Yet another cycling question

[Luca Brazzi]

One who fishless cycles, adds ammonia to get Nitrites.

When the Nitrites come, the second set of bacteria can grow, and produce Nitrates...


At this point, I am adding ammonia, and am getting Nitrates.

Why cant I stop now, and add fish?

Obviously I have both sets of bacteria (Ammo eaters and Nitrite eaters)

Not that Im in a rush... but... just for argument sake.

If I were to do a "George W. Bush" (water change) right now... to get rid of all the "Saddam Husseins" (toxins)(ammo/nitrite/nitrate) in the tank... Why couldn't I just go and add fish and call it a day? Unless I add one heck of a bioload, there's no way they'll be generating 5ppm of ammonia in a day anyway.

 

[Toooloud]

When the tank is completely cycled then there should be no signs of Ammonia,

When a tank is compleley cycled and the bacterias are present in the tank then you should not have any levels.

You know your tank is started its cycle when your test show Ammoina(NH4), witch then brakes down into Nitrites(NO2) then that is broken down into Nitrates( NO3) and depending on whats in your tank that is taken out of the tank by regular water changes, unless you have somthing to obsorbe it, like plants.

So if you are still reading either Nitrites or Ammonia in the tank then you do not have eough Cultured bacteria meaning your cycle is not completed, If your test are showing nitrates.. then you are not doing eough waterchanges.. start doing 5% waterchanges every 3-4 days.. Untill your Nitrates are down to nothing,

At this point then you will konw that your cycle has complete and you have the correct bacterias... But if you are still recording Ammonias or Nitrites in the tank and there are no fish, Or anything eles to produce waste that will brake down into the ammonias then you do not have eough bacteria..

And by just doing a big water change to get rid of the levels and then add in the fish you are just adding a Bio Load to a tank that cant handle a fishless envoiromet.. So you are going to start producing waste that cant be broken down fast eough!

what you need to do is wait until your tank can run the cycle with out assistance.. When it can do that then you can start adding fish slowing and slowing increasing the bioload..

what did you do to add the Ammonias to the tank with out using fish? DId you just use food?

 

[JSchmidt]

You might have a sufficient biofilter to support your bioload... but you might not. If you add fish now, and your second stage bacteria aren't sufficient to handle the nitrite produced, you'll get a nitrite spike and that will REALLY make your fishless cycle a waste of time. Seems kind of silly to do a fishless cycle and then expose your fish to a nitrite spike.

It's hard to know how many ppm of ammonia in 24 hours your tank needs to process; I do know from experience that 5 ppm seems to be sufficient for full stocking. Is 4 pmm? Is 3? I don't know.

I do know that if you're getting nitrates, you're in the home stretch. Waiting until both ammonia and nitrites zero out after 24 hours is just a safe, conservative practice. It might not be necessary, but it doesn't hurt.

HTH,
Jim

 

[Luca Brazzi]

Thanks for the replies....

I will continue to wait...

I was just asking about this to see what the general opinion was.

Right now my biotower can reduce 5+ ppm of ammonia down to about 2 ppm in 24 hours, and the second stage is consuming Nitrites and producing Nitrates, so I was just wondering that if I was only going to put 3 or 4 small fish into the tank, it might be able to handle it.

 

[GillBates]

if you put any fish in the tank before 30 days of cycling, you will be sorely disappointed.....even when the water "looks good", it's not! Patience is a virtue when establishing a new tank....it's very hard to look at a new setup with water in it and not put any fish in it.....but, that's the way nature works....put in fish too soon and they will likely die......after your cycling is complete (30 days), add the new fish a few at a time, as opposed to dumping in 15 new ones at once!
Regular water changes of 10-20% will maintain a healthy tank..........there's no getting around that, either!

 

[JSchmidt]

I have to disagree with Gil about adding fish a few at a time. One of the great advantages of fishless cycling is that the biofilter is capable of handling a full load of fish right off the bat. There's no point in growing a big biofilter and then letting most of it die off.

Adding fish gradually doesn't make sense unless you don't have access to the fish you want, some need to be quarantined, etc. Of course, if you've cycled with fish, adding them slowly is the way to go.

Jim

 

[RTR]

Agree w/Jim on this - a big part of fishless for me is that I can fully stock. My interests run to schools at the moment, small number additions are not in the cards, and fishless allows full stocking immediately after the high-volume nitrate reduction water change.

Also, there is no point in doing partials to reduce nitrate during the cycling process - nitrate will not harm the ammonia and nitrite oxidizers until it reads in the hundreds. Ride it out and then partial immediately prior to fish addition.

There is no magic or fixed interval associated with fishless cycling. The interval required to develop a full colony of each of the bacterial species needed is a function of the initial inoculation of the bacteria. If you start with a large inoculum, your colonies will develop faster, and the nitrite-oxidizers will not starve before they get fed. If you start small, it will take so long to develop the ammonia oxidizers that the nitrite oxidizers may well have starved and died off. For my personal use, I expect the cycle to take 2-3 weeks or signigficantly less, but I start with filters pre-conditioned (inoculated) on existing tanks. A newcomer without existing tanks cannot do this.

Folks with low KH water do need to monitor pH. Dropping pH (paralleling the loss of KH) can slow or stop bacterial development.

 

[Luca Brazzi]

So if I am generating Nitrites and Nitrates then I DO have enough bacteria to support a small bioload right?

If Im planning to throw 20 African cichlids in there all at once, I should wait till the cycle is completed (5ppm of Ammo and Nitrite consumed in a 24 hour period). However, If Im only planning on adding a few small fish (3 or 4) then I could probably get away with it.

I placed a post awhile back about fishless cycling where I stated that IMHO it only made sense for folks who wanted to fully stock immediately after cycling... I guess I was in the ballpark.

BTW I am planning on Africans... from what Im told, I should add them all at once so I guess Ill wait.

 

[RTR]

Correct on both points - you have the concept pegged.

 

[Luca Brazzi]

I have a problem...


For the last 3 days my Ammo has been at 5ppm (not decreasing)

My Nitrites are pegged

My Nitrates are pegged.

So I did a water change. Since I have a 20gallon sump, I drained half the sump (10 gals), 7 times. In between each refill of the sump, I ran the pump for about 15+ minutes. My Ammo decreased, my Nitrites decreased, but my Nitrates are still pegged. I also have been noticing that my water has taken on a greeninsh tint over the past week of cycling.

Did I have so much nitrate that it was a problem? How could I get this much Nitrate so soon? Since my ammo wasnt decreasing, does this mean that all my Ammo eaters died?

How did I get so much Nitrate? It didnt come from the faucet. I did a test on the water straight from the faucet, and no Nitrates.


Did I do my water changes correctly? What percent of the ORIGNAL water did I change? I did 7 10 gallon changes on a 75 gallon tank but I know that each change of water in the sump actually changed a decreasing percentage of the original water. I did a check on the Nitrates after each change and it stayed the same... pegged. So after the 7th sump refill, I stopped changing the water and go the ammo back to 5ppm.