Author Topic: Fish Tank Cycling query (Read 11797 times) 56 replies

Knight · « **on:** January 14, 2016, 10:14:02 PM »

Hi all

I have a quick question, not sure if it has been answered elsewhere, i have looked but cannot find an answer. I am currently cycling a new tank only a week or so into it, i have tested the ammonia levels twice following the excellent advice on the forum and i am due to test again tomorrow, but i have noticed that my water level has dropped between 2 and 5 liters, so my question is:
Should i test the ammonia level as it is then top it up, top it up then test it (worried that i will be diluting the ammonia to give different results which may affect the cycle?)

Any advice would be appreciated

Sue · « **Reply #1 on:** January 15, 2016, 09:42:17 AM »

Hi Knight

I would add the water first, then test. The base line test, the one you did at the very beginning to which all the other tests are compared, was done on a full tank, so other tests need to be done on a full tank. Don't forget to dechlorinate the water, and to warm it a bit as tap water is very cold at this time of year (combi boiler - hot tapwater; other hot water heating - boil a kettle).
At the moment, topping up like this is not a problem. It will cause the natural minerals in your tapwater to become concentrated but if it is a fishless cycle, you have won't be affecting any fish. If you find you are losing water through evaporation once you have fish, it might be an idea to use RO water to top up, that way you won't add any extra minerals.

How big is the tank? Or in other words, does that 2 to 5 litres represent a large or small proportion of the water in the tank?
Assuming this is a fishless cycle, the water is usually kept warmer than after the cycle has finished to encourage the bacteria to multiply faster. This could be causing the evaporation and you may find it happens less once you have fish.

Knight · « **Reply #2 on:** January 15, 2016, 03:57:08 PM »

Hi Sue,
Thanks for the quick reply

i did not know you could use hot tap water with a combi boiler, that's great news my heater thanks you!!!
My tank is a 96 ltr but i only put in 84ltr at the start (water level measured 35cm initially now measured 32cm so it has lost 7 ltr) but i am running a HOB filter @ 600 LPH and the temp is approx 28c.
It is a fishless cycle i am trying to do, i wouldn't have it any other way....regardless of what LFS keeps telling me, and it's not just 1 at least 3 have told me to do it with fish in!!! they look at me strange when i tell them no lol
If you don't mind, could you tell me what RO water is? I have no idea!

Thanks again!

Extreme_One · « **Reply #3 on:** January 15, 2016, 04:07:18 PM »

Hi Knight.
Welcome aboard. Sounds like you've done your research and your fishless cycle is well underway.

To answer your question about RO Water, it's water that has been passed through a Reverse Osmosis filtration system which strips out all the minerals that contribute to the 'hardness' of the water.
Hardness is a measurement of the dissolved mineral content in the water.

RO water has a hardness of 0. You can't keep fish in pure RO water as without the minerals acting as a buffer, PH is highly unstable and prone to crashing (that's plummeting to acidic water,)

You can fit an RO system to your home water supply, although this does generate a lot of waste water, or you can purchase RO water from most LFS.

My water is quite hard out of the tap, too hard to keep certain species, such as Cardinal Tetras, so I mix my tap water with RO water to soften it, yet it still has enough minerals to maintain a stable PH.

Some people use RO water and re-mineralise it with products you can buy specifically for that purpose.

Hope that helps.

Sue · « **Reply #4 on:** January 15, 2016, 05:01:03 PM »

And if your tank suffers from evaporation, if you top it up with tap water you end up slowly making the water harder. Adding RO for top-ups mean you don't add any more minerals so the water doesn't get harder. This is not the same as water changes where you remove quite a lot of water and replace it with tap water - or as in Simon's case, you remove water that is a tap/RO mix and replace it with more water that is a tap/RO mix of the same proportion.

Extreme_One · « **Reply #5 on:** January 15, 2016, 07:52:24 PM »

Quote from: Sue on January 15, 2016, 05:01:03 PM

And if your tank suffers from evaporation, if you top it up with tap water you end up slowly making the water harder.

Sue raises a really good point and I just wanted to elaborate, if only because when I first heard this it didn't immediately make sense.

I apologise in advance if anyone feels I'm stating the bleeding obvious.

The reason the water gets harder is that, through evaporation, the water is lost but the minerals are left behind, so they accumulate over time.

Knight · « **Reply #6 on:** January 16, 2016, 12:21:01 AM »

Thankyou Sue and Simon i will try and source some RO water from LFS if my evaporation problem persists when i get some fish (can't wait lol)
Speaking of which, i am following sue's guide on fishless cycling and i am on stage 5 (just tested) my ammonia lvl is approx 1ppm but my nitrite is 5ppm+ is this normal at this stage or should i change something?
Also i have been reading alot about water parameters for fish, but never really understood hardness until this conversation started so i checked with water board here are the results:

Water quality details
Analysis   Typical Value   UK/EU limit   Units
Hardness Level   Very Soft
Hardness Clarke   3.850      Clarke
Aluminium   13.8   200   µg Al/l
Calcium   18.6      mg Ca/l
Residual chlorine - Total   0.60      mg/l
Residual chlorine - Free   0.55      mg/l
Coliform bacteria   0   0   number/100ml
Colour   <1.32   20   mg/l Pt/Co scale
Conductivity   139   2500   uS/cm at 20oC
Copper   <0.0046   2   mg Cu/l
E.coli   0   0   number/100ml
Iron   <5.97   200   µg Fe/l
Lead   <0.170   10   µg Pb/l
Magnesium   2.04      mg Mg/l
Manganese   <0.983   50   µg Mn/l
Nitrate   1.84   50   mg NO3/l
Sodium   10.1   200   mg Na/l

and it is very soft! I have checked the fish profiles and there seems to be very few fish who can't tolerate this hardness, but do you guys no of any fish i won't be able to keep then i can avoid any mistakes...i was thinking of getting Rainbows or dwarf chichlids or dwarf gouramis i'm still playing around with the community app on here seeing what will/won't get along!!

fcmf · « **Reply #7 on:** January 16, 2016, 11:07:33 AM »

Sue/others will be better placed to answer your question on the fishless cycle.

As for water type, I too have very soft water - Ca/l 10.0, CaCO3 31.07, Clark 2.18. Initially, I was drawn to guppies, platies, mollies - these, however, are definitely not suitable. The Fish Profiles section on this website, plus Seriously Fish, are good for checking against ie if you identify fish which you like, then double check on each of these if your tank size and water hardness is suitable for them, that's a good start. Others with more experience on here will be able to advise further re the suitability of your fish. Looking forward to reading what you ultimately get.

Sue · « **Reply #8 on:** January 16, 2016, 12:00:34 PM »

Provided you have followed my instruction to the letter, you don't need to do anything except monitor the pH. This fishless cycling method was written by a chap on another forum (I pinched it but didn't copy, if you see what I mean

). The old fishless method involved adding ammonia every time that dropped to zero, but that made so much nitrite it stalled the cycle. The critical point is 14 ppm nitrite but our testers can't measure that high and we would need very accurate measuring equipment and pure water to dilute a sample and get a meaningful result on the tester scale. So the other chap designed this new method in such a way that nitrite can never go above the critical value if it is followed strictly.
The reason I say to monitor the pH is because you have soft water. When GH is low, KH is usually also low. There are two problems with this. Nitrite and then nitrate are acidic and with low KH the pH could crash - and the filter bacteria don't like very low pH. And the bacteria need inorganic carbon (ie carbonate) to grow properly. If you find the pH is falling or even has fallen, all you need to do during cycling is add some bicarbonate of soda, sold in small tubs in the home baking section of the supermarket. Try 1 x 5ml spoonful for every 25 litres water. That's flat teaspoons as measured by a proper measuring spoon.
You can't use bicarb once you have fish, but regular weekly water changes should keep the KH topped up, or you might find you need to use some calcium containing decor (eg limestone rocks) or even crushed coral in a bag in the filter if you can fit one in.

As fcmf says, you just need to avoid fish that need hard water.
Dwarf cichlids will love your water. The easy to get ones are several species of Apistogramma and kribs. Some shops may also stock fish from the Nannacara and Laetacara genuses. (Should that be geni

)
Dwarf gouramis will be fine - though you do need to bear in mind that a lot of this species are already infected with an incurable disease by the time they get to the shop. Don't buy any fish from a tank that has iffy looking gouramis in there. Or look at honey gouramis instead.
You don't mention which rainbows, but with a tank your size you can't really get bigger than dwarf rainbowfish (Melanotaenia praecox). The lower end of their range is 5 deg GH so you might get away with them. If you like the look of them, featherfin rainbows (Iriatherina werneri) would be an option as they can go as soft as 1 deg GH.
If you want any shoaling fish, just look at the species native to the Amazon and its tributaries.

Knight · « **Reply #9 on:** January 16, 2016, 04:07:08 PM »

Thanks for the heads up Sue!!! I checked my PH today and it had fallen to about 6.4!!! (initially it was 7.5) so i followed your advice and added 15ml of bicarb, tested 40 mins later and it's back to 7.5

I have briefly looked at crushed coral, and from what i can see it does work, but i'm not sure how much i will need? and would it be ok to just drop it in the tank with the substrate ( i have a black gravel so it would look pretty good) or would i have to put it in the filter? (i could take some alfagrog out and put this in instead)

I just realised i haven't mentioned the size of my tank! it is 80cm(l)x 30cm(w)x40cm(h) and has 84 ltrs in it at the moment, i have a 600lph HOB filter and a small 200lph internal filter with a 150w heater and 3 mossballs aswell

Should i continue to test PH everyday or with every test i do until i can get some coral?

Thanks again for all your help guys and gals

Sue · « **Reply #10 on:** January 16, 2016, 04:29:14 PM »

That sounds like you were on the verge of a complete crash. Somewhere in the cycling section of the forum you'll find an old thread by me when I actually did my first fishless cycle, but using the old method - the new method only appeared after I'd finished. I had a pH crash - the pH dropped off the bottom of the scale. I don't know how low it got because the tester only goes down to 6.0. My GH is 4.76 according to my water company (5 deg last time I had a test kit) and I last measured my KH as 3 which is why your low GH rang alarm bells with me.

Crushed coral would work better in the filter but it should also work as part of the substrate. It's just that the water flow in the filter would make it dissolve slightly faster. Strictly speaking, calcium carbonate is insoluble in water but that just means it doesn't dissolve like a spoon of sugar in a cup of tea. It does dissolve very slowly. And if you intend to buy rocks, just get limestone ones.
The thing you need to be careful with is pushing things too far. Calcium carbonate will increase GH (calcium) KH (carbonate) and pH. I would start off small.

The best person to help with the amounts and what to use is fcmf - very soft water too.

fcmf · « **Reply #11 on:** January 16, 2016, 05:57:40 PM »

The attachment shows a lump of limestone rock (Tufa rock) which I originally got for the 54-litre tank. When I bought it, I chopped off about 1/3 as it was quite soft on the day I bought it but hardened up afterwards. What is currently in the tank, therefore, is about half of the size of this.

The GH and KH from the tap are currently 2 each (GH looked as though it was on the cusp of 3).
Pre- this morning's water change, GH was 5 and KH was 3, so clearly the rock helps.
Post- water change (a bigger change than usual as I gave the substrate a deep clean), GH dropped to 3 and KH dropped to 2.
6 hours later, the GH has gone up to 4 and KH is still 2. Ordinarily, I find that the GH goes up to 4-5 and the KH goes up to 3 and stays at that for the duration of the week. Sometimes I put the large piece of rock back in, in addition to the smaller piece which stays in, and, in such instances, GH can go up to 6 and KH to 4. The only reason I don't keep the large piece in permanently is due to the space that it takes up but otherwise I would. I probably will put it back in now, given that I did a bigger water change than usual this morning and the KH hasn't gone up over the course of the day.

I ensure that I never leave more than 7 days between water changes, and usually try to do a mini water change midweek or even a couple of times midweek. Smaller, more frequent water changes are better than weekly large changes, as there is less of a drop in GH and KH readings after water changes. I have quite a strong syphon which unfortunately means that my intended 20% water change can end up being more than planned.

I've not mentioned the effect on PH, as that's another story in itself (ie not sure which test kit to believe) - but it generally raises it slightly and the readings tend to remain consistent since the rock has been in.

Knight · « **Reply #12 on:** January 22, 2016, 04:14:04 PM »

Thanks for all the help

I do have another query though, i added my 2nd dose of ammonia to my tank on wednesday so tested it today:
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 5ppm + (it has always been pretty unreadable, as soon as i shake the test tube it goes bright purple, nevermind waiting 5 minutes!)
Nitrate 40ppm?

Now following the guidelines in the fishless cycling section i should do nothing? but i am wondering as according to other forums i should do a 50/60% water change to get my nitrites down to a readable level, my LFS have said i'm pretty much done and should add fish now....i don't think so!!!

My PH seems to have stabalised since adding the bicarb, so i have not added the coral, should i leave that out for now?

Thanks again

Tony

Sue · « **Reply #13 on:** January 22, 2016, 04:53:48 PM »

The other forums, are the using the old fishless cycling method, the one where you add 5ppm ammonia every time the reading drops to zero? That method did make so much nitrite, and eventually nitrate that the cycle stalled and you did have to do water changes to get them down low enough. As long as you are following the new method on here to the letter you shouldn't need to do a water change. Yes, nitrite will be over 5 as that's the highest the testers go but as long as it stays under 15ppm, which this method is designed to do, you won't need a water change. That going purple as soon as you add the drops just means the reading is off the top of the scale.

And nitrate of 40ppm shouldn't stall the cycle - some people have that level coming out of their taps. What is your tap reading? If it's less than 40, the extra has to come from somewhere, and that can only be from nitrite (unless you are also adding plant fertiliser) in which case you have some nitrite eaters growing.

You can leave the coral out for now since you've added bicarb. You'll remove that when you do the big water change at the end so that's the time to add the coral.

Knight · « **Reply #14 on:** January 22, 2016, 05:49:14 PM »

Hi Sue
Thanks for your reply, so just to make sure i'm doing this right.....i should do nothing now until ammonia is 0 for 2 tests then add one third initial amount, then keep repeating until ammonia is 0 and nitrite is less than 1ppm, is thst right?

Knight · « **Reply #15 on:** January 22, 2016, 05:50:55 PM »

sorry should have added to previous, should i leave it 2 days from now as my ammonia was only 0.25ppm today?
Thanks

Sue · « **Reply #16 on:** January 22, 2016, 06:52:03 PM »

So I get it right in my mind:
You added 3ppm ammonia and tested every three days till the day you had ammonia less than 0.75 and nitrite over 2.
Then you added another 3ppm dose of ammonia.

If that's the stage you are at, you should now be testing every 2 days. You are now looking for 2 consecutive tests where ammonia is zero. That is, you find ammonia at zero and test again 2 days later and find it is zero again. Once you get those 2 zeros add a 1ppm dose of ammonia.
You say you added the second 3ppm dose on Wednesday. Today (Friday) your ammonia was 0.25. So yes, add nothing and test again on Sunday. If you then get zero ammonia, test again on Tuesday. If that too is zero, add the 1ppm dose. If Sunday is not zero, test on Tues and if that is zero, test Thurs and if it's zero again, add the 1ppm dose on Thurs.

Knight · « **Reply #17 on:** January 26, 2016, 06:50:24 PM »

Hi Sue,
Sorry to be a pain but i have another question! You were right with your assumption above as to where i'm upto with the cycle, so i have tested the water today and i have 0ppm ammonia and 0ppm nitrite!! i don't know where all that went as it was 5ppm on sunday!! should i just add the 1ppm ammonia now or go to step 10?

Knight · « **Reply #18 on:** January 26, 2016, 07:08:37 PM »

i have just tested nitrate levels and it's reading somewhere between 40 and 80ppm (it's difficult to tell the difference between the two!)

Sue · « **Reply #19 on:** January 26, 2016, 08:37:19 PM »

Nitrate is notoriously tricky to read! What is your tapwater nitrate? You need to subtract that from the tank reading to see if there is any being made.

Yes, cycles can happen quickly, though not often.

I would add 1ppm ammonia to be on the safe side and test after 24 hours rather than the 2 days the method says. If the nitrite reading is zero again, do a dilution test - it doesn't have to be precise; just use about one fifth tank water and 4 fifths tapwater and test. If the test shows any purple at all you'll know the actual nitrite is still off the scale. If it is still sky blue, the pure tank water test is correct. The actual numbers don't matter, just blue or purple. The API tester has been known to go blue with an off the top reading and this will say if it really is zero or off the top. And if it is off the top, adding 1ppm ammonia won't do much harm.

If your readings are both zero after the 24 hours, add 3ppm and test again in another 24 hours.

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Fish Tank Cycling Query

Fish Tank Cycling Query

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