Fishless Cycle
- Thread starter railer20
- Start date
Looking good. Just as a reminder, you are here:
After the maintenance feeding (snack Dose #3), whenever you test and ammonia is .25 ppm or lower and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, it is time to add another full ammonia dose (Dose #4) and then test in 24 hours.
f ammonia and nitrite both read 0 ppm, you are cycled. Do a large water change, be sure the water is the proper temperature, and add fish. The odds are this will not be the case quite this soon.
If ammonia and nitrite do not both read zero, continue to test daily. Whenever ammonia is again at .25 ppm or less and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, add the full amount of ammonia (Dose #5) and test in 24 hours. Follow this pattern of testing and adding (this would be Dose #6, #7 etc.) until both tests do read 0 ppm within 24 hours. The cycle should not take much longer to be completed and even with slower tanks one should not need to go beyond Dose #6 or #7.
If I had to bet, I would put my money on Dose #5 being where you are cycled. But then making those sort of predictions usually ends up biting me.
After the maintenance feeding (snack Dose #3), whenever you test and ammonia is .25 ppm or lower and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, it is time to add another full ammonia dose (Dose #4) and then test in 24 hours.
f ammonia and nitrite both read 0 ppm, you are cycled. Do a large water change, be sure the water is the proper temperature, and add fish. The odds are this will not be the case quite this soon.
If ammonia and nitrite do not both read zero, continue to test daily. Whenever ammonia is again at .25 ppm or less and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, add the full amount of ammonia (Dose #5) and test in 24 hours. Follow this pattern of testing and adding (this would be Dose #6, #7 etc.) until both tests do read 0 ppm within 24 hours. The cycle should not take much longer to be completed and even with slower tanks one should not need to go beyond Dose #6 or #7.
If I had to bet, I would put my money on Dose #5 being where you are cycled. But then making those sort of predictions usually ends up biting me.
Yes you wait for nitrite to drop under 1. You pretty much will have sufficient ammonia bacteria after the next dose. So, we are waiting for the nitrite ones to catch up a bit. The goal at this stage is to minimize the potential for nitrite to build up. We know the most nitrite 1 ppm of ammonia can make is about 2.55 ppm. However, unlike an ammonia dose which hits all at once, the nitrite is produced only as fast as the ammonia can create it. This gives the nitrite bacteria time to reproduce. So you will never see a big reading for nitrite again. The only question is how high the nitrite might get before it is dropping.
Here the answer is it must have reached that point. Two days ago your nitrite was about 2 ppm. You did the snack dose adding a potential maximum 2.55 ppm more. So the total possible is 4.55. Realistically, the maximum is less because some amount of the nitrite is being handled and even more nitrite bacteria are being created. So nitrite should drop faster every time we add ammonia because there are more of them at each addition.
There is a balance between the ammonia and the nitrite bacteria we want to see reached. You know you have this when the full dose of ammonia becomes nitrate in 24 hours and you never get a reading for nitrite along the way.
You should be able to do a 25/75 dilution (x 4) to know you are good to go or not. There is no mistaking the .25 ppm color v.s. anything higher.
If I had to predict, I would hope that, after doing the next full dose, you will see ammonia zero out in anywhere from 12-36 hours, but 24 is the goal. The nitrite will be back under 1.0 in 2 days.
Are you working on stocking? If you are not going to do a full stocking all at once, we can get you there faster by reducing the ammonia dose to accommodate partial stocking. But, then you will have to think about a Q tank for new fish coming in. Once your initial stocking is healthy and doing well in a tank, any new fish coming may bring illness or parasites with it.
Here the answer is it must have reached that point. Two days ago your nitrite was about 2 ppm. You did the snack dose adding a potential maximum 2.55 ppm more. So the total possible is 4.55. Realistically, the maximum is less because some amount of the nitrite is being handled and even more nitrite bacteria are being created. So nitrite should drop faster every time we add ammonia because there are more of them at each addition.
There is a balance between the ammonia and the nitrite bacteria we want to see reached. You know you have this when the full dose of ammonia becomes nitrate in 24 hours and you never get a reading for nitrite along the way.
You should be able to do a 25/75 dilution (x 4) to know you are good to go or not. There is no mistaking the .25 ppm color v.s. anything higher.
If I had to predict, I would hope that, after doing the next full dose, you will see ammonia zero out in anywhere from 12-36 hours, but 24 is the goal. The nitrite will be back under 1.0 in 2 days.
Are you working on stocking? If you are not going to do a full stocking all at once, we can get you there faster by reducing the ammonia dose to accommodate partial stocking. But, then you will have to think about a Q tank for new fish coming in. Once your initial stocking is healthy and doing well in a tank, any new fish coming may bring illness or parasites with it.
I want to do a full stock. I checked with my local fish guy and he had everything I wanted when I did check last week so hopefully that stays the same when my cycle is done. I guess a question I would have on that is it OK if I add fish over a two or three day span? Because I’m thinking if I acclimate them properly over a couple 2 or 3 hours it would be hard to do them all at once and thought may be spreading it out over two or three days would still be OK?
I think yes, over a few days the bacteria will be fine. But I'll defer to TTA's experience with this method...
