Cycling My Fluval Edge

I use a bucket and a plastic jug to ladle the water in, pouring the last inch straight from the bucket. I do have to be careful not to pour the water in too fast or I end up with bare glass on the bottom and a pile of sand round the edges.

I think with the Edge with its small hole I'd always use the bucket and jug method. The siphon method Colin mentioned is an option if you have somewhere slightly higher than the tank to stand the bucket on.



Colin - I do about 30 litres in my 125 litre tank, 15 litres in my 50 litre and 10 litres in the 25 litre tank every week using the bucket-and-jug method. It does take a while to refil. But if I poured it straight from the bucket there's a very good chance I'd miss the tank, and siphoning isn't an option for the 125 litre as I couldn't lift the bucket high enough. I have come across someone who puts a plank across the top of the tank and puts the bucket on that while siphoning, but I'd have to climb onto a chair to do that - not a good idea for someone who is as clumsy as me  .

Jesnon, the first thing I have to confess is that I've never actually done a fishless cycle. I got my first tank back in the mid 1990s after I had fish. Strictly speaking I didn't have fish, my sons did - they came home from the fair with four goldfish they'd won on the darts stall. The fish spent that night in a large mixing bowl and we had to go tank shopping next day. No choice but a fish-in cycle. Since then whenever I set up a new tank I just clone the media from an existing tank.
So everything I know about fishless cycle is theory. I'm going to have to set up my quarantine tank and cycle it just to see what happens in my case.


Back to your tank - yes, the nitrite stage does seem to be stuck. The nitrite eaters are the more tricky ones. They take longer to multiply that the ammonia eaters and they appear to be more delicate. There are loads of tales from people who used a bottled bacteria product about how the ammonia eaters grew very quickly but the nitrite eaters took forever, leading to speculation that the nitrite eaters don't survive well in a bottle; another example of how delicate they can be.


What happens to your nitrAte if you don't do a water change, does it stay the same or go up? If it goes up, that shows that you do have some nitrite eaters, if it stays the same it means you don't have any. Mybe don't do any water changes for a couple of days and see what happens to your nitrate.



One last question - do you know anyone who has a fish tank? If they would agree to let you have some of their media it would help enormously. Otherwise, I don't know what to suggest other than keep on going as you have been.



Dechlorinator - there are two products I know of that are very economical because they are very concentrated, but they aren't stocked by many shops so you have to buy on-line. They are Prime by Seachem and API Tap Water Conditioner. Both have disadvantages - Prime can give odd ammonia readings for 24 hours and the API one doesn't detoxify chlorine (which is necessary if you have chloramine in your water supple rater than chlorine). Or get a bottle of pond dechlorinator - but you would need a small syringe to measure out the dose.

The only thing that occurs to me would be a complete lack of nitrite eating bacteria in the water supply. There is obviously a reasonable amount of ammonia eaters since nitrite started being made quite quickly. I'm reluctant to suggest bottled bacteria as the nitrite eaters are the one they have problems with - these don't take to being bottled as well as the ammonia eaters.

Jesnon, if you get really desperate and don't mind spending money on what might be a wild goose chase, have a look on Amazon for something called Dr Tim's One and Only. Make sure it's the freshwater one not the marine one. It's made in America and the Amazon seller is the only place I can find selling it in the UK. It's made by the company owned by Tim Hovanec, the chap who discovered which species of bacteria grow in our filters. It's the product with the best reputation, although even this doesn't work if it's been allowed to get too hot or too cold. It is supposed to be used with ammonium chloride rather than ammonia solution so you would need a bottle of that too, Dr Tim's make it. The instructions should be followed to the letter; I've read that it differs from the usual fishless cycling method.

Nitrate between 40 - 80ppm (is it just me or are these colours exactly the same!?)

You are not alone with that colour chart, some are very difficult to tell apart.

So since my tapwater it somewhere between 5ppm and 20ppm of nitrate I guess that's at least a good sign that something is going on!?

On the face of it yes, but the NitrAte should keep going up when you do not do any water change.

Unfortunately I don't know anyone else with an aquarium that I can borrow some filter media from The only shops I know of in my area are Pets at Home and Maidenhead Acquatics so I'm sceptical they would let me have any of their media... I guess it's worth asking??

Maidenhead would be the better bet as PAH are not a fish specialist, just a pet shop.  The staff at my nearest Maidenhead (Standish, near Wigan) are very accommodating and very helpful.  There is no harm asking yours if they have any available.  Just be cautious when dealing with a commercial enterprise.  They may try to sell you something you do not know anything about, so any suggestions should be researched first.

Another thing I was wondering.. I bought my API test kit online, is there any way there could be something wrong with my Nitrite tests? The only readings I've had before have been either 0 or 0.25 for my tapwater and off the scale... I've never seen anything in between!? If that's a possibility I'm tempted to invest in some testing papers. All my tests are in date as far as I can tell so I'm not really sure this is a possibility =/

The test strips have a bad reputation and are generally not recommended by more experienced fish-keepers. I've been trying to source the API ones myself to test them out but nobody near me will stock them.  In the case of the liquid test, there is no harm buying a second test kit to satisfy yourself that there isn't a kit problem.  If there is a difference in readings, you'll have an answer, but if not you won't loose money as the newer test kit can simply be put to on side until you use up the older one.

Do you think I should just move on to a fish-in cycle instead?? ... Or perhaps I could add my plants now if they will help in any way??

Given the issues with water testing, this would be a risk to your inhabitants, so I would not add fish or get plants.

Thank you Steve and Tigz! I'm at least relieved to know that someone else's cycle took a long time too! I was starting to think I was doing something massively wrong somewhere ha. Haha unfortunately patience has never been one of my traits, and I have a very short temper when it comes to inanimate objects so I'm very unimpressed with my tank currently ha. Once it gets some fish in there I'm sure I'll soon change my mind ha. At least it's comforting to know that if all goes to plan and I come down with a case of MTS then the cycle will be a lot quicker than this one!

I've done my am readings which are:

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite off the scale (seems to be the same magenta colour every time!)
Nitrate still somewhere between 40 - 80ppm. It is quite a dark red this time though so I guess it could be edging towards the 160ppm.

Why has no-one invented these tests that just tell you the exact measurement yet? =D

Should I go back to doing the massive water changes I was doing the other day? It seems like such a waste of water but at the same time I don't want to delay my cycle any longer unnecessarily!

Haha definitely sounds like sage advise for the sake of my sanity if nothing else :-D I've stocked up on a lot of dechlorinator for the time being, so I can invest in some of the ones Sue mentioned for next time! Such a shame about the water testing equipment though - I guess eventually someone might be able to make one cheap enough for use at home!

Hmm I think I'll stick to API for now, I guess I'll just get used to it!

I was at work for another 24 hours yesterday so before I left I did a big water change and dosed a smaller amount of ammonia. Today my readings are:

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite either 2 or 5ppm (so I guess at least on the scale, though still higher than I'd like considering the low dose of ammonia and length of time since!)
Nitrate... a more reddy than orange colour, so I guess it's closer to 40ppm than 20ppm

I'm not sure what to do now given my nitrite is high and I only dosed a low amount 24 hours ago. Should I do a small water change and dose more ammonia? I'm getting so fed up with my nitrite eaters!

I think this is getting more encouraging to be honest.  Lessening the NitrAte by doing water changes is going to help keep things moving.  One of the things I was doing was to take two readings each day, one in a morning and one in an evening (about 12 hours apart).  The evening reading was followed by a water change if the NitrAte was at the top of the scale. If the Ammonia was showing zero, I'd pop some more in (for me my chosen teaspoon level gave me about 5ppm of ammonia dose in my 64ltr tank)

So it looked a bit like this...

AM: Test Ammonia, NitrIte and NitrAte (no ammonia dosing)
PM: Test Ammonia, NitrIte and NitrAte
PM Water Change if NitrAte at top.
PM Ammonia top-up only if PM reading zero.

By following a consistent pattern of testing, water changes and ammonia dosing the readings will start to make more sense and you'll begin to see that magic start to happen with the NitrIte's.

Quite soon it was apparent that the Ammonia was being consumed within 12 hours... (ie: dosed in the PM and by the AM it had all gone).  It didn't actually take too long after that for the NitrIte to catch up. However, I also did as Sue suggests above, and I did reduce the input of ammonia dose to a mere dribble, probably in the target range Sue mentions.

It is a pain getting through this bit, but once it's done you'll enjoy the tank so much more because you won't need to worry about this aspect any more.  We will be with you all the way through this, so keep plugging away.

Thanks for the encouragement guys! As you can probably tell I'm not the most patient person in the world, I guess this is quite a nice exercise in being patient for me ha. The only problem I have with doing regular tests is my work hours unfortunately. I'm a support worker so I work shifts, and can often spend up to 24 hours in work at a time (as was the case last night) and my boyfriend seems reluctant to do any water testing for me! I guess I'll give him a bit of a prod to help me out if I promise it'll mean we can get fish sooner ha. My ammonia definitely seems to be being consumed within 12 hours, it's just the nitrite at the minute which has a lot of catching up to do, though I'm glad it's looking encouraging! I'll wait until this evening to dose a small amount of ammonia again and see what happens, hopefully I can get into a bit more of a routine with my testing times!

Excellent, I'm liking the look of that...  don't forget to follow Sue's suggestion and only dose a small amount of Ammonia tonight.  The next two reading you do will really start to talk to us.