Must Have Patience

[TCLynx]

Even some one who has been doing this for a couple years and knows that it takes 6 weeks to properly cycle up a new system, I must still remind myself that it requires patience (or patients as I'm often known to miss spell.)

So here I am getting all frustrated because my 300 gallon system isn't all cycled up and letting me feed up all the fingerlings really good. I'm railing at the test kit and blaming pH that the ammonia is still showing up I mean didn't it cycle faster back in the winter when I cycled up my first system?

Ok, take a breath. Look back in the note book and see that it was only about a month ago that I first dosed the 300 gallon system with hummonia. Well no wonder. I was only about half way cycled up fishless before I let the levels drop to 0 and put the fish in there and I've been cycling up the nerve racking way with fish ever since.

Now I've read some things that say you can cycle up in 3 weeks but even when doing it fishless, I don't personally think it is really cycled up that quick. Three weeks is the almost cycled up point when the initial nitrite drops but to me cycled up is really when the ammonia and nitrite don't show up at all anymore (unless you are still dosing fishlessly, in which case really cycled up is when you dose with 1-2 ppm of ammonia and within 24 hours both the ammonia and nitrite are back to 0.)

The moral of this story. Relax, show some patience give the system two more weeks (allowing the full 6 weeks to cycle and if conditions are not ideal allow 8 weeks at least) before going nuts trying to figure what is wrong. Nothing is probably wrong, it is just still cycling up so I gotta keep the feed rate low until the ammonia and nitrite go away completely.

Boy time does drag when watching a system cycle up. Hum...... Is this like a watched pot never boils?

[TCLynx]

Well, I wouldn't use it ongoing I don't think but I happened to have a container of Spa Time pH down (it cost like $5 at the grocery store and has lasted me years) which is granules of Sodium Bisulfate which when mixed with water creates sulfuric acid. It works and doesn't seem to have caused any harm to my fish in the few situations I have used it but as I said, I'm not sure if it would be a good thing to be using regularly in an ongoing attempt to battle some extreme buffer as I don't know if the sulfur would build up and the sodium might also be a negative if adding it regularly.

I've heard people talk about using muratic acid but I don't know much about that one either. The hope is that once you get to a good balance and the system starts lowering it's own pH, hopefully the top ups will simply act as the buffer you would other wise need to add.

[Lori Platt]

Good suggestions... Thanks so much (You are a tremendous resource to all of us!!) A question - Pool acid... what exactly are you using? any kind to look for? or avoid? I'd use it in that 50 gal top up stash of water, not directly into the fish tank...

[TCLynx]

Well on one hand perhaps much of your media cycled up when you were using the test strips and they just didn't show it (I know they are not the most reliable things.) Or you haven't cycled and are still waiting.

You might do a test on your tap water. Put some in a bucket or something, add a bubbler and adjust the pH to figure out if the tap water is not only high pH but probably also fairly highly buffered. I found that when I initially cycled up the 300 gallon system, I adjusted the pH before adding fish. It took a few doses of pool acid to get the pH down. I manged to get it down to 7.2 but apparently the water had enough buffer in it for it to come back up to 7.6. I left it there to continue cycling and now that the system is nearly cycled up, I've had to add some limestone chicken grit to keep the pH from dropping below the bottom of the chart. Perhaps if you can adjust the pH of your collected top up water before topping up, you might be able to get your pH down below 8 and keep it there. You might aim for 7.6 to start with and once you achieve that goal, you could continue on down to the 7 mark.

[Lori Platt]

:-) yeah, details, details... it's always in the details that something will pop up, huh? LOL
I started my system the last week in March with a 150 gal galvanized Fish tank and 2 small 3'x2'x 7inches deep growbeds...filled with hydroton. I added 100+ feeder goldfish and the koi and minnows and mosquito fish. It was cold and rainy and the water was hitting low fifties high 40s every night (It was a very weird spring for around here) going to high sixties during the day. I monitored with dip sticks and never registered any ammonia, nitrite, nitrate... and the ph was *off the chart* so I didn't realize it was so high.... plants grew *OK*... romaine lettuce and butter lettuce actually did FANTASTIC!... other things just so, so - I figured it was just too cold out. Fish were basically OK - had some losses, but these were feeder, 15 cent goldies and it was a new setup-so I was not too concerned. (that and being a total newbie at this - I figured I would have losses and make some errors as I went)
THEN I started reading more and more that galvanized tanks were a no, no because of the zinc (OH! and the chelated iron I had been adding was Iron with Zinc...sheesh!!) oh boy... back to the lumber yard... got a 300 gal rubbermaid tank.
Also in May I had added a 3rd growbed - this one is 4'x8'x 12 inches deep. Filled with 2/3 lava rock (well rinsed) and 1/3 hydroton. all 3 beds are flood and drain using bell siphons. the small ones drain every 10 minutes or so and the big bed drains twice an hour.
It has been 5 weeks since the 300 gal tank was added (using maybe 80-100 gal. from the orig tank), and of course the growbeds are several months old now. I don't *think* my media is adding to the high ph... my well water registers about 7.4, 7.6 straight from the well... but let it sit around for a few days in a glass bowl...it registers 8.2-8.5
I have gotten myself the master test kit and now have lots of vials and regents, rather than nice quick and handy dip sticks... and I'm still getting zip on the nitrite, nitrate...OH!! but maybe a teeny bit of ammonia (is that maybe just a hair greenish?? hmmm?? not totally just yellow??:-)
I have tested daily, then every other day, then maybe every 3 or 4 days... all different times of the day... have not tried different set times on the same days...will try that next to see if I see anything new....
I've added seaweed solution most weeks, and iron (now from a fish store... still trying to locate *chelated iron*... it isn't available anywhere locally that I've found). My plants are growing...I have some beans, some small roma tomatoes, a few spagetti squash, leeks, ... some totally stunted basil. eggplant, lettuce, cucumber.... most plants are growing - just not that well... however I am seeing a bit better growth lately... from the seaweed/iron?? or could it be the system is maturing?? My water tests say the water is *empty* of good stuff... but the fish are sure growing and some are downright BIG, they eat all the food I give them (a high protein fish food from Premium Fish Food Co) and I usually trot out there and feed them 2-3 times a day (yeah, I just like the fish.... easy entertainment)
Currently it's HOT (102 degrees today...) water temp swings from 65 or so at night to 82-84 during the day . The fish tank is shaded with only a small 2-3inch wide strip with sunlight hitting the water ever.
I do notice that none of my veges in the growbeds ever wilt or droop during the day - while my veges in the ground, which are much bigger and greener, go through massive wilts these days as we've been hitting high 90's for a couple of weeks now.
So - I'm baffled as to the high ph, or how I might deal with it.... I'm adding vinegar at present which helps a little...doing it slowly as I don't want to shock the fish. I've also just added a 50 gallon barrel to hold water for topping off the tank with - planning to add vinegar to the top off water and get it down to 7 or so... right now, if I get the fish tank water to drop at all (like all the way down to 8.0 (HA!)... it will just go right back up to 8.4 or so when I top it off...and in this heat that is needing to be done every 3-4 days (northern Calif...very dry and hot, but cools off at night)
Certainly I am enjoying this new endeavor tremendously... finding it to be mysterious and frustrating (I thought Michael's list of definitions was right on... nothing silly about it!! PH = black magic!! :-) and very interesting. I am loving it.

[TCLynx]

Hay Lori,
It might be helpful for you to do a blog post or perhaps better yet create yourself a system thread in the Discussion area. You can outline all the details of your system as well as how things were as you set up. Were you testing every day after you put fish in? Were you using gravel from a pre-existing pond or something? If you were only testing say weekly, you could have missed the spikes. I have heard of people managing to run systems that pretty much always read 0,0,0 for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. If plants are happy and fish are happy, this is fine.

The yellowing of your plants is probably from the high pH and lock out of Iron. Iron deficiency usually shows as yellowing leaves with green veins and it tends to start out on the newer leaves and work it's way down the plant if you don't correct quickly enough. I've had it get so bad that leaves basically turn white before I found a source of chelated Iron.

What is your Media? And you might do a pH test at dawn and another late in the day and see if they are about the same or if they are different. If the late day pH is much higher than the dawn pH then you probably have an algae situation causing the swings and more shading of anywhere algae can grow is in order. What is the dawn pH? If it's below 7 then your media is probably fine. If it is above 7.6 then there is probably something in your system buffering the pH up (limestone, marble, concrete and shells can do this.)

Do your beds flood and drain and if so how do you accomplish this? How much grow bed do you have in relation to your 300 gallon fish tank? Do you have supplemental aeration and how much are you pumping. As well as what's your climate.

All the above info would be very helpful in a system thread so that people can help you sort out what is going on and if there is a problem or not.

[Lori Platt]

I have yet to see anything register on my system :-( Well... I DID get the PH to register at 8.2 (ack!) but so far NO ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. It has been a long time, too. I have a 300 gal rubbermaid tank with about 60-70 goldfish, 3 koi, a dozen or two mosquito and red ear minnow types and recently added 70 or so tiny tilapia fry (which are already fingerling size :-) Fish are active, healthy and eating very well. Tank has a fine coating of algae on sides - not too heavy, though. Plants are growing... though not very robustly... sort of stunted and yellow - definitely not lush and dark green. I add iron and seaweed periodically and that helps the plants from fadiing away to yellow/white. Everything *seems* to be OK... but I get zero on the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate! It seems ridiculous! Where is this *spike* everyone talks about? Hmmm? I'm trying to be patient...and feel like it may just be around the corner.... playing the jeopardy song....

[TCLynx]

Oh it's up and running, just not running fast enough to keep up with the hungry fish.

I actually doubt the effectiveness of the commercial mixes, I mean if letting the media dry out or go anaerobic will kill it, how are we to expect that something sealed up in a bottle and stored on a shelf for who knows how long is still going to be very effective.

Even adding worms and worm castings is only going to provide seed bacteria which quite frankly, if you are using media that has been sitting out in the open and then washing it with plain water and dumping it in beds out in the open, it's probably getting a bit of a dose of the bacteria needed anyway. Lets face it, the nitrifying bacteria are everywhere and especially in healthy soil (which is why I figure the worm castings and worms are a good source for starting) but even with all the tricks they suggest for jump starting, short of simply steeling the media from an established system, I don't think there really is a way to make it cycle faster. It simply takes time for bacteria to get established in the media. All the little tricks people have for getting cycled faster probably only amount to a few days difference or perhaps only helping mitigate against the things that can easily make it happen slower (temperature, treated sterile water, being inside a sterile new greenhouse, sterile media, too much ammonia on initial dosing, out of whack starting pH.)

It just seems to be six weeks one way or half a dozen the other.

[Nate Storey]

Don't you hate it? 6 weeks is the fastest I've ever been able to do it. Although I suppose if you're innoculating your system with commercial mixes of nitrifying bac. you could do it quicker. Ah well, nature is slow. Hope you get up and running soon!