The end has finally come! Ammonia Levels = 0, Nitrite Levels = 0!

Ok, tonight I tested my water and discovered that my nitrite levels are now at 0. Which I found was suprising since I tested it the night before last night and nitrite levels were at least at 5ppm. I tested it twice to confirm, and sure enough, nitrite levels are indeed at 0.

I then tested the ammonia levels, and as expected they too were at 0. With the ammonia and nitrite both at 0, I guess my fishless cycle is complete! Problem though: I really don't have any time to mess around with my aquarium until this Thursday at the earliest. The weekend would be better. Should I add some supplementary ammonia in there so that the bacterial colonies I've waited so long for won't starve to death? Or will they be good to go until the weekend? I don't want to go and add too much ammonia and then have to wait another week for the levels to go down again.

FWIW, I do have some plants in the aquarium. Because of this, I also have some uninvited snails too. Some of the leaves of the plants are dead and surely are decomposing. Perhaps the combination of the dead plants decomposing and snail poop will be enough to feed my bacteria until I get a chance to do the water change and add some fish this weekend?

stingray4540 said:

not likely enough to keep the bacteria. just keep doing excactly what you've been doing for the cycle until you add fish.

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But I haven't been doing anything for the past 4 weeks.

So you're saying I should go ahead and add some ammonia to the tank?

stingray4540 said:

wait. do you mean you've been just running an empty tank and not adding anything to it for 4 weeks, and you were still getting amonia and nitrite readings?
I'll have to let the cycling experts comment on this one, as I have not cycled a tank in a long time.

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Yes. Actually, after looking at the calendar just now, I think it's been more like 5 and a half weeks. The tank is empty, except for 5 amazon swords and now some snails that apparently hitched a ride on the swords. If I recall, the snails started to appear about three weeks ago.

Ammonia levels started tapering off at about 3 weeks ago also, I think. Then nitrite levels were spiked through the roof for about two weeks. Until, finally when I took a reading tonight, nitrite levels are at 0.

reiverix said:

I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean you have not added any ammonia for four weeks?

Also doing a fishless cycle in a planted tank is a double edged sword. You have both plants and bacteria competing for the food, ammonia. There was a recent post about this somewhere, but plants seem to be able to outcompete the very bacteria you are trying to harvest. There's a section on doing a silent cycle in the excellent cycle article by Daveedka.

Can you provide some info on your setup and how you've been doing the fishless cycle.

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Basically, it's a 35 gallon tank with a canister filter, gravel, a piece of bog wood, 5 amazon swords, and a slowly increasing number of tiny snails. There's also some algae growing on the bog wood.

Before you say "HOLY CRAP! FIVE AMAZON SWORDS!!", I only have a 30 watt lamp on the tank. I've been told this is woefully inadequate lighting, and I'm pretty sure thats an accurate assesment as the plants haven't looked like they've grown at all since I put them in (been about 4 weeks I think), there's brown spots on some of the leaves, they look more yellowish than green, and all the leaves are wilted and sickly looking. I have bought a 75watt lighting kit from ahsupply.com, though. I've been busy this past week building a light enclosure for it. It's finally almost ready. Hopefully, it's not too late for my poor plants. They kind of look like they're barely hanging on as it is though.

How I did the fishless cycle is as follows: after I set it all up I put in enough ammonia in the tank to register at least at 5ppm. Then I just let it run. I didn't add any more ammonia and I didn't change the water. I did occasionally add more water to replace the water loss due to evaporation. As I summarized in a previous post, ammonia levels stayed peaked for about 3 weeks. Then they tapered off and nitrite levels spiked for about 2 weeks. Then finally tonight, nitrite levels registered at 0. I tested the water for nitrate the night before last night, and there was some but not a whole lot. I didn't bother checking it tonight as I expect it to be pretty high.