Fishless Cycling
- Thread starter zennzzo
- Start date
I'm trying my first fishless cycle on a 10g planted for my gouramis. It's been about 1.5 days and I've seen no drop in the ammonia level, despite using substrate supposedly loaded with cycling bacteria, commercial bacteria (TLC), and adding some from an established tank via a filter sponge. I'll admit I added a bit more then the 5 drops recommended and I'm wondering if perhaps I added too much or I'm just being impatient. My test reads it at 0 nitrites and about 4-5 ppm of ammonia.
How much does 5 drops per 10 gallons equal to in teaspoon or table spoons? What if you have a monster tank that you need to cycle?
Give it a few days and if you do not see a drop in ammonia then re-seed the tank...DevonCloud;4187792; said:
Not all commerical baterias work as advertised, some require special storage or have short shelf lives. Others work amazingly. I'm not personally familiar with TLC.
We never really know where the bulk of the bacteria live in a mature tank... Also we need to keep in mind the higher the mature tank is stocked the more bacteria will be living throughout the system. So a lightly stocked tank is not a good tank to acquire seeded material from.
I personally advocate using 2~3 ppm for a fishless cycle, but 4~5 ppm is not going to harm your bacteria or prevent the tank from cycling...
Not all ammonia is created equal...sashimimaster;4187891; said:
Store bought ammonia is actually going to be mostly water and some ammonia. I personally use Ace Janitorial Strength which is 90% water 10% ammonia. some bransd may be slightly stronger yet other brands may be half as strong. If my research is correct 17% is the strongest we can buy for personal use (without a license).
So the strength of the ammonia will determine the ammount required to acheive a target dosage...
If my memory serves me correct I was using 1 ml of 90/10 ammonia per 10 gal to acheive 2 ppm...
The exact quantity of a "drop" is hard to define as many things will influence it. But conventional definiteions suggest 1 ml is about 20 drops...
Thanks for the reply. It's been almost 3 days total now and the ammonia is still sitting around 5ppm, so I decided to bring it down just a bit to the 2-3 you mentioned and attempt to put some more bacteria in. I think this time I'll just take the sponge from another filter and put it into mine. I had tried simply placing it in the water and shaking it around to get the bacteria loose.nc_nutcase;4188446; said:
Thinking maybe it wasn't enough as my tanks aren't highly stocked. I figure the fish like the extra personal space. Hence the whole reason for moving the gouramis as my angelfish are a breeding pair and become way too aggressive when they lay eggs.
Been about a week now and my nitrites are still extremely high (over 5ppm), but the ammonia comes down fairly quickly (about 8-10 hours), and I'm registering about 20ppm of nitrates. Wondering if the nitrites will fall on their own and I should continue the feeding, or try a water change to bring them down.
Anyone? My nitrites are higher then my test kit's scale goes and the nitrates are around 20-40 ppm. Wondering if I should just keep pumping the ammonia in to feed the bacteria or try to start bringing the nitrites down on my own.
So you have a "full colony" of Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria (AOB)... but you have very little Nitrite Oxidizing Bacteria (NOB)...DevonCloud;4207639; said:
So you will need to continue dosing the tank with ammonia every day or two to continue feeding the AOB...
But as you do so you will be creating an enormous amount of nitrites...
The solution to this is to do water changes (to lower nitrites) right before you dose with ammonia...
Many people suggest doing water changes will slow down the cycling process. There are a few situations where this is true, but it is literally very rare. your situation is not one of them.
By not doing water changes you are creating an environment that is not healthy to grow anything, even bacteria. This excessive nitrite environment will slow down your cycling process...
I personally suggest cycling the tank with a much smaller dosage of ammonia (1~2 ppm)... then once the tank is cycled at that dosage, you can slowly increase the dosage (raising 0.5 ppm every other day or so) which will allow the AOB and NOB increase at the same time...
Thanks for the reply. I'll do a partial water change later today to see if it brings it down. The nitrites are extremely high as I mentioned, but the nitrates are slowly climbing. Between the nitrites and plants, the ammonia drops very rapidly, so hoping the nitrites start to drop quickly also so I can get this cycle done.
