New Tank Fishless Cycling Problems - Ammonia Static And Nitrite Not Appearing

Hi, welcome to the forum 

You seem to be doing everything right so far. The only thing I would have done differently would be to have added enough ammonium chloride to get 3 ppm ammonia - but that's not important at this stage. It's just that with 3 ppm we know we have grown enough bacteria for a tank full of fish.

Tetra Safe Start is one of the products known to contain the right species of both bacteria and provided it has been stored correctly since manufacture should contain viable bacteria. It is possible that you could miss put the nitrite stage completely, but you should have nitrate in that case. As the ammonia eaters in the TSS started to multiply and make nitrite, the nitrite eaters in the TSS would also have started to multiply and could well have kept pace with the ammonia eaters.
1 ppm ammonia is turned into 3.6 ppm nitrate, and our test kits aren't sensitive enough to pick up this small increase. It is hard enough to read nitrate tests at the best of times, and if your tap water is 2.5 and you add 3.6, that takes nitrate to just 6.1 which will be hard to distinguish from 2.5.

Question - are you using a liquid nitrate tester, and if so do you shake the reagent bottle even longer than the instructions say, and then the tube for as long as the instructions say?

What I would do is this -
Add some more ammonium chloride to get the level of ammonia to 3 ppm, and measure everything every day. I would also look on your water company's website to see how hard your water is. Ignore the words, look at the number and the unit (they could use any one of half a dozen). If you have soft water it is likely you'll also have low carbonate hardness, KH. The bacteria we want to grow need carbonate to multiply quickly, and although your pH has dropped it's not by much - mine dropped off the bottom of the scale during a fishless cycle because of my low KH. If you do find out you have soft water there is something you can do to speed up the cycle 

My son used to work for a water testing company and he explained what GH and KH are.

GH is the measure of the amount of divalent metal ions in the water. In practical terms this means mainly calcium, some magnesium and trace amounts of other metals. But they can't give a measurement unit which says "x ppm calcium plus y ppm magnesium plus a, b, c ppm of other metals" so they give a number as if it was all calcium or all calcium carbonate or even all calcium oxide.
When they say 92 ppm calcium carbonate that just means that if all the divalent metal ions were calcium carbonate, the amount would be 92 ppm; or it was all calcium, it would be 37 ppm.
I have a rather old chemistry degree and it still took me a while to get my head round that 

Water companies use the term alkalinity rather than KH, though not many UK companies give that on-line. The testing companies measure this by adding acid to a water sample until the pH drops to 4.5. The amount of acid it takes is called alkalinity. All KH (alkalinity) measures is the amount of buffer in the water - and a buffer is chemical which stabilises pH. In reality, virtually all the buffer in our tap water is carbonate and bicarbonate.




Now to your results.
I always found it hard to see the end point of the GH tester and I too have GH 5 according to my water company. I think the colour change at this level is just too faint to be certain. I would go with the water company's figure - their testing company uses expensive equipment rather than a little bottle.
At 4 KH, you are at risk of a pH crash. My KH is 3. Keep a close eye on the pH and if you find it is dropping, you can add some bicarbonate of soda, the same stuff used for home baking, to raise the KH during cycling. Use at the rate of 4 level 5ml spoonfuls per 100 litres water. Remove a bit of tank water, dissolve the bicarb in that and pour back into the tank. You will need to do a big water change after the cycle finishes to remove the bicarb as it makes the water very unlike anything that occurs in nature. But see what your pH does first. Nitrate and nitrite are acidic and they use up all a low KH. If the TSS works, you shouldn't need to add so much ammonia that it makes a lot of nitrite & nitrate, so the pH may not fall.

Nitrate - most experts are of the opinion that the 30 second bottle shake is totally inadequate and it should be more like 2 minutes. The reason is that one of the ingredients doesn't dissolve in water and it settles on the bottom of the bottle. All that shaking is needed to disperse the ingredient evenly throughout the liquid.






One thing you could do if you find your results sticking again - live plants. Specifically floating plants.
Plants prefer ammonia over nitrate as fertiliser. Their other requirements for growth are light and carbon dioxide, both of which are plentiful at the water surface. If you were to get a bunch of floating plants and waited till you were sure they weren't about to die, you could then start getting fish. As long as you started off with a smallish batch of fish - one shoal at first if you intend shoaling fish - you should be OK. Just test the water daily for ammonia and nitrite to be certain. Wait for at least a week of zeros, then get the next batch.
Floating plants also have the advantage that a lot of fish need some sort of cover. I have Espei's rasboras, a close relative of harlequin rasboras. When I first got them I did not have any floating plants and they huddled in the back corner of the tank. Then I got some water sprite, and they stopped huddling but only ventured as far as the edge of the plant mass. As the plants grew over more surface, the rasboras came further and further out of the corner, but always under the plants. My tank surface is now a tangle of water sprite and hornwort stems 

Sorry for the late reply, I was trying to get my head around the information

I’m in quite a bit over my head here, as I don’t have a background in chemistry, I only have a biology degree  . Erm, so is this how it might work? I probably have this wrong.

Nitrogen cycle reactions in aerobic conditions, i.e the oxygenated tank water:
2 NH4+ + 3 O2 -> 2 NO2- + 2 H2O + 4 H+ - by Nitrosomonas sp.
2 NO2- + O2 -> 2 NO3- - by Nitrobacter sp.

The leftover nitrate forms nitrous acid in water and reacts with calcium carbonate (the KH buffer):
HNO3 + CaCO3 = Ca(NO3)2 + CO2 + H2O
Then the CO2 will:
CO2 + H2O = H2CO3
The carbonic acid then deprotonates leaving carbonate anions and H+, reducing pH further. So if I don’t have enough ‘spare’ carbonates due to my low KH, I am more likely to crash?

Ah that makes sense for the plants, as they need nitrogen for protein formation and chlorophyll production. Unfortunately, the reason I have artificial plants is that I was given the advice at my local aquatics store that they weren’t for beginners and I should stick to fake ones.

Is it too late to start a planted aquarium at this stage, since I’ve already filled the aquarium and started the cycling process? I don’t mind re-starting if the planted system will work better. I don’t mind the wait, it gives me longer to plan compatibilities and such to make sure there is minimal risk of aggression, stress and predatory behaviour, I want my fish to be as happy as possible .

If I did try the plant route, would my inert substrate be adequate if I wanted to add some rooting plants, provided I added CO2 and liquid and root tablet fertilisers. Is my KH too low to consider the added CO2 option?

That’s really good to know as I had looked into some floating plants as I was hoping to keep pearl gourami, which I’ve read appreciate the cover of these and use them for bubble nesting (although I am not planning to breed) and shy shoaling species.

Once again, sorry for the lengthy reply and thank you for your time,
Jade

The chemistry looks about right 

You can either add plants now or cycle first, then plants. If you stick with low tech, slow growing plants you don't need to add CO2. Root tabs are great for plants rooted in the substrate - but read up about which are best as some disintegrate and make a mess. Other plants need liquid fertiliser - I use that because all my plants are either floating or are attached to decor - Java fern, various species of anubias, bolbitis, bucephalandra.

Matt should be able to advise you better than me about other types of plants and their needs 

I'm going to be adding to the following page on my site shortly regarding plants with some of the species I recommend www.scapeeasy.co.uk/plants.htm there is also a page of fertilisation of the plants. Again I will be updating this shortly too!!

Let me know if you have any specific questions...

Hi jade,

I've only just read your original post and the rest of this thread but I have a few observations as below. I apologize in advance if I've overlooked any pertinent facts as I scanned the thread. I should also add that I have edited my original post. What you see below is the edited version.

1  Optimum pH is from 7.4 to 8.0 throughout the entire cycle.

2  You certainly made a good choice with Tetra Safe Start. What was the expiry date (printed on the bottom of the bottle)? And, as advised by Dr Tim himself in his YouTube video, did you give the bottle a good shake before adding to the tank water?

3  Nitrifying bacteria need a source of phosphorus, which can be obtained from phosphate. Maintain phosphate at a minimum level of 0.2mg/litre. There may well be adequate phosphate in your tap water but, ironically, my water supplier doesn't quote this figure! A single crushed fish food flake may do the job.

4 The nitrifying process consumes copious amounts of oxygen. Ensure that the tank water is well aerated at all times.

Hope this is of some value.

JPC

 

There's a post somewhere about cycling with plants. Sorry I've not linked it, but I've not been able to find it!

Cycling with plants is a bit different because the plants use up the ammonia before any bacteria have a chance. So that could explain why you've not had any nitrites.

@Sue is the queen of cycling.

If you have put a lot of plants in the tank you won't get nitrite because the plants are taking up all the ammonia and they don't turn it into nitrite, they use it. All plants need nitrogen to grow which is why garden plant fertiliser contains a lot of nitrate, and both nitrate and ammonia are nitrogen based. (I think they turn it into amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein - I can't see what else they need nitrogen for). The filter bacteria are different, they get energy from turning ammonia into nitrite, they don't assimilate the ammonia the way plants do.

What I would do now is stop adding ammonia and wait a few days, checking the plants daily to make sure they are growing. Adding ammonia in one dose as we do when cycling is not terribly good for plants; fish make it in tiny amounts 24 hours a day so the total amount is the same, just not all at one go.
Then get a batch of fish and monitor both ammonia and nitrite daily. If you see neither for a few days, get the next batch of fish. If either do show up, do a water change to remove them and wait till they've stayed at zero by themselves before getting any more fish.



Out of sheer nosiness, which fish are you planning?

Are you using a fertiliser with macro nutrients? If you are not picking up nitrates in your test results then this would indicate that the plants are growing well, not only using the ammonia but this additional nitrate as well 

Sue:

Ah ok that makes sense, most of my plants have been growing really well and some have already reached the top of the tank  . I'll give that a try and then add a few small fish.

Haha, it’s not nosy . As it happens, I recently visited a new shop I found and spoke to them about my current parameters and what choices I would have (I made a list beforehand so I could check with them). They recommended out of my shoaling fish I had chosen that ruby barbs would be a good choice (I was thinking I might start with those?). Before I get any I might run my stocking ideas past this forum if that's ok? I will make a separate post for that.

JPC:

1. Ok, I’ll just be sure to slowly stock when I do add fish if the cycle is going to be much slower, is there anything else I should take precaution with?

4. Also I did raise the output pipe on the filter so that it was higher above the surface and provides more agitation, I hope that will be enough. I also looked into the fluval spray bar kit, do you think that would make any difference?

Matt:

Since I am a complete beginner with plants as well, I bought the seachem range (NPK – macros, Trace (micros), Comprehensive (has a bit of everything but is missing nitrogen and phosphorous), Root tabs, Iron and Excel (Liquid carbon supplement I am a bit dubious about) and I am dosing as per instructions (but split into daily doses as best I can, apart from the ones that can’t be dosed together).

Fcmf:

Oh dear, I hadn’t thought to check phosphate out of my tap! I did it today after reading your post and it came up at 5ppm. I will look into some products, provided they don’t affect the use of fertiliser containing phosphate as the plants still need some. Will phosphate of this level be harmful for fish or is it just an algae risk? Also for reference, I am developing quite a bit of algae this week (green spot algae on the glass, the diatom brown stuff on the glass and thread and a dark green algae (not sure what type it is) on the plant leaves).

Once again, thank you everyone for your ongoing support and help, I apologise for asking so many questions.

Kind Regards,
Jade