Help--trapped in a fishless, planted cycle!

[Roan Art]

mishi8 is correct. Get a hold of a KH/GH test kit and we need to know what your pH is. If your pH has crashed then your cycle will stall indefinitely.

Planted -- you might want to ask the guys in the Plants Forum for further advice.

Roan

 

[carpguy]

A 'silent cycle' isn't really a cycle. Or at least not the traditional kind. Normally 'establishing a cycle' means getting a colony of bacteria up and running to process nitrogen-waste from the fish.

In a planted tank, you may never get a colony up and running because the plants hoover up all the nitrogen before the bacteria can get to it. Plants turn the nitrogen into more plant. The amount of nitrogen they're going to pull out of the tank is directly related to the amount of new plant in the tank. Slow growing lowlight plants may not be sufficient for a true 'silent cycle'. You need to find something fast growing in there to go that route. You want to get a healthy tank of plants underway (established) and then start slowly adding fish: there should never be much detectable ammonia in the tank.

Here's a link to a FAQ about Toronto water: its hard. Your pH is probably fairly high, which means your pH probably hasn't crashed, but the ammonia is in a more toxic state and is worse for the fish.

Toronto uses chloramines, which may partially explain the ammonia readings are coming from in your tapwater. Are you testing the water straight out of the tap? Before its conditioned (not sure if that makes a difference)? I'd take a sample down to a fish store and get them to confirm. Seems high for drinking water. Make sure you're dechlorinator handles chloramines. If it doesn't, that could explain the stall.

Plenty of water changes.

 

[Roan Art]

link to a FAQ about Toronto water: its hard. Your pH is probably fairly high, which means your pH probably hasn't crashed, but the ammonia is in a more toxic state and is worse for the fish.

Just a note: a high pH does not signal hard water. Mine is 7.4 out of the tap, but KH is only 1-2. KH is consumed via natural processes and if it hits 0, there is nothing left for the establishing biofilter and they will either totally stall -- unable to reproduce rapidly enough to increase -- or die.

At 1 dKH it would not take much at all for any of my tanks to crash, except I have them all buffered with coral to prevent this and I test regularily to make sure they are staying at 3-4 dKH.

Roan

 

[carpguy]

A high pH doesn't mean hard water. And a high General Hardness (GH) doesn't necessarily mean a high (KH).

I have very soft, acidic water and sometimes forget these things. Its a good point.

It varies a bit around the area, but the Toronto Annual Water Report has the KH at about 5 degrees, GH at about 7 degrees. pH ranges from 7.1 to 8 and averaging 7.5. It should be tested, but I don't think its the pH.

 

[anonapersona]

Toronto uses chloramines, which may partially explain the ammonia readings are coming from in your tapwater. Are you testing the water straight out of the tap? Before its conditioned (not sure if that makes a difference)? I'd take a sample down to a fish store and get them to confirm. Seems high for drinking water. Make sure you're dechlorinator handles chloramines. If it doesn't, that could explain the stall.

Plenty of water changes.

And be sure that in addition to "handling chloramines" your water conditioner "handles ammonia". Several products sold "handle" the chloramine by breaking it into chlorine and ammonia, then they do not treat the ammonia. I suggest Prime, but there are others that work as well.

If, on the other hand, you are using Ammo-lock, or perhaps ammo-chips in the filter, you have locked up the ammonia so completely that bacteria have not had a chance to get started. IMO, Ammo-lock is for emergency use only. If you are using that, do large water changes to remove it from the tank. Then switch to Prime or something that does not LOCK the ammonia, but simply binds it in a form that bacteria and plants can access.

 

[mishi8]

It is worth testing. I have hard water, with 9 KH, 11 GH and 7.8+ pH. My KH got decimated during a long fishless cycle and stalled out my cycle. If it can happen with starting at that high a KH, then it can happen with Toronto's 5 KH.

 

[Ms.Bubbles]

The water conditioner I'm using is Nutrafin Aqua Plus. It says it works on both chlorine and chloramine. Hope that's the case.

Current water parameters that I can test are:
Ammonia 0.6 (same as tap water + dechlorinator)
Nitrite 0.1 and unmoving
GH 6.72
KH 4.5-5 dH(which test says is excellent buffering capacity)
PH 7.7

So it looks like PH crash is not the reason for the stalled cycle...perhaps the plants have something to do with it?

Now I'm wondering what to do--continue feeding the empty tank or put the betta in and do water changes to keep the nitrite at 0?

 

[carpguy]

Bioacidification can take out your buffer if your buffer isn't replenished and that definitely can stall out a cycle. 25% weekly water changes with 5dKH in the tap should be sufficient to replenish the buffer. This is one of the many good reasons for regular water changes.

It seems odd to me that the ammonia level in the tank is the same as the baseline tap. It also seems odd to me that the ammonia in the tap is that high. I'd start by taking a water sample to a Local Fish Store and asking them if they could test it for you to confirm that its not just a bad test kit.

I think that either test for ammonia reads total free ammonia but will not read chloramine. Not 100% sure on that, but I think thats the case. Are you testing the water straight out of the tap or in the bucket, after its been dechlorinated but before you've added it to the tank? The dechlorinator may be giving you a false reading. Is it always .6? Does it change between water changes, high at change and then fall off? The plants should be taking up at least some of it.

If your test kit has 1 bottle of chemical its a Nessler test and the false positive is more likely. A salicylate test will have two bottles. It will say on the box.

Decaying plant matter is a source of ammonia. I'd remove any that you see. Live plant matter will take up ammonia. Fast growing plants will take up a lot, slow growing not so much. If the plants are eating all of the ammonia, you may never get many nitrifying bacteria. Slow plants may share with a small colony. Be careful about yanking all the plants at once. Something needs to be in there eating the nitrogen.

Nutrafin Aqua Plus, according to their own website: "… gets rid of chlorine (and chloramine) as a function of its purpose. It will not remove ammonia as part of the operation…." I confess: I'm dumbfounded. I'd use Amquel or Prime or at least something that handles Chloramine and Ammonia. I can't believe they sell something that does one and not the other. That could be your source (Amquel and Prime will still test positive with a Nessler kit, they just won't be toxic).

 

[Ms.Bubbles]

It seems odd to me that the ammonia level in the tank is the same as the baseline tap. It also seems odd to me that the ammonia in the tap is that high.

Sorry if I made you think that--to clarify: water out of the tap is 0 ammonia, water with dechlorinator is reading 0.6 ammonia, water in tank is also 0.6 ammonia. Nitrite is still 0.6 since January...

 

[mishi8]

Aqua Plus treats chloramines in that it breaks the chloramine bond, but does nothing to neutralize the remaining ammonia. That would be the reason for the positive ammonia test after treatment. According to my LFS, Aqua Plus also affects pH...apparently it will keep the tank water at around 7.6pH (with regular water changes.) Personally, I prefer to use Prime and know that chloramine bond is broken and the remaining ammonia is neutralized.