Aquarium Cycling Issues

[imabot]

hello; Sorry but I still am a bit confused. You are doing a fish-less cycle meaning no live fish in the tank, right?

Yes,I'm doing a fish-less cycle no livestock in there at all.

For example it is still not clear to me if you have considered the use of DW or DI water to clean the test vials. My suspicion being that your test results are skewed and not reflecting the true water conditions.

We already get distilled water from Safeway; tonight I plan on rinsing out the vial sabout 3 times along with their caps and drying them out on a paper towel over night and testing the water with the dried out vials in the morning.

hello; Sorry but I still am a bit confused.

If the bb are truly all dead and this has happened more than one time, then it likely is time for a complete tear down of the tank. That this has gone on for several months is an indicator something is wrong.
I guess I would take everything out and give it a good cleaning. Gravel, equipment and all. I would probably give everything, including the tank, at least a good rinsing and maybe a soak in a bleach solution. If a bleach solution is used have some water treatment such a PRIME to dose the tank when it is set up again.
Something is killing off the bb if your conclusion that the cycle has crashed is correct.

I'm going to test in the morning and if the parameters are not much different assume the cycle crashed and rinse out everything when I get home from school in the afternoon. Would a cupful of bleach per gallon be a strong enough solution for to clean it out?

 

[imabot]

hello; Sorry but I still am a bit confused. You are doing a fish-less cycle meaning no live fish in the tank, right?

Yes,I'm doing a fish-less cycle no livestock in there at all.

For example it is still not clear to me if you have considered the use of DW or DI water to clean the test vials. My suspicion being that your test results are skewed and not reflecting the true water conditions.

We already get distilled water from Safeway; tonight I plan on rinsing out the vial sabout 3 times along with their caps and drying them out on a paper towel over night and testing the water with the dried out vials in the morning.

hello; Sorry but I still am a bit confused.

If the bb are truly all dead and this has happened more than one time, then it likely is time for a complete tear down of the tank. That this has gone on for several months is an indicator something is wrong.
I guess I would take everything out and give it a good cleaning. Gravel, equipment and all. I would probably give everything, including the tank, at least a good rinsing and maybe a soak in a bleach solution. If a bleach solution is used have some water treatment such a PRIME to dose the tank when it is set up again.
Something is killing off the bb if your conclusion that the cycle has crashed is correct.

I'm going to test in the morning and if the parameters are not much different assume the cycle crashed and rinse out everything when I get home from school in the afternoon. Would a cupful of bleach per gallon be a strong enough solution for to clean it out?

 

[Hidan]

I read that Dwarf Gouramis are more sensitive to water quality. Did you start it up with them in there? I'm thinking 3-4 mystery snails, 2-3 mollies and later on in the cycle a dwarf goruami. I read that it reduces the ammonia levels if I put a lot of plants in. I found a good deal on them and pm'd the guy

I bought 2 Dwarf gouramis and 2 Zebra Danios to start my cycle. Zebra Danios were dead within a day, the Dwarf gourami's are still alive in my now thriving tank of Tetras, Rasboras, Corries which is awaiting Discus.
I will be honest though, I still think mollies are a better option than Dwarf Gouramis for cycling. I was cycling my tank after about 15 years or so and was getting to add new fish after more than 10 years (hard to add anything to a tank with a Massive Pacu and Giant Gourami) & the Dwarf gouramis were an impulsive buy as I had not seem them at my local LFYs for a while and couldn't resist.

I have a couple of simple questions. Are you declorinating the water when you do water changes as chlorine kills BB.
Also have you considered using Stability to speed up your cycling process. As already mentioned someone shutting the filter for the night does not reset the cycle, merely extends it a couple of days.

My suggestion is adding a couple of feeder mollies into the tank, which should be a good indicator as to whether your tank it getting cycled or not.
Basically unless your water or chemicals are killing off the BB, there is no reason the cycle should take so long.

 

[skjl47]

Would a cupful of bleach per gallon be a strong enough solution for to clean it out?

Hello; That is a strong bleach solution. I am confident you do not need a cup of bleach per gallon. The good enough amount does not come to mind from memory right now, but best I can recall a cup of bleach will be more than enough for the entire tank.

Perhaps you can delay such a tank clean up and tear down until the water test results are in when using the distilled water.

 

[skjl47]

That is a strong bleach solution. I am confident you do not need a cup of bleach per gallon. The good enough amount does not come to mind from memory right now, but best I can recall a cup of bleach will be more than enough for the entire tank.

hello; I was further off the mark than you were. Found a site here is a link.

https://modernsurvivalblog.com/health/disinfectant-bleach-water-ratio/

It will depend on the type of solution you desire. a 1/2 cup per gallon for a strong solution or around a teaspoon per gallon for a weaker solution. I think I used the weaker solution to disinfect all my tanks and equipment a few years ago for a cyanobacter problem. I did let the stuff soak for more than a day and it worked well.

 

[imabot]

I have a couple of simple questions. Are you declorinating the water when you do water changes as chlorine kills BB.
Also have you considered using Stability to speed up your cycling process. As already mentioned someone shutting the filter for the night does not reset the cycle, merely extends it a couple of days.

I add in about half a cupful of prime directly in the aquarium after I add in the new water during a water change. Yeah, I'm planning on getting prime after I clean out my aquarium with a bleach solution.

hello; I was further off the mark than you were. Found a site here is a link.

https://modernsurvivalblog.com/health/disinfectant-bleach-water-ratio/

It will depend on the type of solution you desire. a 1/2 cup per gallon for a strong solution or around a teaspoon per gallon for a weaker solution. I think I used the weaker solution to disinfect all my tanks and equipment a few years ago for a cyanobacter problem. I did let the stuff soak for more than a day and it worked well.

When I clean out the aquarium, do I just rinse out the bleached stuff? Do I also clean the aquarium filter with the bleach solution? I plan on using a tea spoon per gallon solution as you mentioned.

 

[skjl47]

about half a cupful of prime directly in the aquarium

Hello; I forget the tank size, A 55 gallon? If so this seems a lot of PRIME. If I recall correctly PRIME in an overdose will bind oxygen when it runs out of ammonia to bind.

Those more up to date on the chemistry of PRIME may be able to add to this observation.
Could it be that too much PRIME is binding all the available oxygen and this is killing off the bb?

I clean out the aquarium, do I just rinse out the bleached stuff? Do I also clean the aquarium filter with the bleach solution? I plan on using a tea spoon per gallon solution as you mentioned.

I soaked everything including the parts of a filter that tank water touches. I put the substrate, gravel in my case, into 5 gallon buckets and added some bleach and enough water to cover. I put all the other equipment including nets and siphons into another bucket with water and bleach.

I filled the tanks with water and added bleach. I did not submerge the motor part of a filter due to the electronics. I may have simply run the bleach solution thru the power filters just as they would operate on a tank normally. (without any media inside. The re-useable media was in a soak bucket.

After soaking for a day or so I gave everything a good rinse. I drained the bleach solution from a tank and refilled with water and drained again.
I took the opportunity to clean my grave substrate as well. I cleaned it by rinsing it in buckets with a hose and stirring it with a an old broom handle. After it was cleaned I soaked the gravel in a bleach solution for a day or so. Then poured off the solution.

If I need to disinfect a tank with gravel in the future I may do the bleach solution soak first and then clean the gravel later as this should better rinse the bleach solution away.

I set a tank back up in place. Added the substrate and the other equipment. I filled the tank with water and got the filters running and the heaters. I learned my first lesson by throwing a few snails in the newly set up tank. The bleach residue was still strong enough in the gravel to stun the snails. That was when I added the PRIME.

The PRIME took care of the bleach residue.

 

[Coryloach]

Is your tap water very soft by any chance? A fishless cycle will stall when the pH crashes down. This happens because KH(buffering capacity of water) is used up during nitrification and when completely used up, as in the case of high bioload or ammonia dosing, the pH goes down. Nitrifying bacteria cannot recover from a crashed pH. You need to test your tap water as this will be also an issue once you add fish, start feeding them regularly and skip on water changes.

In the mean time water changes will actually prevent the KH to be completely used up. Also, do not dose ammonia before the reading has got down to zero. You do not need to dose every day unless the bacteria are consuming it in a day. Once the nitrite stage starts, never let the nitrite go over a few ppm. Do water changes. High levels of both ammonia and nitrite are toxic to the same bacteria/archaea you're trying to establish.

 

[skjl47]

I recall correctly PRIME in an overdose will bind oxygen when it runs out of ammonia to bind.

Hello; I actually meant to put chlorine/chloramine where I wrote ammonia.

 

[imabot]

I have a couple of simple questions. Are you declorinating the water when you do water changes as chlorine kills BB.
Also have you considered using Stability to speed up your cycling process. As already mentioned someone shutting the filter for the night does not reset the cycle, merely extends it a couple of days.

My suggestion is adding a couple of feeder mollies into the tank, which should be a good indicator as to whether your tank it getting cycled or not.

Yes I add around half a capful of prime into the aquarium whenever I do a water change. I'm considering getting stability but I've read that the kind of bacteria in the bottles can randomly die or something happens and the cycle crashes. It either works brilliantly or is worthless from what I've read. I read that the bacteria might die from being over heated or frozen or stressed some other way. Should I buy from amazon or a local place? Would 2-3 mollies be enough to cycle the aquarium? I'm not sure what you mean by indicator. Do you mean if they live or not?

Hello; I forget the tank size, A 55 gallon? If so this seems a lot of PRIME. If I recall correctly PRIME in an overdose will bind oxygen when it runs out of ammonia to bind.

Sorry, cupful was a typo. I meant half a capful. According to the bottle, a full capful is enough for 55 gallons so I add half a capful of water to treat the water faster since I don't treat the water before adding it into the aquarium. My aquarium's 18 gallons according to the aquadvisor calculator (even though it was marked as 20g for some reason).

Is your tap water very soft by any chance? A fishless cycle will stall when the pH crashes down. This happens because KH(buffering capacity of water) is used up during nitrification and when completely used up, as in the case of high bioload or ammonia dosing, the pH goes down. Nitrifying bacteria cannot recover from a crashed pH. You need to test your tap water as this will be also an issue once you add fish, start feeding them regularly and skip on water changes.

In the mean time water changes will actually prevent the KH to be completely used up. Also, do not dose ammonia before the reading has got down to zero. You do not need to dose every day unless the bacteria are consuming it in a day. Once the nitrite stage starts, never let the nitrite go over a few ppm. Do water changes. High levels of both ammonia and nitrite are toxic to the same bacteria/archaea you're trying to establish.

My PH is above 7 so my water is pretty hard AFAIK. I haven't dosed ammonia since the 4.0 ppm worth of it I put in hasn't been converted yet. At what ppm of ammonia and nitrite do bacteria start dying off?