Sue's Fishless Cycle

Yeah I didn't really want to Do a water change. Il try to keep them to a minimum as well. Cause a 75% water change for me is 9buckets.


It's interesting to see your results still the same level. Ill hopefully add some gravel to my filters tomoz and hopefully il see some movement in a couple of days.

Ahh I remember this stage ha! In my head I think I shortened it, as I was just looking back through my cycling thread yesterday to discover I had the same thing in my cycle (but for some reason thought my ammonia eaters were magically grown almost overnight!!).

I found that the shop I want to visit has a facebook page where they post any current unusual stock... they had the most gorgeous looking betta! (amongst a lot of other cuties, chocolate gouramis in particular caught my attention though after a quick google I soon found they are 'expert' level fish, oops!)

They were Red Crowntail Bettas apparently

Ooh do you think a betta might be OK in the edge? My boyfriend might be a bit happier with a bigger fish like that ha, and they are gorgeous looking things! I guess maybe to start with I could make the air gap a little smaller and hope it learned how to find the air. Tricky! I guess I might need to change my substrate / a few things in my tank for a betta? Will investigate and see, though I am rather tempted now you've said it, especially if there was a pretty betta like the crowntail!

Oh no!

Oh Sue....quick, get some safe start

Lol

Woohoo!!!!!! 





Day 13 23 March, 9am
Ammonia between 0.25 and 0.5
Nitrite between 2 and 5



To celebrate I bought a new silk plant while we were out shopping  There were 3 plants in the betta's tank and two were getting a bit past it so I threw them away rather than sterilise them. So of course I need 2 new silk plants for when this tank is cycled.
I had a look at the bettas in the shop too, and what a sorry bunch they all were. Clamped fins, bits missing from their fins - I won't be buying one from there 

They had some bettas in tanks with other fish, they were the worst. But they also had a rank of small tanks with water trickling down from the top row to the ones underneath and so on down to the bottom row, some kind of filtration system. Each small tank had a tiny plastic plant in. Most were empty, one had yellow shrimp, another had 2 male tiger endlers and 2 had bettas. These looked a bit better than the ones in the big tanks with other fish but they were still a bit listless - though they could just have been exhausted from flaring at each other through the glass. The 'tanks' in this kind of set up are the same size as those tiny cubes but at least this way they do have filtered water flowing though them.

I've got a few more weeks before I can get a betta, but I can still look.

It's taken 12 days to show a drop in ammonia - I think I should have called the day I added the ammonia day 0  not day 1 - so in theory it should take another 24 days to see a drop in nitrite. Then even longer to get double zeros.

I will be patient 

Day 14 10.45 (it is a Sunday!)

Ammonia zero
Nitrite between 2 and 5


Water change, just left quarter of an inch in the tank.
Added ammonia, waited half an hour then tested again.

Ammonia 0.5
Nitrite zero




And I also checked my pH haf way through the water change when I remembered - it was 7.2 so no pH crash with that level of nitrite.

Start testing for nitrite when you see a drop in ammonia. Because nitrite is made from ammonia, until ammonia starts disappearing there is little point testing for it.

Now that fishless cycling has become well established, more evidence is appearing that large amounts  of nitrite and nitrate can inhibit the growth of th nitrite eaters. It is now recognised that it important to keep bioth nitrite and nitrate low. This can be done by doing water changes (which you would rather avoid  it's easier for me with just 25 litres) and/or by only dosing small amounts of ammonia at the beginning. Small ammonia = small nitrite.

Since you'd rather not have to do water changes, once your ammonia has dropped to zero, only dose it back up to 1ppm or even 0.5ppm. Once enough nitrite eaters have grown to cope with the amount of nitrite made from this tiny bit of ammonia, the dose of ammonia can be increased slowly in stages up to 4 or 5ppm or whatever you want to aim for. If it's done slowly, both bacteria have chance to grow fast enough to cope with the slowly increasing amounts.

1ppm ammonia goes to 2.7ppm nitrite to 3.6ppm nitrate. As you can see from that, a small amount of ammonia makes a middling amount of nitrite and on to a big amount of nitrate.

If the nitrite level does get very high you will still get a cycled filter, it just might take longer.



We'll have to wait and see if Safe Start has any effect. Some other brands help grow the ammonia eaters but do nothing to help the nitrite eaters - I don't know if Safe Start is the same.