as there is any ammonia in the tank, even a small amount, then nitrification is happening, and the bacteria are being fed.

What looks to be happening in this situation and several others that I've been following is that the ammonia => nitrite bacteria has built a healthy colony but the nitrite => nitrate colony gets overwhelmed by the massive amount of nitrites being introduced all at once.

I don't know the exact toxicity of nitrite towards bacteria, but just like ammonia, too much of it is a bad thing, and really slows things down.

So what's wrong with using a small amount of ammonia and allowing the nitrite => nitrate converters to do their job with less of a load? It's possible that the ammonia => nitrite converters may decrease in colony size, but even if they did, its easy enough to build them back up. Remember that they multiply exponentially, so the hard part is just getting the numbers up into a noticeable amount, once they are there, its easy to build them up.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[eco23]

He's been doing that. We had him only dose up to around 1ppm until what he added yesterday. This issue of excessive no2 seems to be most common when using seeded media (perhaps an imbalance in types of nitrifying bacteria?). I'm also seeing this happen very often when using the Angelsplus filters.

 

[jetajockey]

The nitrite => nitrate converting bacteria seem to be more sensitive to water chemistry and temperature, so that may be a factor. They are also not intended to be used with fishless cycling, possibly for this very reason. Even a well established/stocked tank is not likely to be processing that amount of ammonia/nitrite daily, so it's easy to see how the bacteria would be overwhelmed.

I tested the filters fishless and had so-so results, took the same filter and did fish-in and instantly cycled, so who knows.

 

[JimmyA]

Yeah, I had to add 30 drops of ammonia to get up to 4 ppm yesterday and now this morning ammonia is down to .50 ppm! Nice reduction! However nitrites are still at 5 ppm! Nitrates at 20 ppm. I doubt my fish are going to produce that much ammonia overnight.

 

[jetajockey]

Also, the drop in nitrates mentioned earlier could possibly be from the new lighting. You'd be surprised at the amount of nitrates that healthy growing plants can consume if given enough light, and since the nitrate test jumps from 40 to 80 it'd be easy to write that off as a fluke.

 

[JimmyA]

Yes, I recently added a 55 watt, 5600 Kelvin lamp as a modification so my plants would grow -- they were all dying.

 

[JimmyA]

Well, I have to mow the grass. I'll be back at 1:20 for my report.

 

[eco23]

Well, I have to mow the grass. I'll be back at 1:20 for my report.

If your no2 is at 5...I'm not expecting a miracle. Personally I'd keep with 1ppm every 24 hours for the next few days, do a pwc if you want to get nitrIte down around .5-1, and see what happens. You've obviously grown plenty of nitrifying bacteria during the process, and I'd say if you can convert 1-2ppm ammonia into 0 with 0 no2 in 24 hours, I'd consider your tank cycled.

 

[JimmyA]

Ok, here are my colors at 24 hours attached:

 

[JimmyA]

I compared the colors to my API card. I have 0 ammonia, 5 nitrite, and 80 nitrate.

 

[eco23]

I'd personally recommend one final PWC to bring no2 down to .5 to 1, and go back to dosing 1ppm every 24 hours until both the ammo and no2 can drop to zero in that time frame.