Ammonia dosage in Fishless cycle?

[Tom]

Hi,

Since my first tank has completely cycled. I started my second 29g tank with fishless cycle last night. I printed out articles from Chris Cow, Shawna McGregor-King and Badman's tropical Fish. I bought a regular ammonia cleaning solution(softwater + ammonia) from grocery store and make sure it doesn't foam when I shake it.

I move some pea stone gravels, one of the filter sponge from the old tank to the new tank. Note: Each tank has two HOB filters.

The first question came up with how much ammonia level needs for the cycle? It looks different people got their own way according to the acticles. I settled with 4ppm since my AP test kits doesn't have 5ppm reading.

Last night, I added about 10cc ammonia to boost the reading from 0.5ppm to 4ppm. Tonight, I measured it again and still got almost 4ppm and found out Nitrite is 0.3ppm. I topped off the tank with about one gallon of water for the vapored water. Now what should I do? According to some acticles, I need to keep dosing the same ammount of ammonia. One of them says I need to cut half of the ammount once I detected the Nitrite. Do I need to keep dosing ammonia even it does not drop to very small level? Or I should wait for a few days until ammonia drops then add more according to one of the article? What is your experience?

--Tom

[JSchmidt]

I've fishlessly cycled a number of tanks, and I've never seen much difference in cycle times whether ammonia was cut in half or not. I just dose to the original level (I go to 5 ppm) and don't worry about it.

Dosing to 4 ppm is fine, too. If you really wanted to go to 5 ppm, could test for that by diluting a sample of tank water 50% with distilled water and test; if you get 2.5 ppm in the diluted sample, the tank concentration would be 5 ppm. I'm not sure I'd worry about it...

When redosing your tank, you don't want to add the same quantity of ammonia every day. You only want to add enough to take the tank concentration up to your target (e.g., 4 ppm).

Does that help?

Jim

[carpguy]

Agree fully with JSChmidt…

Here is a thread (http://64.191.28.50/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3926) from a ways back that covered this particular topic pretty well (and features more insights and JSchmidt and myself :D ).

The consensus seems to have been to maintain at 5 rather than repeating the dose when it isn't really called for. This was the method that I used and it worked well. There was (and is) less consensus on the cutting in half bit. Some do and some don't (I did). The folks who don't cut the dose argue that it helps to grow a larger colony, those who do cut think that it creates a better enviroment for the second stage bacteria and that keeping the dose high tends to extend the nitrite spike. They're details, the cycle works either way, may take a few days longer one way or the other…

Bringing the seed material over from the established tank should speed things up considerably. Some folks suggest a second seeding at the end of the ammonia spike as the nitrite spike is getting started (at the point where you'd cut the dose if you decide to cut the dose). The thinking is that the initial seeding helps establish the ammonia-eaters but that the high ammonia levels and lack of food cause the nitrite-eaters to die off before they can get a decent food supply together. The second seeding brings in a fresh colony just as conditions become optimal for them.

HTH

[Tom]

Jim and Carpguy,

Thank you very much to clear my confusion about the dosage. The link to the thread is also very helpful since I have the similar doubt about ammonia dosage. I think I will stick to 4ppm for the convenience. Actually I have hard time to read the color chart from AP test kits. When I attach the tube to the white area of the chart, according to the instruction, it is very confusion for me to determine the brightness(depth) of green. Even when I look into the tube, different angle create different darkness on the tube itself like the right or left side. Do you have any similar problem? Or I don't get the right way of reading the chart?

Tonight, I just checked the ammonia and found it only slightly less than 4.0ppm. It looks ammonia did not change for the past two days. I then added 2cc ammonia to make it a little bit over 4.0ppm just for safe purpose.

I'm interested in the second seeding since I have plenty gravel available from the other tank. Is it right that I need to have the second seeding right when the Nitrite spikes? I have a book called "A practical guide to creating and maintaining water quality" in which I found the ammonia and nitrite spike all occure during the first week of 6 weeks cycle. Of course Ammonia spike happens before Nitrite spike. Therefore, the second seeding actually should be in the first week. Am I right?


--Tom

[carpguy]

I just got into this a few months ago. I started researching last summer and set up my first tank in November. I did a fishless cycle without any seed material at all. It took about a month. People have reported shorter fishless cycles especially with seed material, but it'll work either way and each follows its own course. You need to get it mostly right, not exactly perfect.

In general, the ammonia spike takes a week to a week and a half. There is a bit of overlap between the two spikes but they're pretty distinct. The Nitrite spike seems to last about twice as long as the Ammonia spike. I have and like that same Water Quality book, but the cycling chart is a little unusual and, IMHO, a little confusing. Its trying to illustrate the effects of very regular water changes for a fishy cycle. Unless your chemistry starts to get wacky you don't need to do water changes during a fishless.

This is a more conventional diagram of the same thing:
http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/n-cycle.gif

There are some differences of opinion on exactly what bacteria are responsible for all of this but the mechanism seems the same regardless. For the first few days there is no significant food supply for the nitrite-eaters, plus they are in a high ammonia enviroment which they apparently find somewhat hostile. There is plenty of food for the ammonia-eaters, who begin to reproduce rapidly. Once the ammonia is dropping off significantly each day and nitrites are starting to be readily available, it might be helpful to bring in some new seed material -- the nitrite eaters that came over the first time around haven't been loving life for a bit and would probably benefit from a fresh infusion. It may take a few days off the cycle, but the cycle will occur either way. At this point some people like to reduce the dosage, again because the nitrite-eaters don't care for the high ammo-levels. Some people have reported never-ending nitrite spikes (I'm one of them) and this may be related to overly high ammonia levels.

HTH

Edit: And yes, I hve trouble with the color charts too. And people pay me to match and adjust color. Its the kits, its not you…

[JSchmidt]

Originally posted by Tom

I'm interested in the second seeding since I have plenty gravel available from the other tank. Is it right that I need to have the second seeding right when the Nitrite spikes? I have a book called "A practical guide to creating and maintaining water quality" in which I found the ammonia and nitrite spike all occure during the first week of 6 weeks cycle. Of course Ammonia spike happens before Nitrite spike. Therefore, the second seeding actually should be in the first week. Am I right?


--Tom

Unfortuantely, the bacteria rarely have read the book and they don't generally follow those rules. The best time to reseed is after ammonia has started to be consumed by the first stage bacteria and nitrites start to build. In your case, when you start seeing ammonia down to 2 ppm 24 hours after dosing and when nitrites start to build up (in excess of 1 ppm, say) you could re-seed. You can re-seed as often as you want or as often as you can based on availability of inocculant.

Cranking up the tank temp to the mid-80s may also help speed things up.

HTH,
Jim

[wetmanNY]

Jim's right about the bacteria being less than doctrinaire about this stuff...

I've noticed that people who get impatient and "boost" the ammonia levels suffer the harshest nitrite spikes.

And people with densely planted tanks are scarcely troubled with cycling problems, and don't go through nitrite spikes at all...

[Tom]

Carpguy,

That's is a very nice Nitrogen chart, clear and easy to read. I have read it somewhere on the web, but forgot where it is. Thanks for that.

Jim,

Thanks for the tips. I have followed the fishless cycle article to raise the temp to 84F, so I should be fine.

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Now, with the help from you guys/gals, the fishless cycle process has become much clear to me. :) I will keep monitor and maintain the ammonia level to 4ppm. Once it has drop to 2ppm in 24 hours, I will re-seed the tank with gravel(+fish wastes) from other tank. At the same time, I will keep monitoring Nitrite since it has already appeared in my tank. As to whether cut back the ammonia dosage or not once the Nitrite spike, it seems not to matter too much.

Thanks again!

--Tom

[TwoTankAmin]

I have fishless cycled 6 tanks so far and have used the same basic simple method with great reults.

On set up, add seed material from other tanks. Temp set to 85. Add 5-6 drops of pure ammonia per 10 gals of tank water. Repeat this dosage daily until nitrites show up. At this point reduce dosing to 3-4 drops per 10 gals. Continue this dosing until ready to add fish (when nitrites read 0 again). The day/night before adding a full fish load, turn down temp to desired level.

The cycle can be maintained without fish by continuing to add the maintainance dose of 3-4 drops.

This is much less scientific than shooting for a desired ppm ammonia reading but it has worked fine for me.

edit note: Sorry, I did mean nitrites and fixed it.

[RTR]

Hi TTA - you did not really mean nitrAtes readinding zero did you? NitrItes maybe?

The proceedure you suggest is not so bad - it is what many of use to "hold" a tank without stock for a time. when i'm between fish in a tank I normally alternate between ammonia and prepared (flake, pellet) fishfood - to help maintain the heterotrophs as well.

[Tom]

Hi TTA,

Since I only got the ammonia cleaning solution which contains softwater+ammonia, it won't be accurate for me to add the same dosage as yours.

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Last night, I measure the water again. A little surprise for the cycling process. But again, I have difficulty of reading the results.

Amonia: slightly less than 4.0ppm which is similar to the past two days.

Nitrite: 1.6 or 3.3~33ppm. I'm really not sure about the color whether it hits the bottom chart or not, but it definitely turned red right away.

Nitrate: slightly less than 10ppm

PH: 7.8
GH: 6dh
KH:3dh

I was surprised to see the Nitrate presents in the tank since I have only cycled the tank for 3 days. I hope that means the cycle process proceeds very well. :)

For the ammonia level, I didn't add anymore into the tank. It is quite close to the level (4ppm) I wanted.

Since the Nitrie spike, I re-seeded the tank with 2 scope of pea gravels from the cycled tank. Hope the new colony of bacteria will help to speed up the cycle.


--Tom

[JSchmidt]

Tom, it's quite possible your tap water has nitrates, and that could account for their presence in your tank. You could check the tap water if you were really curious...

Jim

[Tom]

Jim,

That's a good point. I tested the fresh tap water during the lunch hour and got the Nitrate reading slighly less than 5.0ppm. Unless the tap water will produce more Nitrate over time, it's a good news to me on the cycling process.

--Tom

[JSchmidt]

I don't know whether it's true of your water supply, but nitrates in ours are pretty variable. Testing the tap water over a week or two every several days would give you an idea of whether yours are, too.

When nitrifying bacteria kick in, you'll see it pretty clearly in your test results. Always an exciting moment...

Jim