Fishless Cycle Day 12: Please Advise

DOH! Put in too much ammonia again. Tested it after a minute, tested at .5 so I put more in. I think it hadn't absorbed into the water yet. Testedd again, and it's above 8 ppm :eek: I'm really not good at this. Too much ammonia doesn't kill bacteria, does it? :eek: Should I let it go and pray, or do a water change, or shove some ammo lock in or something?
 
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Since you don't have fish yet, don't bother with ammo-lock. You can do a water change to bring the level down, or you can try leaving it, but you may find that level of ammonia will stall the tank...you'll also find the nitrite & nitrate levels will climb really high.

I recommend using a medicine dropper to dose the tank. I found that, for my 20 gal, I had 0.5ppm NH3 from my tap water already so I added 3.5 mL of ammonia to get 2ppm NH3. It depends greatly on the concentration of ammonia your using though. Go slow with the dropper...add and test, add and test...keep repeating until you get the right amount and then write it down. :)
 
Hmm, would a partial water change (say 20%-30%ish) hurt anything? I'll definatly try that to bring the ammonia down a bit.
 
Try it and see. If you do a small change and it doesn't help enough, then change some more. No, it won't hurt anything. That's the good thing about going fishless...you can muck around with the water all you want and not affect fish. :D
 
30-40% water change and test....
4.5-5 ppm of Ammonia
3.5 ppm nitrite
30 ppm Nitrate
pH around 8.2

Not too bad. A lot better than 8+ I guess. I'll probably wait a few days, test, add Ammonia if needed, and just "continue" the fishless cycle the right way until I see 0 nitrites and 0 ammonia as described in the article. I guess I should stop using Cycle :P No place around here sells BioSpira, so :(
Oh well, atleast now I'm on the right track :) Where exactly does the bacteria "live" anyway? Is it in the biowheel of the filter, the water, gravel, or just sort of everywhere? I would've thought a water change would get rid of it, but :P

If I keep testing, I'm going to spend a small fortune on master test kits :)
 
You'll need to test everyday for ammonia so you know how much to add to get it back up to 5. Once you've gotten cycled you won't need to test everyday. :)

The bacteria lives mostly in your biowheel I think (I'm sure I'll be corrected if that's wrong :) ) and everywhere else in lower concentrations.

This patience stuff is hard ain't it?! lol
 
Yup. You'll start to notice that after 24 hours, there will be less and less ammonia in the tank. That'll be because it's being eaten by bacteria. You'll want to keep them fat and happy tho so make sure you bring the levels back up to 5 (I think is what the article says...been a while since I've read it!) Don't stop feeding the bacteria or it will die. :)
 
To do this correctly, you need to know how much ammonia you were adding to get the tank to 5ppm, and now use only half of that amount daily. It is the ammonia that inhibits the nitrite processing bacteria so you don't want to go high on ammonia after nitrites are present, you need to culture those bacteria carefully, they are a bit delicate.

Did you get a medicine dropper yet? You can find a nice one in the baby department at Walmart, cheap. So, find out how many ml it takes to get to 2.5 ppm and do that daily. You will expect the ammonia to build a bit perhaps, but do not let it go above 5 ppm, do a water change if necessary. Soon, you will see the ammonia is falling to zero in 24 hours, then you will dose again. Then the nitrite will spike and fall, when it falls, it falls fast.

Yes, you will be using a lot of the test kit at first, but that will slow down dramatically in just a few weeks. Then you'll test once a week, then even less that that, eventually only if you think somthing is odd.

The bacteria live on every surface of the tank, particularly where they get good aeration and access to nutrients at a nice rate, so the filter is thick with bacteria, especially the biowheel, but they are on every surface to some extent. That light slime on the glass is bacteria, or the bio-film. They live and die and so you have to clean the slime off regularly, gently so that some are left to repopulate, but the thick goo has to go or you end up with live bacteria on top of dead bacteria and they are too easily disturbed that way. Better that they are on the sponges and biowheel, not on top of themselves.

So, you will be adding some amount of ammonia to the tank each day, then 24 hours later test for ammonia and nitrite, then add ammonia again. When your test for ammonia and for nitrite and both are zero, you are done. Then test nitrates and do a water change to reduce that to a reasonable level of 5 or 10 ppm. Dose ammonia once more and retest again in 24 hours to be certain, waterchange again if needed, then add fish. No more ammonia, the fish will add it now!

Feed lightly, test often, until you are certain the tank is stable.
 
One final question :) According to the article, extreme pH kills bacteria. Should I be concerned if my pH is 8-8.6ish, or should I just leave it alone?
 
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