Chris's Fishless Cycle

Thanks col

And yeah sue, I bet it be the exact same all the way  but I'm not going to do as much water changes, just hope that doesn't affect it too much

That would be a quicker way to do it. The problem is laying your hands on sodium/potassium/whatever nitrite. Anyone know where to get it from?

Oooh! You can get anything on ebay!!


Assuming the sodium nitrite on there is anhydrous (a lot of salts have water of crystalisation in the crystals, which throws the calculation out), for every 10 litres of tank water you would need to add 13.7mg sodium nitrite for 1ppm. That is an impossible amount to measure in the home so you'd have to make a concentrated solution and add a tiny amount of that. For example, dissolve 13.7g in 1 litre of tapwater and use 1ml of that solution per 10 litres tank water for 1ppm.

But the majority of items in the link are for curing bacon. They are common salt with a tiny amount of sodium nitrite added.
There is one item that comes up as pure sodium nitrite, this one, which says it is reagent grade sodium nitrite. This would be the one to use, if you don't mind spending £13.50 - though the seller does say you can ask for different amounts.



If anyone wants to try this, you would add sodium nitrite on day 1 along with the first dose of ammonia. Since the nitrite eaters are reputed to be slower growing than the ammonia eaters, the ammonia level would proabably drop to zero before the nitrite level did. Then the ammonia eaters would be making nitrite so the chances are you would only have to add the one dose on day 1. But the nitrite eaters would start growing on day 1 rather than have to wait till day 13 as in my cycle.



Edit: in the bacon curing salt, sodium nitrite is E250 (potassium nitrite is E249). They are preservatives.

Have you checked your pH? If it's dropped to around 6.5 or below, the cycle will stall.

I can only think there is something about your tapwater that is making your progress slower than mine.

Is your water company better than mine at killing bacteria in the water supply?
Your hardness is about half my level (you gave yours as 2.9 and mine is 7 German degrees). I do know that these bacteria grow best in hard alkaline water. Mine's a bit on the low side, but yours is even lower.
What is the temperature of your tank? The optimum is 30 deg C, that's what mine is at.


If you put some limstone or coral or shell into your tank, it would slowly increase both GH and KH, though it may not do it quickly enough to help your cycle.




PS - did you check your pH?