Fishless Cycle Failure
- Thread starter Rhinox
- Start date
AgreePerhaps you a have excess protein in the water from the fish food. A fresh water protein skimmer or a foam fractionator like
You may want to skim it off, it could inhibit gas exchange.
And after being in the tank 40days, by taking out the bio balls, I believe you stopped the cycle dead in its tracks.
I thought of the protein thing. If that's all it is, then when I'm fully set up it should be taken care of with water changes. hopefully wouldn't need the extra equipment.Perhaps you a have excess protein in the water from the fish food. A fresh water protein skimmer or a foam fractionator like
good new though, I finally recorded some nitrites today! So not sure why it took so long but, looks like things are finally moving along.
still have a bunch of ammonia too, so I wasn't expecting to see nitrites today when I ran the test. caught it when the nitrosonomas were a large enough colony to start making nitrites but not yet convert all the ammonia. I thought that was usually a relatively short period of time, or maybe I found the worlds slowest doubling strain of nitrosonomas haha.
Thanks for the help, advice, and suggestions everyone!
So this is starting to make sense. Might then be that adding the aeration last weekend is what got things moving. If I stop adding food (haven't for a while) will all the proteins eventually get broken down to ammonia and sent on through the cycle to become nitrate? If not I can try to manually skim them off or just do some water changes to dilute them out.
i have a 1 gallon that i pour gross amounts of fish food in with an airstone, plants, and thick substrate. i get similar amounts of foam and in goes back down within 3 days of feeding the tank. its just proteins from organic processes. i don’t understand why you cant just use dechlorinater. i dont use a dechlorinater allot of the time and have never had an issue but i also have very clean tap in my area. you can also buy the bottles of live bacteria from big box pet stores and see if that does the trick.
I have written three articles on cycling for another site. The first was how to do a fail safe fishless cycle in 5-6 weeks. The other two were how to rescue a fish-in cycle gone wild. I was supposed to write a 4th article on using plants or seeding bacteria either with a proven bottled product or items from cycled tanks.
I am having a hard time understanding your approach. For one, cycling is the direct result of adding ammonia. You cannot cycle only the sump unless you compensate for the other 100+ gallons in the main tank. How much water will depend on the decor. But then there will be another 25 gallons in the sump. Tanks hold 10 -20% less than the advertised volume depending on what is in them and then because they are never filled 100%. So in your case we are looking at between about 130 and 140 total gallons. But you are using only 25 for your cycle. That is 20-25% of the total ultimate gallons in the system.
So if you want to follow my basic article, it calls for dosing to 3 ppm. But you will need to cycle the sump to handle 4-5 times that or 12 -15 ppm. Considering that ammonia, using an API text kit, at about 6.5 ppm will stall a cycle, you need to be a lot more experience to do this. I do this sort of thing when I run my bio-farm for cycling filters. It requires that you build up the bacteria oer time so there are enough that a high concentration can be processed rapidly.
You should be using a dechlor that only detoxifies chlorine but not ammonia. Sodium thiosulfate- the cheapest smallest i could find fast was here for $10 https://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Thios...den&sprefix=sodium+thio,lawngarden,224&sr=1-8
Next, the easiest ammonia source would be ammonium chloride ( what i use). Again small amounts are not so easy. Dr. Hovanec sells it as well as his One and Only nitrifying bacteria. This is the only bottle bacteria I will use. Tetra Safe Start Plus is very similar.
The above can get you cycled using my directions. But you still have the problem of trying to complete a cyle for 130 -140 gallons of water using only 25 gallons. I can do it, you likely cannot.
I prefer not to use things from other peoples tanks to jump start a cycle in my tank. But I have 20+ tanks and can do that sort of things completely in-house.
I am not sure how you are getting oxygen into the water in the sump. Nitrification in tanks is an aerobic process and oxygen is important.
I would not use any bio-balls. Years back i had planned to use a 40 long tank and Poret foam on a sump for a 125. I worked with Dr. Tanner of Swiss Tropicals to design the sump. It basically used 4 sheets of Poret foam 3 inch thick with about 1 -2 inches of space between them. The first was 10 ppi the nexy 2 were 20 ppi and the fourth was 30 ppi (or it could be another 20 ppi). The higher the ppi the faster the foam will need cleaning.
I also discussed the best way to use Poret foam in a canister. He said use 100% poret and nothing else. I did this in one of my Eheim 2026 Pro II. Mot blu or white floss pads, just 20 ppi Poret. I ashed Dr. T when I should clean the Poret. I told him my other canisters were cleaned every 6 months. he said clean it when the return flow slowed so I could notice it. That took about 3 years.
Back you your cycling problem. My best guess without a bit more info is there were several problems. First there may not have been enough oxygen. Second, the low dose of ammonia may have mostly evaporated before many bacteria could establish. Since you did nothing to seed bacteria then you started with very few.
I think you have to go back to square one. The foam bubbles are not a good thing. It may have to do with something in the ammonia. I think the sump needs to be cleans as does the Poret and then you begin anew with the sort of products I suggested. You can buy a big jug of dry ammonium chloride from Jehmco
If you want to get the Dr. Tim's bacteria- get it on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/DrTims-Aquat...nly+Nitrifying+Bacteria&qid=1619672444&sr=8-8
This will cycle up to 120 gals. But it costs $31.77. You can use a smaller amount and then spend extra weeks getting the bacteria to reproduce enough to reach the needed level.
With the Dr. Tim's you should be able to cycle your tank in 7-10 days for close to a full fish load. But I still urge you to cycle the sump and tank with the full amount of water and not just the sump. It will make things much easier. Doing it all in the sump requires testing several times a day and adding ammonia (as ammonium chloride) twice a day as well.
If you want to do what I have suggested, I can PM you a link to the cycling article which walks one through the cycle from day one to completion. It requires about 6 to 7 ammonia additions and the timing is based on your actual test results for ammonia and nitrite. The article is on another fish site and i do not want to be accused of promoting the competition. I have not been active on that site for years but they still have my articles there.
I am having a hard time understanding your approach. For one, cycling is the direct result of adding ammonia. You cannot cycle only the sump unless you compensate for the other 100+ gallons in the main tank. How much water will depend on the decor. But then there will be another 25 gallons in the sump. Tanks hold 10 -20% less than the advertised volume depending on what is in them and then because they are never filled 100%. So in your case we are looking at between about 130 and 140 total gallons. But you are using only 25 for your cycle. That is 20-25% of the total ultimate gallons in the system.
So if you want to follow my basic article, it calls for dosing to 3 ppm. But you will need to cycle the sump to handle 4-5 times that or 12 -15 ppm. Considering that ammonia, using an API text kit, at about 6.5 ppm will stall a cycle, you need to be a lot more experience to do this. I do this sort of thing when I run my bio-farm for cycling filters. It requires that you build up the bacteria oer time so there are enough that a high concentration can be processed rapidly.
You should be using a dechlor that only detoxifies chlorine but not ammonia. Sodium thiosulfate- the cheapest smallest i could find fast was here for $10 https://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Thios...den&sprefix=sodium+thio,lawngarden,224&sr=1-8
Next, the easiest ammonia source would be ammonium chloride ( what i use). Again small amounts are not so easy. Dr. Hovanec sells it as well as his One and Only nitrifying bacteria. This is the only bottle bacteria I will use. Tetra Safe Start Plus is very similar.
The above can get you cycled using my directions. But you still have the problem of trying to complete a cyle for 130 -140 gallons of water using only 25 gallons. I can do it, you likely cannot.
I prefer not to use things from other peoples tanks to jump start a cycle in my tank. But I have 20+ tanks and can do that sort of things completely in-house.
I am not sure how you are getting oxygen into the water in the sump. Nitrification in tanks is an aerobic process and oxygen is important.
I would not use any bio-balls. Years back i had planned to use a 40 long tank and Poret foam on a sump for a 125. I worked with Dr. Tanner of Swiss Tropicals to design the sump. It basically used 4 sheets of Poret foam 3 inch thick with about 1 -2 inches of space between them. The first was 10 ppi the nexy 2 were 20 ppi and the fourth was 30 ppi (or it could be another 20 ppi). The higher the ppi the faster the foam will need cleaning.
I also discussed the best way to use Poret foam in a canister. He said use 100% poret and nothing else. I did this in one of my Eheim 2026 Pro II. Mot blu or white floss pads, just 20 ppi Poret. I ashed Dr. T when I should clean the Poret. I told him my other canisters were cleaned every 6 months. he said clean it when the return flow slowed so I could notice it. That took about 3 years.
Back you your cycling problem. My best guess without a bit more info is there were several problems. First there may not have been enough oxygen. Second, the low dose of ammonia may have mostly evaporated before many bacteria could establish. Since you did nothing to seed bacteria then you started with very few.
I think you have to go back to square one. The foam bubbles are not a good thing. It may have to do with something in the ammonia. I think the sump needs to be cleans as does the Poret and then you begin anew with the sort of products I suggested. You can buy a big jug of dry ammonium chloride from Jehmco
https://www.jehmco.com/html/water_conditioners.html scroll way down it is near the bottom of the page.
If you want to get the Dr. Tim's bacteria- get it on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/DrTims-Aquat...nly+Nitrifying+Bacteria&qid=1619672444&sr=8-8
This will cycle up to 120 gals. But it costs $31.77. You can use a smaller amount and then spend extra weeks getting the bacteria to reproduce enough to reach the needed level.
With the Dr. Tim's you should be able to cycle your tank in 7-10 days for close to a full fish load. But I still urge you to cycle the sump and tank with the full amount of water and not just the sump. It will make things much easier. Doing it all in the sump requires testing several times a day and adding ammonia (as ammonium chloride) twice a day as well.
If you want to do what I have suggested, I can PM you a link to the cycling article which walks one through the cycle from day one to completion. It requires about 6 to 7 ammonia additions and the timing is based on your actual test results for ammonia and nitrite. The article is on another fish site and i do not want to be accused of promoting the competition. I have not been active on that site for years but they still have my articles there.
Thanks. Another vote for protein foam then.
I can use dechlorinator and will from now on. I have a very old half full bottle of Prime I wasn't sure whether I should use. I was testing to make sure it would still dechlorinate (it did) when I found the nitrites last night. I've already been sourcing some sodium thiosulfate though because I only truly want dechlorination only, and not all the extra stuff claimed to "Detoxify" or "promote slime coat" or even one product claimed to "replace slime coat with aloe" - even if it did that, why would anyone think that's a good idea?
It does sound like the oily film from the fish food reduced the oxygen exchange, thereby slowing down your nitrogen cycle to a crawl. The fish food will eventually get you the white bloom (organic eating heterotrophic bacteria), and then be broken down into ammonia by the heterotrophic bacteria. I would still manually skim the top of the water line and remove the oily film.
Just posting to update that cycling is progressing and I wouldn't call it a failure any longer. Nitrites have spiked. Ammonia dropped to zero and I've added more ammonia a couple times since and it has returned back to zero each time. So that's going as expected. Hopefully whatever issue stalled out the cycling, if it was oxygen exchange, was fixed by adding aeration and the 2nd half of the cycle goes at a more normal pace.
On the other side of the sump where there is no aeration, there was the typical oil slick protein film I'm familiar with. When I skimmed that with the cup the resulting liquid was clumpy, sludgy, and not at all clear.
After skimming, there did not appear to be any reduction in the amount of suds being produced by the airstones. So that's making me think whatever is causing them is dispersed in solution throughout the volume of water, and not just a film on the surface. I'd probably have to change a lot more water before they disappear. I'll keep skimming some off now and then but since the cycle is progressing and I'll eventually have to dump all the water in the sump before I move it to it's final spot under the stand I guess I don't need to be too concerned about it right now.
I am still seeing the suds. Earlier today I used a cup to skim out about 4L trying to mostly skim the bubbles from the surface. The suds don't stay sudsy once removed from the aeration and the resulting liquid is generally pretty clear. So if the suds are being caused by proteins, would that mean the proteins are water soluble? Is there such a thing?
On the other side of the sump where there is no aeration, there was the typical oil slick protein film I'm familiar with. When I skimmed that with the cup the resulting liquid was clumpy, sludgy, and not at all clear.
After skimming, there did not appear to be any reduction in the amount of suds being produced by the airstones. So that's making me think whatever is causing them is dispersed in solution throughout the volume of water, and not just a film on the surface. I'd probably have to change a lot more water before they disappear. I'll keep skimming some off now and then but since the cycle is progressing and I'll eventually have to dump all the water in the sump before I move it to it's final spot under the stand I guess I don't need to be too concerned about it right now.
i often dont test my water in freshwater tanks unless i have a reason to which im not recommending but when watching for nitrates i see how long it takes a bubble to pop and smell the tank. most of the time its enough to indicate whether to do a water change. generally speaking the longer it takes a bubble to pop the more nitrates are in the water. this isnt always true and it’s definitely not a substitute for testing. if i see little bubbles forming around the sides its a big red flag to me as for as nitrates are concerned. the biofilm may not be very thick in certain areas of the tank and thicker in the lower flow areas.
