Hi, I am attempting to do a fishless cycle. My ammonia eating bacteria are established I think, I can go threw a little under a tablespoon of amm. in a night, woohoo! These little guys established themselves pretty quickly, in about 4 days or so. Now for the last 13+ days I have been in a nitrite spike. It doesn't seem to be going away at all. My nitrite readings are off the chart (i'm using jungle labs test strips). My nitrate readings appear to be around 80ppm. My tank temp hoovers around 80*F. Sometimes it goes up to around 82+ when it's hot around here. My tanks PH is a little high, 7.8ish. I also have 3 live plants in there (I added the plants hopeing to speed up the proccess). Now my tank is full of algae, both green and some brown. I don't mind all this, I'm planning on cleaning the tank of algae before adding fish. I'm just wondering if the nitrite eaters will ever show up? Looking around I've seen that most people go threw their fishless cycle in around 10 days. I've been in my nitrite spike for 13+ days. Does anyone have any hints or anything for me? Thanks!
fishless cycle frustration
- Thread starter spy_90
- Start date
I don't know where you're finding 10 day cycles. Mine took 30, and while that's not the fastest I've heard reported, its not especially slow either. I'd think anything south of 5 weeks is pretty normal with the nitrite spike being the longer lasting phase by a good bit.
Did you halve the ammonia dose after you started clearing ammonia/seeing nitrites? Too high ammonia levels seem to suppress the nitrite-eaters and lead to more drawn out nitrite spikes (but at 13 days, you're not really that drawn out yet).
Try some water changes to draw down the levels. Water changes will not slow down the cycle. So long as you're getting readings there is more in there than the bacteria can deal with. They will continue growing until there isn't any surplus food (and there's always more food). I know high ammonia will suppress these guys, I'm not as sure about high nitrites: it won't hurt and it might help. Let us know…
HTH
Did you halve the ammonia dose after you started clearing ammonia/seeing nitrites? Too high ammonia levels seem to suppress the nitrite-eaters and lead to more drawn out nitrite spikes (but at 13 days, you're not really that drawn out yet).
Try some water changes to draw down the levels. Water changes will not slow down the cycle. So long as you're getting readings there is more in there than the bacteria can deal with. They will continue growing until there isn't any surplus food (and there's always more food). I know high ammonia will suppress these guys, I'm not as sure about high nitrites: it won't hurt and it might help. Let us know…
HTH
ok i guess i'm just impatient. heh
my amm. levels are around 2ppm about a 1/2 hr after i add some. I add amm. twice a day to keep the amm. eating bacteria up. Thanks for the advice, I guess I'll just wait it out. Thanks!
my amm. levels are around 2ppm about a 1/2 hr after i add some. I add amm. twice a day to keep the amm. eating bacteria up. Thanks for the advice, I guess I'll just wait it out. Thanks!
I'd leave the ammonia about where it is. Personally I'd do water changes until nitrites were back on the chart, but thats more of a hunch than anything.
IME, the nitrites hung and hung and then dropped. It wasn't a long slow gradual thing: they stayed high for a couple of weeks and then dropped over a couple of days.
And, as I recall… it did seem like it would last forever. An empty tank can be a frustrating thing.
Good luck with it.
IME, the nitrites hung and hung and then dropped. It wasn't a long slow gradual thing: they stayed high for a couple of weeks and then dropped over a couple of days.
And, as I recall… it did seem like it would last forever. An empty tank can be a frustrating thing.
Good luck with it.
thanks : )
and thanks for the advice, i will do some water changes.
do you think adding amm. twice a day is hurting it? should i stick to once a day? thanks again
and thanks for the advice, i will do some water changes.
do you think adding amm. twice a day is hurting it? should i stick to once a day? thanks again
Something thats been coming up in some of the fishless threads of late is the idea of ammonia suppressing the nitrite-eaters.
The original protocol was to halve the dose at the end of the ammonia spike but a lot of folks seemed to be skipping over this with the idea that keeping the dose higher would simulate a bigger bioload and give them a stronger colony. But it seems to not work out that way. The mighty WetMan tried to address it here (hold on, it gets a little thick). My head spun and I drew no firm conclusions. But…
I think I read somewhere along the line that the bacterial colonies can double in size in a 24 hour period, so the trick here is getting the very small number of bacteria that happen to fall from the sky into your tank to turn into a few billion. Once you have a few billion, a few billion more can happen pretty quickly. If you have enough to clear the 2-3 ppm dose you either have or will have very soon enough to take care of a reasonable stocking level. If you dose to 2ppm and then stock to 2.3 ppm when both colonies are at full strength, both colonies are going to adjust rapidly and the fish aren't going to be exposed to dangerous levels while that takes place. On the other hand, overdosing can beat the tomatoes out of your bacteria. I don't see that you really get a lot of added utility out of the extra dosing.
But all in all, you seem to be pretty much on schedule so I wouldn't worry too much.
The original protocol was to halve the dose at the end of the ammonia spike but a lot of folks seemed to be skipping over this with the idea that keeping the dose higher would simulate a bigger bioload and give them a stronger colony. But it seems to not work out that way. The mighty WetMan tried to address it here (hold on, it gets a little thick). My head spun and I drew no firm conclusions. But…
I think I read somewhere along the line that the bacterial colonies can double in size in a 24 hour period, so the trick here is getting the very small number of bacteria that happen to fall from the sky into your tank to turn into a few billion. Once you have a few billion, a few billion more can happen pretty quickly. If you have enough to clear the 2-3 ppm dose you either have or will have very soon enough to take care of a reasonable stocking level. If you dose to 2ppm and then stock to 2.3 ppm when both colonies are at full strength, both colonies are going to adjust rapidly and the fish aren't going to be exposed to dangerous levels while that takes place. On the other hand, overdosing can beat the tomatoes out of your bacteria. I don't see that you really get a lot of added utility out of the extra dosing.
But all in all, you seem to be pretty much on schedule so I wouldn't worry too much.
wow that thread is pretty deap O_O
I think i'm gonna go to adding amm. once a day, and see if that helps at all. Thanks!
I think i'm gonna go to adding amm. once a day, and see if that helps at all. Thanks!