Cycling - gone fishless, where am I at?!

[Hendre]

I try to keep mine below 20 usually with plants and water changes.

Hair algae is a challenge, what is it growing on? What plants, ferts and lighting and how long are lights on for?

 

[twentyleagues]

Below 20. As stated above. Waterchanges can help to.

 

[lilacamy931]

Now that I have nitrates going on, I can get on with usual water changes - yipee! I do recall 20 ppm being the ideal so will get on that. Thank you

The hair algae is growing on the plants that have reached the surface nearest the lights (can't recall their name and threw the label out). Elongated slim pointed leaves that turn pinker with more light.

In the tank plants I know the names of: amazon swords, ludwigia repens variegata, juncus repens, some grass type at the forefront.


Lighting: Fluval Aquasky - setting - bright white with green and red added in.
Ferts - I am using a Seachem product you dose the water with, currently one cap a week.
Ligthting - while I have been on christmas hols kept lighting to 6 hours, unfortunately when at work it is more like 10-12 hours which is probably the problem! If anyone has any recommendations timers please do.

I think between no water changes for almost 2 weeks trying to move forward the fishless cycle part and long lighting that has probably caused my problem.

I've manually removed as much as possibly by hand tonight and last couple of days have added a bubbler for decor which also provides extra oxygen and improve the flow. There are two amano shrimp in there that I couldn't get out when transferred the original fish and they've done a wonderful job on the algae bloom that happened on the mopani but understand they won't touch hair algae.

 

[twentyleagues]

Go to hd and get a cheap timer. That' all you need. 6-8 hr will probably be fine.

 

[pops]

WOOOOO I am very happy to report i have nitrates! I read somewhere on the forums the nitrate bottle number 2 can crystallise and give false or no readings. Had my husband really smack the bottle about and we appear to have nitrates of 40ppm.

Readings today:
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
Nitrates: 40ppm

Fish seem to be settling in, I have unsightly hair algae on plants near the lights.

Followup questions now. What do you class safe nitrates level? Best way to get rid of hair algae?

that wold more than like be me, and yes shake the pee out of it, beat on the desk what ever for a good 3 minutes, it crystallizes and need to be broke up and dissolved.

 

[lilacamy931]

Ammonia has been steadily going down though had a peak today - I've done a 50% water change today and will re-test shortly to see how the readings are doing.

Starting to get tad anxious as puffs are due to me next week towards the end of it. I'm guessing I will just have to keep up on water changes and vigilant testing if doesn't calm by then

 

[skjl47]

Ammonia has been steadily going down though had a peak today - I've done a 50% water change today

Starting to get tad anxious as puffs are due to me next week

hello; See if this makes sense. I read about this in a post from another member.

With a fishless cycle doing Water changes is counter productive. The idea is to keep the ammonia level up in the tank so as to promote the growth of the beneficial bacteria(bb). By doing WC you are diluting the ammonia and slowing down the development of bb colonies.
This is for true fishless cycling, if there are fish in the tank it is a different story.

 

[lilacamy931]

Yeah from the recommendations, I introduced 3 cardinals and 2 guppies to keep the BB alive (ammonia still hasn't arrived and couldn't get locally) thought it would be ok as the readings where promising. Today is the first day needed to do a water change since their introduction (Day 4 of introduction).

 

[Jhay3513]

Fishless requires enough patience to have a running aquarium and no fish. I didn’t even turn the lights on. I did fishless because i had a few flowerhorns the kept getting sick so i completely gutted the aquarium out and boiled all media. Let it all air dry for a week as to make sure whatever was in there was dead, then i set it back up. I measured how much ammonia it would take to get it to 4ppm and did a liquid test every morning and night to monitor it. Once it got down to 1ppm i dosed back up to 4ppm. I did it until the nitrates showed up which happened around week 3-4. Once the nitrates showed up i let the ammonia hit zero and then dosed to 4ppm and monitored to see how long it takes to get to 0ppm again. Once it does in 24hours or less your tank is cycled. I dosed 2-3ppm after it was fully cycled until my black Nasties that i ordered were shipped in. Once i brought my fish home, I did 2 95% waterchanges, tested for nitrates (which read 0ppm) and dumped the fish in. I decided to do fishless because i didn’t want to contaminate a fresh aquarium with potential disease from the start. My Haitiensis never had a problem
-The End

 

[skjl47]

I introduced 3 cardinals and 2 guppies to keep the BB alive (ammonia still hasn't arrived

Hello; So it is not a "fishless" cycle after all. It seems you need to make a decision about how to proceed.

With fish already in the tank you can allow the ammonia to build up and this will eventually help grow the bb. Do not do WC as this will dilute the ammonia and slow the growth of the bb. This way of course will be hard on the live fish, they will suffer some and may die.

The other way is to do water changes to help protect the fish but this slows down the growth of the bb.