Fishless Cycling Issues...

sly2kusa

sly2kusa

Lover of Esox
Jul 25, 2006
181
0
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Hey everyone!

I have been trying to recycle a tank that I thought was cycled (which I use for feeders). I raised the Ammonia to 8ppm by accident, and just stopped adding it in hopes it would go down and begin the whole Nitrification process. That was a week ago, and I still have an 8ppm level in there.

I have not done any water changes (which I know there is mixed info on it's effects to a fishless cycle, but since there isn't anything in there I thought it best to leave it alone).

Any ideas on how long it will take for it to go down by itself so I can continue the cycle? Or do I need to empty it and start over again? There were fish in there for a small time after I thought I had it cycled initially, but it began to cycle again as fish were put in and taken out (again - it's a feeder tank that I use for quarantining feeders).

Any suggestions would be most appreciated!

Thanks!
 
I believe to much ammonia can stall/damage the nitrite development. I'll have to check where that is.

I would just drain and refill, starting again since you are fishless.
 
basic question - have you got a filter running in the tank?

The recipe I followed instructed me to add 5ppm daily, so until the bacteria built up, my reading went over 8ppm (I carefully reread the instructions from a number of sources). This went on for about 3 days, so the levels of ammonia may have got up to 15ppm - I can't tell, but then they dropped to zero (even though I was still adding ammonia).
 
the recipe is meant to have a total ammonia count of 5 ppm, not keep adding 5 ppm daily. What you can do is change some of the water in the tank, I don't think a total drain is necessary. As long as you have 5 to start, you are good to go.
 
yeah I've noticed alot of people misunderstand the instructions of bringing the ammonia lvl to 5ppm. They assume its add ammonia every day but thats not the case, its bring it up to 5ppm starting and only add ammonia when the level starts to fall to bring it back up to 5ppm.
 
To answer a few questions (and ask a couple of more now) yes - there is a Penguin 150 that is running (and had some gunk when other feeders were in there for about a month) prior to me doing this recycle of the tank.

The reason I recycled the tank is as I was taking feeders our of quarantine the parameters started to spike. I thought this kind of weird, but guessed that perhaps even though when I did this the first time successfully - perhaps the bacteria colonies were still not at full strength yet?

Anyways - since the Ammonia is off the chart - is all my good bacteria gone now? And basically I'm going to have to start all over? There has been an absolute ZERO nitrite reading for the last week.

I did do a 33% water change this evening, and have not done another reading since (I will before lights out in the next hour). If the PPM on Ammonia has dropped down to at most 5PPM - I will check it again tomorrow and just maintain a 5PPM amount and not go over it.

Thanks!
 
Hello, sly. first off I'm a beginner,but I have had similar troubles like the 1's you are experiencing now.First IMO,I would just start over like rbishop suggested(he helped me with my fishless cycle!)Being that you have no fish...it's just water.I started over,and I'm glad I did,I'm in the final stags of my cycle in ust 20 days.If you do decide to start over,check some of the posts Imade.There might be something in one of them you could use.Good luck!!!!!
 
Morbius said:
Hello, sly. first off I'm a beginner,but I have had similar troubles like the 1's you are experiencing now.First IMO,I would just start over like rbishop suggested(he helped me with my fishless cycle!)Being that you have no fish...it's just water.I started over,and I'm glad I did,I'm in the final stags of my cycle in ust 20 days.If you do decide to start over,check some of the posts Imade.There might be something in one of them you could use.Good luck!!!!!
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hehe! Danke!

I actually did empty the tank and you know what? I'm still registering at least 8PPM in the dag gummed thing.

It must be because of my Biowheel be saturated with Ammonia or that and the gravel.

Sucky sucky - back to the drawing board.
 
Dangerdoll said:
the recipe is meant to have a total ammonia count of 5 ppm, not keep adding 5 ppm daily. What you can do is change some of the water in the tank, I don't think a total drain is necessary. As long as you have 5 to start, you are good to go.
Click to expand...

Actually, one of the more popular sites with instructions DOES say you should add 5ppm per day:

"Add ammonia to the tank initially to obtain a reading on your ammonia kit of ~5 ppm. Record the amount of ammonia that this took, then add that amount daily until the nitrite spikes."

This is from http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/Fishlesscycle.htm

SirWired
 
SirWired said:
Actually, one of the more popular sites with instructions DOES say you should add 5ppm per day:

"Add ammonia to the tank initially to obtain a reading on your ammonia kit of ~5 ppm. Record the amount of ammonia that this took, then add that amount daily until the nitrite spikes."

This is from http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/Fishlesscycle.htm

SirWired
Click to expand...

Yup - that's the link I was using and the 10 and 14 day recipes listed out in that article.

I did finally see Nitrites begin to take place earlier today, and the Ammonia is now somewhere between 4PPM and 8PPM.
 
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