Fishless Cycling - need help

M

MidnightPyro

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Jun 21, 2005
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I'm attempting to fishless cycle my tank, and currently, this is my dillema.

I started a new tank, brand new water and such. I added Ammonia into the tank. Day 1 Ammonia measured at 3 PPM, I added in Stress Coat to kill the Chlorine and Cycle. Day 2, Ammonia measured at 2-3 PPM, added another hit of Cycle. Today is Day 3, and I woke up to the stupid Bio-Wheel making this *PLOP* sound every 30 seconds, which is about to drive me insane.

My question is, what exactly is the next step? How do you get the happy bacteria in there that change Ammonia to Nitrites to Nitrates? :confused:
 
1) Cycle is useless. Stop using it.

2) Bio wheels are know to do this. Try to wipe the barrings.

3) The next step is to keep adding the same amout of ammoina every day untill you see nitrites. Then start adding 1/2 the ammoina you did on the first step. Try to keep the ammoina level at 1-2ppm at this point. Keep doing this untill you see nitrates. At this point the bacteria should eat and convert 3ppm of ammoina into nitrate in 24 hours. To keep the bacteria happy, use a heater, and dont mess around with the filter, adn water too much.
 
If you add the same amount of ammonia every day as you did initially, you will seriously overdose the tank with ammonia and inhibit the nitrification bacterial development. Youst add ammonia only to restore the original titer, not the same volume initially added. Those are two radically different things.
 
Stop adding Cycle! That stuff is junk, IMO. Not only does Cycle not contain the bacteria you want in your tank, it adds nitrates which will make it hard for you to know if your cycle is progressing naturally. Save your money and your sanity and DON'T USE CYCLE!

Jim
 
How do you get the happy bacteria in there that change Ammonia to Nitrites to Nitrates?
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Don't wory. The bacteria are "around" they only need to multiply.
You Can introduce some by adding some filter medium or gravel or something, from an already established tank.
Even if you don't, though it will work. it only takes time.
Chris Cow on How Much Ammonia, (Thetropicalfishcenter.com)
While the original recipe works quite well (4-5 drops NH3 / 10 gal / day until nitrite peaks, then reduce to 2-3 drops / 10 gal / day), it does NOT take into account varying concentrations of ammonia that are available. ACS grade ammonia, which I was using, is ~28% NH3, while most household cleaner grades vary from 4-10%, a fairly wide variation in concentration. Bottles that have been left open for long periods of time will be lower in concentration, as the NH3 gas escapes back into the atmosphere. With that in mind, I'd like to propose a different recipe, which was suggested by D_Man and others (thanks!): 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. Once the nitrite is visible, cut back the daily dose of ammonia to ½ the original volume. One advantage of this method is that the ammonia spike occurs immediately... when adding 4-5 drops/10 gal/day, it could take 4-5 days before the ammonia reaches the same levels. This should result in an acceleration of the entire process, though by how much (on average) remains to be seen.
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I'm doing an experiment with bio-spira and cycling a new 10 gal fishless.

Day 1 - added pure ammonia to reach 5ppm and added a 1 once packet of bio spira.

Day 3 - Ammonia is down to 2pmm and I have LOADS of NITRITE and NITRATE.

Done deal - I will watch until the ammonia gets down to about .25ppm and then add just enough ammonia to get me back up to 2ppm. I'll try to grow enough bacteria to clear 2ppm of ammonia in a 24 hour period.

The bio-spira worked great for fishless and so far I've only added a capfull of ammonia and I'm pretty much cycled - in only 3 days!

Take Care,
mark
 
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