So I recently completed my fishless cycle (using Kleen Off Ammonia) and have had 3 days of 0 ammonia and nitrite 24 hours after dosing to 4ppm ammonia.
I decided to do a large WC (70%) since the water was looking kinda gross and vac'd all the gravel. My LFS also sold me some hair algae treatment for the algae that was growing on my wood, so I took the opportunity to use this after doing the waater change. This meant that I had to remove my carbon filter.
Completed the water change, dosed the treatment, and the tank was looking great. I also added 2ppm ammonia last night just to feed the bacteria with the intent of getting some fish to start up later today.
Tested this morning (15 hours after dosing) and whilst the ammonia has gone down to 0ppm, the nitrite is ~2-3ppm. In the later days of my cycle the filter almost cleared the 4ppm dose of ammonia in 15 hours (nitrite would read .5-1ppm at this point).
Only thing I can say is during the WC I filled a tupperware tub of tank water, and pulled out my filter sponges and rested them in there to keep them wet. Filter is a Juwel bioflow XL in which ive added a couple of bags of ceramic rings. I did this with the thought that as I lowered the tank level, the top sponges in the tower would be run dry and potentially dry out (took an hour and a half to empty the tank, clean it all and fill it again). I wiped all the glass down, disturbed all the gravel to vac up a lot of the brown algae that had grown in the last 3 weeks, and accidentally broke the tree that I glued to a rock as decoration so removed the tree completely from the tank.
I can't really figure out what I did wrong to destroy or remove the nitrfying bacteria? Removing the carbon sponge shouldnt have posed an issue as with tank maintenance I'd have had to replace sponges eventually. Could the filter pads being sat in the box of tank water slowly kill them, if not aerated? Could I have disturbed all the bacteria in the gravel and vacc'd it all up?
It's really no big deal as it's still a fishless tank, just looking to see what may have caused the issue so I don't replicate it should I need to do another large WC in the future!
Thanks in advance for reading the post!
I decided to do a large WC (70%) since the water was looking kinda gross and vac'd all the gravel. My LFS also sold me some hair algae treatment for the algae that was growing on my wood, so I took the opportunity to use this after doing the waater change. This meant that I had to remove my carbon filter.
Completed the water change, dosed the treatment, and the tank was looking great. I also added 2ppm ammonia last night just to feed the bacteria with the intent of getting some fish to start up later today.
Tested this morning (15 hours after dosing) and whilst the ammonia has gone down to 0ppm, the nitrite is ~2-3ppm. In the later days of my cycle the filter almost cleared the 4ppm dose of ammonia in 15 hours (nitrite would read .5-1ppm at this point).
Only thing I can say is during the WC I filled a tupperware tub of tank water, and pulled out my filter sponges and rested them in there to keep them wet. Filter is a Juwel bioflow XL in which ive added a couple of bags of ceramic rings. I did this with the thought that as I lowered the tank level, the top sponges in the tower would be run dry and potentially dry out (took an hour and a half to empty the tank, clean it all and fill it again). I wiped all the glass down, disturbed all the gravel to vac up a lot of the brown algae that had grown in the last 3 weeks, and accidentally broke the tree that I glued to a rock as decoration so removed the tree completely from the tank.
I can't really figure out what I did wrong to destroy or remove the nitrfying bacteria? Removing the carbon sponge shouldnt have posed an issue as with tank maintenance I'd have had to replace sponges eventually. Could the filter pads being sat in the box of tank water slowly kill them, if not aerated? Could I have disturbed all the bacteria in the gravel and vacc'd it all up?
It's really no big deal as it's still a fishless tank, just looking to see what may have caused the issue so I don't replicate it should I need to do another large WC in the future!
Thanks in advance for reading the post!
