Fishless cycling, Help!

[dawnmarie]

My nitrites dropped in six days but I have a shipment of 6 anostomus coming next week so I will wait to make the move. It will give it time to be extra ready.

Good Idea. If your Nitrites took 6 days to peak it should be 4-6 days minimum before you get a 0 ppm Nitite reading.

Are you still adding ammonia daily ? If so how much ?

It's always better to be safe than sorry. I followed the process to the letter and still waited a few days because on day 30 I introduced 60 two inch Cichlids and wanted no problems. I have had no cycling issues since.
Good Luck

 

[Toby_H]

The following is an excerpt from the original article and outlines the method you suggest. It is also the method I used.
BTW My Nitrite readings crashed hard @ 21 days in my 240 although I waited till day 30 to stock just to be sure it had stabilized.
My interpretation of this was that once you have determined the amount of ammonia need to achieve the initial 5ppm, there is no need to check ammonia again.5 ppm is not the spike but the baseline starting point.The spike is much higher. Just add the recommended daily dose, test and record daily for Nitrite and watch for the spike and crash. It's really pretty foolproof and takes out the guess work.

I shamelessly lifted this quote form the following link which in my opinion is one of the easiest explanations of the cycle I have ever read.
http://malawicichlids.com/mw01017.htm

A couple ideas I had after learning about the bacteria we reply on...

Too high of ammonia concentrations are actually bad for the bacteria and can inhibit growth...

Therefore When starting a fishless cycle I see no reason to start with 5ppm... 1~2ppm is plenty when waiting for the first stage of bacteria to colonize (the Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria or AOB). After the AOBs have colonized then you can increase the ammonia dosage to increase the volume of AOB.

High nitrite concentrations can also inhibit bacteria growth. Therefore I would also suggest keeping ammonia dosages low until an initial colony of NOB (Nitrite Oxidizing Bacteria) has formed. You may also want/need to do a water change to prevent the nitrites from increasing unnecessarily high.

Once nitrates appear, you know for sure you have both AOB and NOB established. At this point you can incerase the ammonia dosage slightly each day and reasonably expect the bacterial colnies to increase to accomodate the higher levels.


The details I made above are by no means "necessary" when doing a fishless cycle and the much more common method described in the link quoted above will work. I've just found the details I explained to to be a bit of a more "refined" approach... It probably doesn't make enough of a difference to worry about, I've just become a bit of a bacteria nerd

 

[Toby_H]

I just noticed how unrelated to the OP's situation my above post is Sorry Samlamanna

Per your situation, I do agree with Dawnmarie that your taking a wise/safe approach by waiting to add fish for a few days after the ammonia & nitrite have both dropped to zero just to ensure everythign is as it should be.

 

[Samlamanna]

I wasn't saying my nitrites spiked in 6 days, they have dropped to zero in 6. I had a spike after 1 dose as well as nitrates appearance. I also figured the 5ppm was ridiculous so I opted for 1ppm then 2ppm and then 1ppm for the remainder. It has been a wonderful experience.